Showing posts with label classical drawing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classical drawing. Show all posts

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Conrad Martin Metz - Studies for Drawing - How to Draw Heads, Eyes, Noses, Mouths, Feet and the Figure


Conrad Martin Metz (1749-1827) published a series of plates, Studies for Drawing, chiefly from the Antique. 30 plates. Fol. London, 1785. S.K., designed for students of drawing to copy in their pursuit of knowledge of the classical ideal. Copy books like these substituted for plaster casts and for live models in the 18th and 19th centuries.














Other books were:
Imitations of Ancient and Modern Drawings, from the Restoration of the Arts - 1798
Metz's studies of the human figure - 1819

Studies for Drawing the Human Figure, Groups of Figures & Historial Composition - 1796

Imitations of ancient and modern Drawings, from the Restoration of the Arts in Italy to the present time.
Together with a chronological account of the artists and strictures on their works (in English and French). 109 plates in aquatinta. Atlas fol. London, 1798.

Principj del Disegno, ricavati dagli antichi mouumcnti, dalle opere di Haflaello, Michelangelo, ed altri. Com- binati cd incisi da C. M. M. Fol. Koma, 1812.

Schediasmata selecta ex Archetypis Polidori Caravagiensis in Musaeo hon. Viri A. Hume Bar' conservatis, fideliter hnitata, auctore C. M. M. 64 plates. Fol. Londoni, 1791.

Imitations of Drawings by Parraegiano in the Collection of His Majesty. Engraved and published by C. M. M. 34 plates. Fol. London, 1790.

Studies for drawing the Human Figure was published in 1870. He was born in Bonn, Germany in 1749, and worked in Germany and Italy. He was a pupil of Bartolozzi. Metz was renowned for beautiful classical illustrations, particularly of figures like Mars, Venus and Diana, best known by his numerous imitations and facsimiles of drawings by the old masters He died in 1827.

ARC Prints has a series of lithographed reprints available for sale.




















From the Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge published in 1851,
By Charles Knight,

METZ, CONRAD MARTIN, a celebrated German engraver of Bonn, where he was born in 1755. He studied under Bartolozzi, in London, and remained altogether about twenty years in England. He published in 1790 a set of thirty-three engravings, including the title, after George the Third's collection of drawings by Parmegiano ; and in 1791 a set of sixty-three plates in a similar style, after the designs by Polidoro da Caravaggio, in the possession of Sir A. Hume, Bart. He engraved many other imitations of drawings by the old masters. In 1801 Metz went to Rome, and commenced a series of engravings after the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, by Michael Angelo. It is engraved in chalk manner in fifteen separate sheets, with an outline of the whole. Metz died at Rome in 1827, aged seventy-two. Dr. Nagler enumerates upwards of two hundred of his engravings in his Kunstler-Lexicon.

He also worked as an engraver. Here are two of his works for Hans Holbein, The Lady Elliot and Phillip Melanchton.





Books mentioning Conrad Martin Metz:

Der ideale Kunstkörper

The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1990s: 2 Volumes

Metz's studies of the human figure in twenty-eight plates











Saturday, December 13, 2008

How to Draw - Drawing from Casts









Johann Daniel Preissler's book on human proportions was based on his study of antique statuary.

Drawing from casts of the antique remained an essential part of any art education through the early 20th century. (My book How to Draw the Human Figure: The Drawings of Grace Young
describes the switch from drawing from casts to drawing the figure in one Philadelphia art school)

The images here are from a book of photographs of drawing done by students at the National Academy of Design in New York City (nationalacademy.org) in 1871-1872. You can see the care the students put into this work which was an important part of their education.





Another example of drawing from the cast, assumed to be a 19th century French example.

An example of a drawing of the Aphrodite of Milo, better know as Venus de Milo, thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch.

Brussels School, 19th Century.





Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach at Amazon.com.

Lessons on Shading

Charles Bargue wrote a well known and well used book on drawing which was based on the study of classical casts, and progressed from casts, to examples of master drawings to drawing from the living model. A show of the complete set of engravings was mounted at the Dahesh Museum of Art.





Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome: Drawing Course

Charles Bargue et Jean-Leon Gerome. Cours de dessin (French Edition)




Some other examples:



 


Model drawing and shading from casts; a complete guide to the elementary and advanced examinations in these subjects;

Another example signed J. L. Lund, classic Danish academic drawing. Johan Ludwig Gebhard Lund was a professor at the Danish Academy.

A plaster cast in the style of Polykleitos from the Wilcox Classical Museum of the University of Kansas.

Elmil Jean Kosa, Jr. Academic Study, 1927