Anatomy and Perspective by Charles Oliver, Anatomy for Artists by Frederic Taubes, Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth, Drawing the Human Head by Burne Hogarth, Anatomy and Drawing by Victor Perard (review)

Books 273 and simple style. It has withstood the test of time well and gives one a glimpse of the environment surrounding the mid-1850’s artist. The book is divided into three main chapters, called ‘Letters’ by the author. Letter 1, ‘On First Practice’, describes, in the form of independent exercises, how a beginner should use either a fine pen orapaint brush. Thesearefollowedbyexercises on tone and colour so that by the end of the letter the reader is ready to graduate to ‘Sketching from Nature’. Here Ruskin stresses the importance of good and clear observationof everythingone seesin nature. Letter 3, ‘On Colour and Composition’, demonstrates the author’s skill at descriptions of paintings without the aid of colour plates. The book is illustrated with careful and delicate sketches throughout. The sketches of some of the works of great masters, for example Turner, are particularly instructivewhen he explains the guidelines governing composition. In parts the reader may be at a disadvantagewhen Ruskin refers to less well-knownpainters and writers of his time but this does not detract from the value of the book. True, both books are concerned with drawing but that is far as any comparison can go. Ruskin, in his highly personal and critical way, has written a book to educate would-be artists into the ways and means of observingwhat can be seen in nature. Dubery and Willats, on the other hand, are concerned with the systems used by artists over the centuries to represent three-dimensional space. In their introduction it is stated that the aim of the book is to present and define commonly used drawingsystemsin the hopethat studentsconcerned with visual presentations, whether in engineering, architecture or art, may have a greater range of choice. Well tried methods of presentation tend to be adopted without adequately considering how appropriate they may be for a particular problem. Furthermore, they say that the changes in the mechanics of visual presentation brought about by the camera and the computer call for a critical reexaminationof the utility of drawingsystems of the past. When I first read the book, I was prepared as an architect to learn some new techniques but, after putting it down, I found I stillhad to rely upon past systems of presentation. That is, European orthographic projection for working details, with an occasional isometric projection for complicated three-dimensional details, and, of course, the perspectivesketchto help describea project to a client. On my second reading, I decided to take the less ambitious stance of grasping their historic account of drawing systems from the Egyptian period until the present day. Here there was no problem. One obtains a satisfactory understanding of the more common drawing systems, that is, perceptual, conceptual and mixed systems. The authors describe how the systems have been used by such artists as Vermeer, Caravaggio and David Hockney. In their chapter on perspective (a subject hardly covered at all in Ruskin’s volume, although he made up for 18 this in another volume published in 1859,entitled, Elements o f Perspective), the authors describe a method of calculating the position of objects in space by using linear measurements taken from paintings and drawings. The method they use is attributed to Leonard0 da Vinci and I found it particularly interesting. The h a 1 chapter, there are eight in all, presents the reader with a theory regarding the historical development of drawing systems. They list a few artists from 500 B.C. until the present day and plot them on a graph in a position relating to time and type of drawing system they employed. From this graph the authors make three inferences: firstly, that the development of drawing systems has not been a simple progression but cyclical; secondly, that great historical social changes have been accompanied by a changefrom the use of perceptual systemsto the use of conceptualsystemsand thirdly, that the amplitude of the cycle increases with the complexityof the civilization. I think there is great scope for a deeper study of these inferences, particularly the first and third ones. The second one, associatingperiods of socialchangewith the change of drawing systems, appears sound to me. Anatomy and Perspective. Charles Oliver. Studio Vista, London, 1972...