2_28_2024

 

The Expressive Figure Assignment

Concept: Isonomia and Contrapposto

Materials:

Materials

•  Vine or Willow Jumbo Charcoal ( Generals, Coates, etc.),  Graphite lead and holder
•  Dry Media Sources: Hard Pastel sticks (NuPastel, Creatacolor, etc.)  Conte Crayon, Stabilo Pastel Pencils or equivalent,
•  Canson Mi Tientes toned paper or Strathmore toned 90 lb drawing paper 12" x 19" or similar Ledger or any similar 60 to 90 lb paper
•  Faber-Castell Kneaded Eraser or Chamois cloth

Charcoal (Vine/Willow)

Red Ochre/Sanguine (Pastel/Conte)

Black ( Compressed Charcoal/Pastel)

Ivory/White (Pastel/Conte)

Starting with charcoal, use a collection of sweeping inverse radial arcs to describe the action /gesture of the figure. Visualize these arcs as defining the "envelope" of the figure, ie. within the overlapping arcs is the area that the figure occupies, and outside of these arcs is the "flux" or everything that's background or negative space.

Then within the interior space defined by these arcs/envelope,  quickly and lightly sketch a gestural mannikin of the pose beginning at the pelvis. This mannikin is geometrically analogous to a "doll" with a peanut-shaped volume approximating the torso, cylinders for limbs and neck, and an ovoid for the skull. Orient the mannikin in space by drawing a "medial line" through the center of the front and back of the torso as well as the center and back of the neck and skull. 

To establish an armature that will support a mannikin standing in space, indicate a vertical "isonomic vector" that extends from the sternum to the inside ankle of the weight-bearing leg. Remember- the high hip indicates the weight-bearing leg, and the low hip is the balance leg. This is known as contrapposto The high hip also indicates that the shoulder on that side of the body will be the lower shoulder.

Remember- the figure is only a conduit for this gravitational force which is ultimately transferred through the body into the support and finally towards the center of the earth's magnetic core. Imagine in your mind which support is bearing the most weight in terms of the overall weight and proportion of the amount of force being transferred into primary, secondary, and tertiary gravitational force"vector" exit points. This is known as "plotting" the isonomia. For example- 60%, 30%, 10%.

The assignment is to make a drawing or number of drawings ( your choice) that demonstrates a contrapposto pose. Show how the isonomic vector is "channeled" through the body, demonstrate the "serpernata" of the chiastic principle making sure that one leg shows "Teso" and the other leg "Rilasotto".

Contrapposto

Contrapposto is an Italian term that means "counterpoise". It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs in the axial plane.
Contrapposto was historically an important sculptural development, for its appearance marks the first time in Western art that the human body is used to express a more relaxed psychological disposition. This gives the figure a more dynamic, or alternatively relaxed appearance. In the frontal plane, this also results in opposite levels of shoulders and hips, for example: if the right hip is higher than the left; correspondingly the right shoulder will be lower than the left, and vice versa. It can further encompass the tension as a figure changes from resting on a given leg to walking or running upon it (so-called ponderation). The leg that carries the weight of the body is known as the engaged  TESO leg, and the relaxed leg is known as the free RILASOTTO leg.       

Polycleitos

Doryphoros

Supernormal Stimulus

 Usually, the engaged leg is straight, or very slightly bent, and the free leg is slightly bent. Contrapposto is less emphasized than the more sinuous S-curve, and creates the illusion of past and future movement. A 2019 eye-tracking study, showing that contrapposto acts as a supernormal stimulus and increases perceived attractiveness, has provided evidence and insight as to why, in artistic presentation, goddesses of beauty and love are often depicted in contrapposto pose. 

Supernormal stimuli such as emphasized color, size, patterns, or shapes, are often successful because an organism that exhibits them will often be selected by an organism that favors it. This will ensure survival and increased reproductive fitness of current and later generations.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus

The Canon of Polycleitos

The renowned Greek sculptor Polykleitos designed a sculptural work as a demonstration of his written treatise, entitled the Κανών (or 'Canon'), translated as "measure" or "rule"), exemplifying what he considered to be the perfectly harmonious and balanced proportions of the human body in the sculpted form.

 The Canon of Polyclitus was probably written during the third quarter of the fifth century B.C. The Canon was the most renowned ancient treatise on art, and enough information is preserved about it in extant ancient texts to enable us to form some conception of its content. The aim of the Canon, was not simply to explain a statue but also to achieve to kallos, "the beautiful” and to eu (the perfect or the good) in it. The secret of achieving to kallos and to eu lay in the mastery of symmetria, the perfect "commensurability" of all parts of the statue to one another and to the whole.

Rythmos

Isonomia

Symmetria

see: http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/ARTH209/Doyphoros.html#:~:text=Scholars%20have%20noted%20what%20they,S%2C%20curved%20at%20both%20ends.

The first known statue to use contrapposto is Kritios Boy, c. 480 BCE, so called because it was once attributed to the sculptor Kritios. It is possible, even likely, that earlier bronze statues had used the technique, but if they did, they have not survived and Kenneth Clark called the statue "the first beautiful nude in art". The statue is a Greek marble original and not a Roman copy.
Before the introduction of contrapposto, the statues that dominated ancient Greece were the archaic kouros (male) and the kore (female). Contrapposto has been used since the dawn of classical Western sculpture. According to the canon of the Classical Greek sculptor Polykleitos in the 4th century BCE, it is one of the most important characteristics of his figurative works and those of his successors, Lysippos, Skopas, etc. The Polykletian statues (Discophoros ("discus-bearer") and Doryphoros ("spear-bearer"), for example) are idealized athletic young men with the divine sense, and captured in contrapposto. In these works, the pelvis is no longer axial with the vertical statue as in the archaic style of earlier Greek sculpture before Kritios Boy.

Kritios Boy

Kouros

Kore

Chi

Chiastric Principle

Serpentinata

The figura serpentinata  or "S" curve is a variant or development of the pose. The term is usually applied  to art from the Renaissance onwards, and Donatello is often regarded as its inventor akthough it is quite apparent that "serpenata" originated with the chiastric principle of fifth century Greece.
Scholars have noted what they call the chiastic principle in the composition of the figure of the Doryphoros. The term is derived from the Greek letter chi which is formed by two lines crossing obliquely, but the stroke descending right to left is straight while the other is, like a reversed S, curved at both ends. Thus the upper curve on the left corresponds to a mirror-image curve on the lower right and two straight halves face each other across the sinuous divide. The following illustration imposes the letter chi onto the figure of the Doryphoros:

Donatello

"Serpenata"

Alfie