Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Artistic Anatomy

The artist has long found anatomy to be integral to his training. This is why, for over 2,000 years artists have trained by drawing, painting, and sculpting the nude.

The first concrete accounts of specific anatomical study by an artist arose around the 15th century. Leonardo da Vinci was known to dissect corpses and make detailed drawings of his findings. However, there are some accounts of this practice being done even during the time of the ancient Greeks.

This picture is of an ecorche that I made as an anatomical study. This piece roughly follows the tradition of the ecorche which originated in the French academy in the 19th century.