Showing posts with label arms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arms. Show all posts

Monday, July 29, 2024

Arms / Hands Scrutinized

Alvise Vivarini
Studies of Hands
ca. 1480
drawing
Fondation Custodia, Paris

Raffaellino del Garbo
Studies of Hands
ca. 1500-1510
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Hans Holbein the Elder
Hand of Crossbowman and Hand of St Sebastian
1514-15
drawing
(study for altarpiece painting)
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Baccio Bandinelli
Study of Hands
ca. 1530
drawing
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Bartolomeo Passarotti
Four Studies of Hands
ca. 1570-75
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Hans Hoffmann
Study of Hands
1579
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

attributed to Giovanni Battista Naldini
Study of Hand
before 1591
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Anthony van Dyck
Studies of Forearm and Hand
ca. 1632
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Anonymous Spanish Artist
Study of Hand
18th century
drawing
Courtauld Gallery, London

Anonymous European Artist
Model with Upraised Arm
18th century
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Luigi Sabatelli
Model with Upraised Arm
ca. 1790-1800
drawing
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Guillaume Lethière
Study of Arm and Hand
ca. 1812
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Study of Hand
ca. 1865
albumen print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jack Cato
Study of Hands holding Book
1938
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Lisette Model
Lower East Side, Arm to Fore
1942
gelatin silver print
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

John Brack
Study of Hands for Portrait of Fred Williams
1958-59
drawing
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

The Magi

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor. 

– W.B. Yeats (1914)

Monday, June 19, 2023

Anatomical and Figure Drawings - Body Parts

William Dyce
Praying Hands
before 1864
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Margaret E. Wilson
Cast of a Hand
ca. 1912
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edmund Thomas Parris
Model with Hands on Head
ca. 1850
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Frederic Watts
Model with Raised Arm
ca. 1853
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edward Poynter
Sheet of Studies
for fresco Martyrdom of St Stephen

1872
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edward Poynter
Sheet of Studies
for fresco Martyrdom of St Stephen

1872
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edward Poynter
Sheet of Studies
for fresco Martyrdom of St Stephen

1872
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Simon Vouet
Studies of Neck and Head for the sleeping Rinaldo
before 1649
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Simon Vouet
Studies for Divine Female Figure in Clouds
before 1649
drawing
Musée du Louvre

George Frederic Watts
Studies of a Model
ca. 1880
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Flaxman
Study of the Muscles of the Upper Leg
ca. 1780-90
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Gibson
Study of Leg
before 1866
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Thomas Landseer
Anatomical Studies of Leg
1814
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Benjamin Robert Haydon
Study of Midriff
ca. 1810
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Thomas Stothard
Standing Model Half-Length
ca. 1800
drawing, with watercolor
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Jacobus Schijnvoet
Torso of Skeleton
before 1733
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

from My Skeleton, My Rival

A machine called skeleton will take my place
in the minds of others when I am dead
among the living, and that machine
will make it obvious that I have died
to be identified by bones
that have no speech, no thought, no mind
to speak of having let themselves be carried
once around in me, as at my service
at the podium or as I lay beside my love
or when I held my child at birth
or embraced a friend or shook a critic's hand
or held a pen to sign a check or book
or wrote a farewell letter to a love
or held my penis at the bowl
or lay my hand upon my face at the mirror
and approved of it.

– David Ignatow (1983)

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

European Study Drawings of Isolated Appendages

follower of Leonardo da Vinci
Study of Right Foot
ca. 1490-1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Parmigianino
Foreshortened Leg
1526-27
drawing
(study for painting, The Vision of St Jerome)
Musée du Louvre

Charles Le Brun
Legs in Motion
ca. 1665
drawing
(study for tapestry)
Musée du Louvre

Pierre Mignard
Study of Foot
before 1695
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Domenico Puligo
Fragment of a Sheet of Anatomical Studies
before 1527
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Bartolomeo Passarotti
Studies of Arms
before 1592
drawing
Musée du Louvre

François Lemoyne
Hands holding an Infant
ca. 1727
drawing
(study for painting, Louis XV giving Peace to Europe)
Musée du Louvre

Pier Leone Ghezzi
Studies of Hand and Arm
before 1755
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Hyacinthe Rigaud
Study of Hands
1730
drawing
(study for painting, Portrait of Louis XV)
Musée du Louvre

Baccio Bandinelli
Studies of Leg
before 1560
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Jacopo Bertoia
Study of Legs
before 1574
drawing
Musée du Louvre

follower of Michelangelo Buonarroti
Study of Legs
16th century
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Palma il Giovane
Study of Legs
before 1628
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié 
Study of Legs
ca. 1765
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Alessandro Allori
Study of Pelvic and Leg Bones
ca. 1565
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"But even for the anatomy of the body and limbs, the academy figure is very far from being an infallible guide.  The display of muscular action in the human figure is but momentary, and cannot be retained and fixed for the imitation of the artist.  The effect produced upon the surface of the body and limbs by the action of the muscles, the swelling and receding of the fleshy parts and that drawing of the sinews or tendons which accompanies exertion or change of posture, cannot be observed with sufficient accuracy unless the artist is able to class the muscles engaged in the operation and unless he have some other guide than the mere surface presents, which may enable him to recollect the varying form." 

– Charles Bell, from Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting (1806)