How to Draw The Human Head

 

The Human Head: A Correct Delineation of the Anatomy, Expressions, Features, Proportions and Positions of the Head and Face is now available as a printed book at Amazon.com

Learn more about it at this post, or at Figure-Drawings.com. View a preview at Google Books.

He argues for the study of anatomy in order to improve the quality of American Art. "While the study of anatomy is so much neglected in this country, the productions of American art must be superficial and unsatisfactory. The thorough student of art finds himself rapidly acquiring knowledge of human nature. He beholds, as it were, a veil drop from the faces of his fellow-men, catches their changing emotions; understands the lights and shades of character, and reads the inner life. To assist you somewhat in this, I have given you some verbal delineations of character which I desire you to consider as simple suggestions, and by the aid of which, you will, I trust, pursue the study of the human organization and character in an ample form. Once commence to explore and analyze this department in nature, and you will find it as interesting as it is inexhaustible."

The book was published at a time when there was a movement among educators to include the study of drawing in school curriculums both to improve the quality of thinking in students, but also to provide skilled workers for the new industrialism. Here is  Louis Bail lamenting the lack of skill among American workers (sounds familiar in this day when high tech entrepreneurs complain about the need for more visas for workers from other countries) "Why is it that a majority of our apprentices are of foreign parentage? Why is it that American boys are growing too proud to "learn a trade"? Is not the cause found in the fact that our whole system of education has quite ignored the industrial life? The only legitimate result of our educational system will be the production of lawyers and doctors, or, at the least, clerks and school teachers. In consequence of this defect, children receive the impression that education has no bearing upon mechanics; that a trade is only manual drudgery. The result is, that our boys select the most effeminate employments in preference to manly mechanical work."

Bail also published a series of drawing charts which used a step by step approach to learning to draw. They became widely used in schools. This book about drawing the head was the next step for him. This is an argument for the use of the drawing charts explaining what was lacking n contemporary education: "The great obstacles to the successful teaching of Drawing in Common Schools,
have been:
1st. The lack of artistic culture and practical skill on the part of teachers.
2d. The lack of time sufficient to give pupils that individual intruction made necessary by the instructions heretofore in use.
3d. The mistaken notion that Drawing either as a science or as an art, can be acquired by transferring pictures from one piece of paper to another, without a systematic training of the hand and eye.
4th. The delaying of the stndy and practice of the art until the natural taste for the exercise has been outgrown, and the pupil's time has become too valuable to be pleasurably devoted to the training in elementary principles, necessary to ensure certain and reliable progress in the art."

A list of the plates in the book:
The Human Skull from the side.
The Human Skull from the front.
The Muscles of the Human Head from the side.
The Muscles of the Human Head from the front.
How to Draw the Mouth.
How to Draw Eyes from the side.
How to Draw Eyes from the front.
How to Draw Ears.
Facial Angles - 4 plates.
The Outline and Proportions of the Human Head in Profile.
The Outline and Proportions of the Human Head from the front.
The Head Looking Down.
The Head Looking Up.
Three-Quarters View of the Head - 2 plates.
Three-Quarters View of the Head looking down - 2 plates.
Three-Quarters View of the Head looking up - 3 plates.
Sample Drawings of Heads Illustrating the Principles of Drawing - 17 plates.
How to Draw a Caucasian.
How to Draw a African.
How to Draw Old Age - 2 plates.
How to Draw Infancy - 2 plates.
How to Draw Sobriety.
How to Draw Laughter - 3 plates.
How to Draw Discontent.
How to Draw Severity.
How to Draw Fright.
How to Draw Anxious Watchfulness.
How to Draw Bodily Fear.
How to Draw Weeping.
How to Draw Terror.
How to Draw Prayer - 2 plates.
How to Draw Innocence.
How to Draw a Misanthrope.
How to Draw Surprise.
How to Draw Great Pain.
How to Draw Rage.

An original copy of The Human Head; a Correct Delineation of the Anatomy, Expressions, Features, Proportions and Positions of the Head and Face is at Amazon.com.

How to Draw the Human Head - Louis Bail's Drawing System

The Human Head: A Correct Delineation of the Anatomy, Expressions, Features, Proportions and Positions of the Head and Face, a new e-book by Prof. Louis Bail, graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, who was a famous advocate of teaching drawing in the schools, is available at Figure-Drawings.com.

It is titled The Human Head and has 64 illustrations in the manner made famous by Prof. Bail's system of Drawing Charts which were widely adopted by schools throughout the country to teach drawing to young students.

