The document discusses transitioning in drawing techniques, highlighting the method of sketching from a bust, an object modeled in various materials. This static method helps students maintain consistent views compared to live models, which can confuse with movement. Emphasis is placed on anatomy knowledge to achieve accurate representation in figure movements.
Of Drawing.
The transition in drawing from studies of great Masters to that based on a model has been facilitated by what is known as sketching from the bust. This bust is simply any object like a head, foot, hand, or whole figure, modeled in clay, wax, or plaster cast; or it might be a figure of marble, stone, bronze, etc., or even a bas-relief. These diverse objects, having the same roundness as nature and being immobile, provide ease for the student. The student can always see the figure from the same perspective, allowing for consistent drawing. In contrast, a live model’s slightest involuntary and almost imperceptible movements can confuse a novice artist by presenting new surfaces and varying light effects.
In the study based on the bust, attention becomes even more essential than in sketching from drawings, and the challenges the student faces grow larger. The student must reason, comparing what he has done, will do, and will see with what he has seen in the Masters' drawings he has copied. The student should know the bones by their names, shapes, and joints; he should be familiar with the muscles that envelop them, their origins, insertions, functions, and forms, in order to give the figure appropriate character and likeness in movement: currently, it's the study of anatomy that should guide him. An Abridgment can be found at Jombert’s.