anatomy

So Hidey Ho! I stayed up for two hours after getting home at 11 to continue painting my little corner interior in burnt umber and am happy I did. I also did make it to drawing workshop, and it was worth it (as is the mango sticky rice I picked up that I'll be having for part of my lunch today :) I was thinking recently (and I may change my mind of course) about how important 'anatomy' is and while I think it is important to know anatomy, I feel like my peers can often overemphasize a mechanical learning of it. One thing I do remember about my sculpture class (besides the fact that the teacher was an obnoxious turd) was that he did say that he had been trying to teach a physician for YEARS privately how to sculpt and the guy just couldn't get it, even though he knew every bone, every muscle, etc. I actually think it's more important to understand how the body is affected by weight and the SHAPES of the body once there is a basic understanding of anatomy. I wouldn't say I loathe anatomy because I think of it as a machine (I heart Bridgeman!) and am interested in a lot of the way things work, but 'gear' and technicality can get pretty dull...after all, I'd like to think of myself as also an artist (the technical side is good though, for problem solving). I think that the ancient Egyptians who built giant statues understood this idea of pleasing shape over rigidity of understanding in anatomy. Sl0bo0dkin talks about how pleasing their work is even when the details are gone over time because they have such strong, pleasing shapes. There is a difference between 'knowing' all the anatomy ever and being able to interpet it and 'see' it on a person and translate it into drawing. If someone points to a dummy and says "what is this?" and a person can immediately identify the muscle or bone on a skeleton, it's not automatic that it will translate into a good drawing. I think that that THERE is part of the reason WHY Life drawing is SO important! Karl always says that what we are doing is NOT copying; it's interpreting what we are seeing in front of us (and therefore creative in that way; it is also, of course, study). One sculpture teacher even said that it was very much possible for sculptors who are really good to have a great sense of shape and negative space and see THAT and not have as strong a sense of anatomy as we would like them to believe (ie the silhouette is right). It's interesting stuff. It's also refreshing to know that you don't have to be physician-like in your knowledge of anatomy. Too much of that can make a person stiff, said one of my other teachers.