The Drawing Charts proceeded from drawing lines to drawing angles, then drawing curves, double curves, using the squares and angles to draw dwellings, drawing leaves, circles, ellipses and thenusing all of the above to draw simple, then more complicated ornaments. His goal was to train American students in the drawing arts so that they could become ornamental designers and have productive careers. His argument for the study of drawing was not very different from the argument people make today about improving American education. He made this argument about the teaching of mechanical drawing:

There is too much guess work in our mechanical operations, that can only be obviated by such instruction as you propose. A great deal of time is wasted in "cutting and fitting," and making things only "about right," when absolute certainty and correctness of plan should have been secured beforehand. There is no form, however complex, that cannot be indicated by drawing in such a manner that an intelligent workman, who is competent to read or, understand drawings, can execute the object represented with absolute certainty. The simple ability to read plans and drawings fit a man for a good position. In fact the foreman of a shop is often the only man able to do this. By leaving our mechanics in this semi-barbarous condition we lose much money and credit, and lower the intellectual and moral condition of our artisans. The more mind a man brings to bear upon his business the more respectable and self-respecting he will become.

The complete text from the Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Condition and Improvement of Public Schools in the District of Columbia By United States. Dept. of Education, Henry Barnard, 1870 is here.



The lessons on drawing heads proceed the same way from the simple form, to proportions of the head, to the muscular structure of the head to drawing the head from different angles to incorporating expression and character in the drawing of the head.

There was a preoccupation in the mid-1800s with drawing the head in profile and establishing the angle of the head. this picture illustrates one of Bail's drawings like that. The impact of the theory of physiognomy is discussed in an article titled Life Drawing from Ape to Human: Charles Darwin's Theories of Evolution and William Rimmer's Art Anatomy by Elliott Bostwick Davis






The plates of heads illustrate these subjects:

The Human Skull from the side.
The Human Skull from the front.
The Muscles of the Human Head from the side.
The Muscles of the Human Head from the front.
How to Draw the Mouth.
How to Draw Eyes from the side.
How to Draw Eyes from the front.
How to Draw Ears.
Facial Angles - 4 plates.
The Outline and Proportions of the Human Head in Profile.
The Outline and Proportions of the Human Head from the front.
The Head Looking Down.

The Head Looking Up.
Three-Quarters View of the Head - 2 plates.
Three-Quarters View of the Head looking down - 2 plates.
Three-Quarters View of the Head looking up - 3 plates.
Sample Drawings of Heads Illustrating the Principles of Drawing - 17 plates.
How to Draw a Caucasian.
How to Draw a African.
How to Draw Old Age - 2 plates.
How to Draw Infancy - 2 plates.
How to Draw Sobriety.
How to Draw Laughter - 3 plates.
How to Draw Discontent.
How to Draw Severity.
How to Draw Fright.
How to Draw Anxious Watchfulness.
How to Draw Bodily Fear.
How to Draw Weeping.
How to Draw Terror.
How to Draw Prayer - 2 plates.
How to Draw Innocence.
How to Draw a Misanthrope.
How to Draw Surprise.
How to Draw Great Pain.
How to Draw Rage.

Here is a notation from the Illinois School Journal of 1883 where Prof. Bail is among the judges for a Pencil Prize Award to drawing.



This is an advertisement from The New York Teacher from 1871 about Bail's Drawing Charts.




An original copy is listed at Amazon.com: The Human Head; a Correct Delineation of the Anatomy, Expressions, Features, Proportions and Positions of the Head and Face

The World Cat Lists it in only 2 libraries, Penn State where it is probably part of The Albert A. Anderson, Jr. and Evelynn M. Ellis Art Education Collection, and Yale where Prof. Bail taught at the Sheffield Scientific School, of Tate College.

Related modern books from Amazon.com:

How to Draw the Human Head: Techniques and Anatomy

Drawing the Human Head (Practical Art Books)

Draw Faces & Expressions

Making Faces: Drawing Expressions For Comics And Cartoons

A copy of The Human Head; a Correct Delineation of the Anatomy, Expressions, Features, Proportions and Positions of the Head and Face
at Amazon.com.




See other posts on drawing books by William Rimmer, John Gadsby Chapman.

1762 Drawing Book - The artist's vade-mecum: Being the Whole Art of Drawing

How to draw the head in perspective.
Proportions of the head.


The artist's vade-mecum: being the whole art of drawing, taught in a new work, elegantly engraved on one hundred folio copper-plates, To which is prefixed, an essay on drawing.

R. SAYERS, AT THE GOLDEN BUCK, IN FLEET STREET, MDCCLXII.

Click here to see the 1762 prints for sale on Ebay.

Vade-mecum means a book for ready reference. This book is a compilation of prints designed for the student of art.

How to draw the nose, eyes and mouth.

How to draw the nose and eyes.








How to draw eyes.







The folio was influential to other publishers of drawing instruction books including Chapman's American Drawing Book.

How to draw hands and arms.
How to draw the hand holding objects.



































How to draw clasping hands.

How to draw feet.









How to draw feet.
How to draw the arm.












How to draw feet.

How to draw the leg.












How to draw feet and legs.

How to draw hands.












How to draw the arm and hand.




How to draw hands.

The artist's vade-mecum; being the whole art of drawing, taught in a new work, elegantly engraved on one hundred folio copper-plates; ... To which is ... third edition, with considerable additions.