cadavers and vanity

Tomorrow I go to another anatomy session in the dissection lab. Skeptical I was about the relevance of dissection to drawing and learning anatomy for artists. The cadaver too messy would be I thought. But trust I must have in the force...dissection and anatomy is quite useful to the artist interested in learning how to draw the figure more realistically, indeed.

Alas! I was happy to be able to extinguish my skepticism. (Wise) Yoda-talk aside...It has already given me a greater structural and constructional knowledge in my figure drawings and I look forward to tomorrow's session.

However I dread the formaldehyde. It's not a very strong smell, but it's enough to make me want to gag some moments. There are two aisles of gurneys with about a dozen cadavers lined up in each row. I've only seen the face of one cadaver and I am very thankful for those who have donated their bodies to science. It is difficult to look at some with skin discoloration though overall it wasn't very scary to see the cadaver's face. Perhaps because I've been to several funerals in the past and have grown somewhat desensitized to the waxy look of the dead?

The first time I went to a dissection class (in high school) I hadn't attended a funeral nor was I ready for the formaldehyde. The shock of seeing a dead human being was very powerful and created a highly memorable experience in my mind. I think it may have greatly impacted my career choices.

Now back to the current dissection lab....It was actually more shocking to see their hands and stare at the delicate and graceful fingers and fingernails of some of the cadavers. Most of the cadavers' hands were still intact and frozen via rigor mortis. You didn't have to stare very long to feel the articulate-ness of their hands and suddenly remember that these were once alive human beings. Sometimes I would forget they were cadavers for a split second then suddenly the clinical atmosphere, the lecture, and mummy-lumps on each gurney wrapped in white plastic would rush me into reality. The two thoughts would juxtapose for a brief second. It was very strange.

Where does the vanity come in? Fat. I am a little embarrassed to admit that the greasy, yellow fat was something I just couldn't get over. I still can't fathom the inches of fat average persons contain just below their skin!! I looked at my own flesh and wondered what I looked like underneath. I couldn't stand to look at the fattier cadavers. The bright yellow grease called out to me like neon lights and all I wanted to do was turn away and go to the more lean cadavers so as not to have to face the human insulation many of us so dearly depend on for warmth. It affected me so much that I had a nightmare about it. While most people were probably haunted by the muscles and how they looked so much like any other animal meat we carnivores eat, I just couldn't get the image of the oily human padding out of my mind. As a friend pointed out, if we were served human meat vs animal meat we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. We look so much like what we eat! And yet, I had no trouble eating meat after dissection. I guess as long as whatever I ate wasn't yellow or greasy, I was fine.

long time no blog

I haven't been blogging in a while, but I'm back and intend to blog more regularly. Well, we'll see how it goes. I heard about this old school Drawing Manual/Course, something a bit different from the Bargue plates of The Drawing Course (Charles Bargue) though they spawn form the same idea: to teach people how to draw. It is a series of lessons called Famous Artist Course, where animators and illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Robert Fawcett, Fred Ludekens...click here for the complete roster...created a correspondence course so that children could follow along with exercises, receive critiques from famous artists/illustrators/animators. It's a pretty neat concept.

Bargue and Jerome set-up these plates in the 19th Century when ateliers and the Academy training reached it's peak so that others could train themselves how to draw Academically. One was supposed to follow basic concepts and approaches to train their eye and learn how to simplify with the goal that one day they will go on to become a fine artist/commercial artist. I say both since they may have considered themselves strictly as fine artists, but the commissions they competed for were political in nature, if not meant for the State (ie France). So be painting battle scenes, historical paintings, portraits of government officials, etc artists of the day weren't necessarily free to make artistic decisions (though some certainly had this freedom or were able exercise this freedom despite their Academic training. But that's another story for another post). In the same vein, FAC lessons teach others how to practically learn and improve their drawing skills as a commercial artist. The correspondence element is pretty fascinating.

Imagine sending a painting study or exercise to be critiqued via letter, email or blog by realist/representational painters today like Odd Nerdrum or Jeremy Lipking, or even those with a more Classical bent/training/background who are already legendary teachers and artists in their own right such as Michael Grimaldi or Jacob Collins. Juliette Aristedes' books on the Classical Atelier training could provide the lessons as the painting book already covers different exercises covered in an atelier setting. One could train themselves until they were able to attend an atelier system themselves. It wouldn't be such a bad thing. The roster of instructors could be quite expansive, the critiques fulfilling and worthwhile. Check out one of the lessons by visiting the blog, Temple of the Seven Golden Camels. He did a great job posting these up on his blog and if you click of the Famous Artist Course label, you'll find three additional lessons from the series that he has posted to this date. They're pretty basic and simple, but still worth a glance.

art for art's sake

In response to Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland's study regarding the role of the arts in school curriculum, I highly agree with their reasoning in support of the findings in their research. Art should be seen as a subject strong enough to stand on its own. Our society often rationalizes the subject of art as a worthy subject to study in school (excluding art schools, of course) only because it supports the other "more essential" subjects such as math and science (sometimes, literature).

Being a teaching artist at one time and going into public schools, my lesson plan for each session often had to list the multi-disciplinary aspects of each art lesson, which subjects my lesson was reinforcing, and more specifically, which specific skills such as reasoning, spatial intelligence, etc. I was teaching. I was there to teach art, not math through art, yet sometimes we had to tweak our lessons to help students prepare for their standardized tests. I found myself teaching the math in patterns instead of teaching the kids how to appreciate and see the pattern's aesthetic value through repetition and colors of say, Islamic Art.

I don't deny that learning how most compositions in paintings that we find pleasing almost always follow the golden section, is very fascinating and helpful -- especially when it comes to creating your own composition -- this fact should be seen as how math supports the art, the visual, instead of the other way around. Studying abroad in Europe, I also discovered that this unique perspective was very American. I found that my visual intelligence and creativity skills were severely impaired compared to those who were just out of high school (some were still in high school). I didn't think that this was due to talent/"artist genes," but more to the European outlook on art as a subject. Therefore, I did a lot of "catching up" and tried to make up for the lack of art I had in high school. One thing's for sure: they took art and art making seriously and it was a subject that was seen as equal as calculus or chemistry, not an extra class convenient to skip when you needed to go to the dentist and have your wires tightened.

Lastly, I believe this is the reason many people look at modern/contemporary art with a blank stare. (There are other reasons, of course, which is another topic and I won't get into now). High schools and universities do not teach us about visual intelligence. Most of us are not taught how to look at a painting and see. If the argument is, how will this help me in my life, the same can be said of calculus. Not everyone uses calculus in their career of choice, but we still have to learn it. Why should art be different? GEs often include such subjects like intro to Classics, Philosophy of Ethics & Morality, basic intro to chemistry, biology, physics, etc....., perhaps even art appreciation, but we do not have classes in visual intelligence. At least with writing -- I believe all schools have GE courses in expository writing, but many, many college graduates finish school without really learning the skill of basic essay writing despite the requirement. It's a deficiency in the system, more than with the individual. Many people enter the modern art/contemporary section on the MET or go into the MOMA and say, "I don't get it," or "I can do that," more often than they try to stand there in silence and think visually about, or really try to see what's in front of them -- especially when it comes to Rothko's color fields, abstract art, in general, and many contemporary pieces.

The same is true with some art buyers, they want to be told what to buy and instead of actually looking at the paintings, sculptures, photography, etc. themselves to see what they really like looking at and seeing on a daily basis. I mean, it's going to be a presence/part of a room in their apartment/house, so why not pick something you like instead of what something someone says you should like? But that's for another blog entry, for another time.