DRAWING DYNAMIC HANDS BURNE HOGARTH STRUCTURE ANATOMY MOVEMENT FORESHORTENING INVENTIONS FUNCTIONS GESTURE OCCUPATIONS AGING
DRAWING DYNAMIC HANDS BY BURNE HOGARTH WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS/NEW YORK
First Paperback Edition opyght177.198 by Bume Hogarth First published York by Watson-Gupill Publcations Hand in ar Manufactured in U.S.A. 101112/999897
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 8 1.FORMS AND STRUCTURES 10 2.PROPORTIONS AND MEASUREMENTS 24 3.ANATOMY AND STRUCTURE 40 4.ANATOMICAL LANDMARKS AND SURFACE STRESS 52 5.ACTIONS,FUNCTIONS,LIMITS OF MOVEMENT 64 6.FORESHORTENING 82 7.INVENTING HANDS IN ACTION 94 8.THE HAND AS AN INSTRUMENT 102 9.COMMUNICATION AND GESTURE 114 10.AGNG122 11.HAND BEHAVIOR AND OCCUPATIONS 134 BIBLIOGRAPHY 142 INDEX 143
INTRODUCTION It is an ancient precept that the person who offer drawing-indeed would not dare would be an artist must first learn to draw. offer a curriculum without drawing.The Anyone who has ever wished to become visualizing capability would be crippled. an artist-who has taken those first falter. And if we have reason to examine a ing steps down the road to art-has begun student's portfolio to assess performance with the desire to draw. It was the love of and potential talent,there is no firmer drawing that confirmed all those initial touchstone than the quality of the drawing hopes.And through all the later aspira Leaming to draw means,a priori,figure tions,as long as the creative drive drawing.If we say,"Here is an artist who flourished,the urge to draw never died. can draw,'we mean that this artist can Those of us who are committed to draw the figure.But now a subtle distinc- working in the visual arts can remember tion emerges.Among the world's artists our first formal training.When we first schooled in the figure,who are the most enrolled in a studio art class-whether our noteworthy,who are those of the highest goal was painting or sculpture,illustration rank-and how do we know them?The or design -we knew that drawing had to transcendent artists were those who could come first.Our first adventure in art began draw the most difficult of all figural ele- in a drawing class.Drawing,we knew ments,the human hand,with authority without doubt,was the root of the visual and authenticity.And these tended to be- image and the core of all art experience. come the luminary creators. It is safe to say that there is no system Consider the poignant hands and form of education for the artist that does not in the Expulsion by Masaccio;the ago-
nized hands of Grunewald's Crucifixion; earliest hands of the Aurignacian hunter to the graciousness of Botticelli's Adoration; the majestic God-king of Egypt,the hand or the infallible simplicity of Durer's speaks to us.The hand spells resistance to Praying Hands. tyranny and proclaims victory in the statue Can anyone doubt the harmony,the per of Harmodius and Aristogeiton,the heroes fection of forms in the figures and hands of the world's first democracy.The hand in the works of Leonardo,Michelangelo, of Adam receives the spark of life in El Greco,Rubens,Velasquez,Caravag- Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.The hand gio,Rembrandt. holds aloft the chilling form of Medusa's Do we in our time support the canon of head in Cellini's Perseus.The hand of the figure and the criterion of the human Bologna's Mercury leads our thoughts hand?Does anyone doubt the competence skyward. of Matisse,Rouault,Braque,or Picasso to The hand,as Rodin showed us,is the create art from the springboard of the fig- alter ego of mankind,The Hand of God. ure?And how shall we understand Rodin But it is also the hand of that other in the tortured Burghers of Calais or the creator,the artist,who,shaping the hand brooding Thinker if not by their hands? creates himself. Let us venture,speculatively,one last proposal.In all the world's art,the highest BURNE HOGARTH inspirations.the most lofty visual expres- Pleasantville,New York sions center around the hand.From the December 1976 9
1. FORMS AND STRUCTURES The hand is not a flat,two- dimensional shape without vol ume.It is a dynamic,three- dimensional body form,energetic and complex,each of its forms and structures interrelated.In this chapter we will look at it from various angles in space and depth, noting its curves and rhythms and examining the bulk,sizes,shapes and masses of its individual parts and their relation to the whole 10
UPPER AND LOWER ARM The main masses of the upper and lower arm are good from inntoormoving indifferedre an For example,the down directio sketch mphasizes form planes.how the con. the entire length of the extended arm
CONTRAPOSED MASSES ling on the nat
UNDERARM CURVES 13