Dynamic Human Anatomy: An Artist's Guide to Structure, Gesture, and the Figure in Motion - Hardcover

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Roberto Osti teaches figure drawing and human anatomy for artists at the New York Academy of Art, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Formally trained as a medical illustrator before becoming a fine artist, Osti has contributed his work to many science and art publications. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries in Europe and the United States. He is the author of Basic Human Anatomy, an art instruction best seller and classic reference book.

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Dynamic Human Anatomy picks up where Basic Human Anatomy leaves off and offers artists and art students a deeper understanding of anatomy, including anatomy in motion, and how that essential skill is applied to the creation of fine figurative art.

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INTRODUCTION

For a figurative artist, a sure sign of accomplishment is the ability to achieve a transcendent artwork—a work of art that conveys a sense of life or expresses psychological character. Such expertise is cultivated not only by mastering drawing techniques and practicing drawing the human form from life, but also by learning to read the many languages and intentions the human body speaks: movement, power, tension or relaxation, friendliness or aggression, and all the rest. These languages can all be understood studying the anatomical, structural, and dynamic aspects of the body and its aesthetic synergies.

In my teaching, I aim to give students knowledge of the body’s anatomy and mechanics in as accurate and neutral a way as possible, without influencing their artwork stylistically or aesthetically. Developing style and aesthetics is each artist’s own personal artistic quest. In my figure anatomy and figure drawing classes, students learn to draw with “informed” lines that result from an analysis of the subject, as opposed to a passive, imitative approach.

With this book, I set out to explore, decode, interpret, and describe the infinite dynamic, expressive, and aesthetic combinations the human form can manifest. All the material in the following nine chapters is holistically directed toward the practice of drawing the human form. Art history, proportions, anatomy, movement, aesthetics, expressivity, and techniques are described separately but at the same time woven together to give the reader a complete view of the marvelous complexity of the human figure.

Explaining depictions of the human figure also means defining what the human figure has represented during various historical periods. Art featuring the human figure created over millenniums tells us about the values of past cultures—just as contemporary values must always be considered when drawing, painting, or sculpting the human figure now, to make our art relevant to the times we live in.

The first two chapters of the book are dedicated to a discussion of human proportions, anatomical knowledge, cultural values, and aesthetic development in Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greek art, as well as in art of the Renaissance. Chapters 3 and 4 study anatomy and the structure of the body using an approach specifically directed toward movement, dynamism, and proportional harmonies. At the core of my method, which follows the Renaissance tradition, is the study of the body’s landmarks and the origin and insertion of muscles. Understanding these muscular-skeletal connections is essential to appreciate the human form’s structure holistically and is indispensable for accessing the body’s dynamic and aesthetic connections, concepts treated in chapters 5 and 6. Chapters 7 and 8 are devoted, respectively, to the hands and head, exploring both their structural and their expressive qualities.

Each chapter investigates a specific method of thinking and looking at the human form, giving the reader a multifaceted understanding of this infinite subject while promoting creativity and personal style. This approach is continued in chapter 9, where various drawing techniques are connected to different conceptual analyses of the human form. Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to “read” the human form in depth, appreciate its fascinating complexity, avoid a tedious and passive imitative approach, and create accurate, expressive, and aesthetically unique works of art.
 

CHAPTER 5: FLOWS AND RHYTHMS OF THE FIGURE 

When artists study the body through dissection, preparing an écorché (flayed model), or examining a textbook, they become acquainted with the body’s parts, what they look like, their locations, and what they are called. But after taking the body apart, today’s artists must also put it back together through an artwork. This indispensable operation transforms the human body into a signifier, a vehicle for the transmission of cultural values. The drawing by Leonardo here shows this process of transcendence: the legs in this small masterpiece are anatomically correct—all the muscles are accounted for—but that is secondary to the pose, the stance, and sense of life that these powerful legs convey.

Demonstration: A Mixed Approach to Drawing the Hand

In this mixed approach, you start with an envelope (the main volume), move quickly to boxes representing the forms, and from there to the line drawing and tonal rendering.

1  Draw the main volumes with envelopes.
2  Add the volumes of the thumb, and compare measures.
3  Rough in the line drawing.
4  Refine the line drawing and start the tonal rendering.
5  Here is the fully developed drawing (left) along with a stereometric study. The stereometric study need not be part of your sequence, but it can be very useful in revealing the effect of the light on the form before rendering the hand tonally.

Anatomy and Realism—Sculpture “Dissected”

In ancient Greece, the sculptural depiction of the human figure changed dramatically over a the span of about five hundred years. As the level of anatomical precision increased, so did the depictions’ realism, dynamism, and sense of emotional and physical life.

Examples:
Met Kouros
Archaic (590 bce)
Kroisos Kouros
Archaic (530 bce)
Kouros of Arisodikos
Archaic (500 bce)
Kritios Boy
Early Classical (480 bce)
Doryphoros
Classical (440 bce)
Hagias
Late Classical (337 bce)
Laocoön
Hellenistic (c. 100 bce)

In the 1940s, the art historian Gisela Richter published the book Kouroi: A Study of the Development of the Greek Kouros from the Late Seventh to the Early Fifth Century B.C. In it, she discusses how kouroi—freestanding sculptures of nude young men—can be dated based on the level of realism they display. Elaborating on Richter’s idea, I try in what follows to draw connections between anatomical accuracy and realistic, lifelike effects in a number of artworks from the Greek Classical period (fifth century bce) up to the European Baroque (seventeenth century).

To do so, I have “dissected,” to varying degrees of analysis, eight works from successive artistic periods with the intent of showing that increasing knowledge and accurate depiction of anatomy corresponds to an increase in an artwork’s sense of life and movement. The works I’ve chosen are iconic and represent the highest level of technical, conceptual, and aesthetic expression of their period.

Anatomical Names

Their Latin appellations are probably the biggest obstacle to learning the names of the muscles. I encourage my terrified students to use the “gym” names for muscles that have them: “lats” instead of latissimus dorsii, “quads” instead of quadriceps, “gluts” instead of glutei, “pecs” instead of pectoralis, and so on.

Understanding the meaning of the terms can also help you to memorize the muscles’ names. Once you understand them, you can see that the names are very practical: they indicate the muscles’ origin and insertion (where they begin and end) or their action or morphology (shape). For example, the name sternocleidomastoid indicates that muscle’s origin at the sternum and collar bone (cleido) and its insertion on the mastoid process behind the ear. Latissimus dorsii, or “lats,” means “the big one” (latissimus) of the back (dorsii). Tensor fasciae latae means “the muscle that tenses the side band” (i.e., the iliotibial band).

Even some very...