Figure Drawings

Artists study the figure to learn how to represent it. They draw from life to learn the anatomy or to provide a basis for finished paintings or sculpture.

Since the invention of photography artists have also used photographs to provide visual information, to study movement and to inspire their art.

Michaelangelo used many life drawings to prepare for the monumental task of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This is one of the few surviving sketches from the project. He used this sketch of a man as the basis for the female Libyan Sibyl.

The Drawings of Michelangelo and his Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

In the 1880's Edgar Degas experimented with the new photographic medium to make reference materials for his drawings, paintings and sculpture. The pastel on the right shows the influence of the forshortening, unusual camera angles and spontaneity of the camera.

Degas : The Man and His Art (Discoveries) Degas' Drawings (Paperback) Carefully reproduced from a rare 1923 limited edition, most of these magnificent drawings are unavailable elsewhere in published form. Dancers, nudes, portraits, travel scenes, and more. 100 drawings, including 8 in full color.

Marthe Bonnard, model for the artist Pierre Bonnard

An out of print book of Pierre Bonnard's photographs.
Pierre Bonnard Photographe

Bonnard And the Nabis by Alberts Kostenevitch  

Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist

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