Response to Milam

'Understanding Life Drawing'
Jennifer Milam

In this reading, Milam attempts to understand the meaning behind why we do life drawing and the appeal of the drawings. She begins by explaining that the practice of figure drawing was slowly institutionalized and 'elevated the practice of drawing the human figure'. It is interesting to see the final drawings from a life drawing class as they can all be quite different. "...the hand of the artist does not record an exact replica of the body as seen." Artists tend to improve on flaws and exaggerate parts of the body so that their ideals of beauty come out in their work.

Institutions still teach life drawing today and believe it is a central component in artistic training. "Within academic hierarchies, only an artist  who learnt to portray the human figure convincingly could hope to be a successful painter or sculptor...." One of the interesting things Milam mentions is how many life drawings were not actually drawn from models. Many artists that claimed to use models were actually done using wax figures and bronze statues as substitutes for the model. There was a lot of controversy over the use of live models in the art studio, especially females.

I believe that drawing from a live model allows the artist more creative freedom and allows the artist to capture the movement and feeling of a pose, instead of drawing the body as it is ideally portrayed in statues and models. I think that drawing from a model does help artist's learn anatomy and proportion, but I also think that there is a lot of restrictions in life drawing classes in institutions.

I am glad that we have progressed to accept drawing as a valid artistic medium and see figure drawings as works to be worthy of being seen in a gallery space, not just as under drawings in the planning stages of larger works.