Figure Drawing: Heinrich Lautensack -Male and Female Proportions

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Heinrich Lautensack -Male and Female Proportions

Front view - male skeleton, male figure and proportional mass drawing of a man,

Side view - male skeleton, male figure and proportional mass drawing of a man

Heinrich Lautensack wrote a treatise on perpective, Des Circkels und Richtscheyts, auch der Perspectiva und Proportion der Menscher, which owed much to Durer. The entire book can be viewed online at Digitale Bibliothek - Munchen.

Proportions of the female body, front and side views, back and side views.

Proportions of the male body, front and side views, back and side views.

The female body divided into eight parts, the male body divided into eight parts.

The following information is from The Dictionary of painters and engravers, biographical and critical By Michael Bryan

LAUTENSACK, Henry, [or Heinrich.] This old German engraver is miscalled, by Mr. Strutt, Hans, or John. He was born at Nuremberg about the year 1506, and was the son of Paulus Lautensack, an obscure painter, who taught him the rudiments of design. He engraved some plates in the style of Sebald Beham, though very inferior to him. He usually marked his prints with a cipher composed of the initials H. L. on a tablet, with an instrument resembling a graver, and the date.

He is said to have engraved on wood. [With regard to this artist, real or supposed, the inquirer should consult Bartsch, Brulliot, Nagler, and others that they indicate, as there is much obscurity about him and his works. Some think that Heinrich and Hans are one. Zani says he died about 1590. The word leytzen is inscribed on some of the prints attributed to him: this is a subject for German etymologists.]

A biographical and critical dictionary of painters and engravers, from the revival of the art under Cimabue ... to the present time: with the ciphers, monograms, and marks, used by each engraver

The History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration in its Relation to Anatomic Science and the Graphic Arts By Ludwig Choulant, Mortimer Frank, Fielding Hudson Garrison, Edward Clark Street has this to say about Heinrich Lautensack:

Heinrich Lautensack: Desz Circkelsz vnd Richtscheyts, auch der Perspectina, vnd Proportion der Menschen vnd Rosse, kurtze, doch griindtliche vnderweisung, desz rechten gebrauchs. Mit viel schonen Figuren, aller anfahenden Jugendt, vnnd andern liebhabern dieser Kunst, als Goldschmiden, Malern, Bildhauwern, Steinmetzen, Schreinern, etc. eigentiich furgebildet, vormals im Truck nie gesehen, sonder jetzunders von neuvxn an tag gegeben, Durch etc. Gedruckt zu Frankfurt am Mayn bey Egenolff Emmel, Jn verlegung Simonis Schambergers. Jm Jahr, M.D.C.XVIII, colophon: Gedruckt zu Franckfurt am Mayn, Jm Jahr 1618, folio.

Contains 4 and 54 pages with many woodcuts printed in the text; the third part of the book dealing with the proportions begins on page 326 and contains many woodcuts, which, however, are smaller than Diirer's. On page 51a the text on the proportions of the bodies of horses begins, illustrated by three woodcuts. It has been published_before at Frankfort on the Main by G. Rabe, S. Feyerabend, and H. Lautensack, in 1564. folio. Weigel: No. 8545, 19427. The author, on the title-page, calls himself a goldsmith and painter of Frankfort on the Main.

History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration in Its Relation to Anatomic Science and the Graphic Arts

Albrecht Durer: Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion some of the plates at the NIH website.