This book and the series by Hogarth in general, are a class apart in teaching the figure.
In no other book I have seen the body masses so clearly and simply presented that with just one look you 'understand' the form and add it to your repertoire. Just like that.
One striking difference we notice is the three dimensional presentation of the drawings using probably charcoal or a very soft pencil, how else will we understand that form if its not rendered in three dimensions?! Yet so many books exist, even the ones from great such as Loomis, where you would see a more finished figure, where the contours take over, making the student wonder 'why is a line in front of the other?' etc. Hogarth aims as dispensing such doubts and to get rid of the guesswork from the minds of the artist.
He talks about 'inventing' the figure, and about a notation of representig the figure in deep space, meaning three dimesnions.
As the masters such as Vilppu would say, drawing is all about learning how to represent the form in two dimensional paper, and about knowing the form one wants to draw. We do get both in this book by Hogarth. more actually on the forms of the figure. more than half the book presents the figure, the varous parts, the torso, the limbs and the head in great detail using simple three dimensional forms. and the remainder of the book deals with how one would approach or rather go about drawing the figure.
An interesting approach here is to begin with the torso, and not with the head. torso, legs, arms and then comes the head, and surprise surprise, this is such an effective way of setting up the figure in the desired gesture. Vilppu would talk about a Ball and a box in a sock to study the torso. Bridgman would also talk in detail about these two forms, Hogarth lays down explicitly the order, and importance. This approach must be tried before understanding its effectiveness.
This is overall a great book for the figurative art student. I found it most effective, because every single picture in this book teaches me something that I can apply directly. The rendering of the forms make it so easy to understand them and cast to memory not only the form but its relations to the other forms in context as well as what happens when they twist and turn and go about doing whatever a figure would do.
This book stays right at the top along with Kimon Nicholaides and Glenn Vilppu and Bridgman.
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Top reviews from other countries
carlos chin
Very advanced, not ready for this one yet
Reviewed in Canada on November 7, 2023
Shopper
Recommended resource for artists, animators, sculptors and computer artists.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2023