Anatomy 101: Vesalius and Van Calcar.

Anatomical knowledge, or the study of the structure of the human body, was something quite uncommon, and even forbidden, in the early days of scientific exploration and scholarship, where bloodletting was academically considered as a cure for various deseases. It wasn't until Andreas Vesalius had published his seven volume 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica' ('On the fabric of the human body') in 1543, that the human body and it's parts were mapped out and their functions described (although still, not always correctly). Today, Vesalius is considered the father of Anatomy and his work, which marked the beginning of modern science, stands as one of the greatest treasures of the Renaissance (it was in fact, one of the most expensive books published at the time, only available to a select few).

Vesalius was born in Brussels in 1514 and was commonly known under his birth name, Andries van Wesel. Of Dutch ancestry, his family originally lived in Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands. His father and grandfather, both named Everard, great-grandfather John and even great-great-grandfather Peter, had all studied medicine at various European Universities and worked for the absolute prominent European aristocrats of the day. Vesalius soon followed the family tradition and studied at the University of Louvain (Leuven), where his great-grandfather taught medicine, the University of Paris, and finally the University of Padua, in Italy, where he became a professor teaching anatomy, something which was traditionally done by disecting monkeys. Vesalius made many drawings of his disections which caught much attention and soon was given the privelege to start disecting executed criminals.

The University of Padua is one of the oldest Universities of Europe, founded in 1222, it was an institute known for it's intellectual importance and progressive thinking. It was under the rule of Venice, and it was there that Vesalius would meet Jan Stefan van Kalkar (aka Van Calcar), a German artist who had entered the school of Titian 1536 and would contribute his now famous pen drawings in several of Vesalius'  works.

About van Calcar's descent: His birthplace Cleves ('Kleef') today lies just outside the border of the Netherlands, making him a German artist these days. But at the time of his birth, in 1499, this was not the case. Also remember, illustrations of human anatomy had never been published before that time with such a degree of detail.

In 1537, Vesalius was awarded the title of Doctor of Medicine and Professor of Surgery at the age of merely twenty-three. The next year, their first collaboration provided students with six detailed anatomical illustrations, today known as the 'Tabulae Anatomicae Sex', which were plagiarised throughout the whole of Europe instantaneously.

The seven volumes of the 'Fabrica' all cover their own territory of the human body. The first book describes the bones and interconnecting ligaments, book two describes all the ligaments and muscles as 'instruments of voluntary and deliberate motion' while the third describes the veins and arteries. Book four goes into the nerves, book five specifically talks about 'the organs of nutrition and generation' (reproduction system) The last volumes, books six and seven, go on to describe the heart and the organs serving the heart (lungs) and finally the Brain and the organs of sense.

Above: beautiful introduction illustration for the title page of Vesalius' 'Fabrica' by Jan Van Calcar. Please click to enlarge to it's full size. In the middle you can see Vesalius performing a disection amidst a crowd of students and even a pickpocket (on the right).

 The first two books of the 'Fabrica' were completed in 1541. Van Calcar's drawings were cut in wood and used for printing by Johannes Oporinus in Basel, Switzerland, the chief publishing center of Europe at that time. Beside the seven volumes of the 'Fabrica', Vesalius also published the 'Epitome', a companion piece to the series, which is almost a reprint of the 'Tabulae', with six chapters and nine illustrations titled 'Andreae Vesalii suorum de humani corporis fabrica librorum epitome'.

Below a collection of the Van Calcar's illustrations as published in the 'Fabrica'. Click to enlarge the images to their full size. Below are plates 21, 22 and 23 from the osteologic series from Volume I. Depicted are the anterior, delineation from the side and the anterior of a full human skeleton.

Below: From Book II, again, several views of the human body, now without the skin fat tissue, sinews, veins and arteries, exposing all muscles. The full series consists of 19 detailed illustrations, here's a few of them. 

Below you can clearly see that for this illustration the body was suspended with a rope and bolted on to a wooden beam to keep it in an upright position.  

Below, all the major muscle groups indentified in this illustration portraying the posterior surface or backside.

Below, two illustrations from Book III which describes the veins and artiries.

'Fabrica' reprinted.

In 1555, the 'Fabrica' was reprinted and a second, revised edition was published. Recently, Dr. Gerard Vogrincic, who is a collector of rare books, purchased an original edition of the 'Fabrica' and found that it was full of annotations by the previous owner. Digging up some of the rare handwritten documents of Vesalius on the internet proved his suspicions to be true: The sheer amount of annotations in Latin in his copy were just too much to be of some avid collector.

With the help of Dr. Vivian Nutton, Emeritus Professor at the UCL Center for the History of Medicine, it was proven beyond a doubt that the annotations were written by Vesalius himself for a new, third edition of the 'Fabrica' that unfortunately, was never published. Until now that is! Daniel H. Garrison and Malcolm H. Hast have teamed up with Karger Publishers to create a new version of the 'Fabrica', in English, celebrating Vesalius 500th aniversary. The book will be published in 2013 and will cost € 1250,00 Euro's (Pre-orders will be handled until September of this year). Check here for more information on this new edition or go here for the full exiting personal story of Dr.Vogrincic and his incredible discovery!

Andrew Loomis fascimile reprints.

If you've ever held a pencil and thought seriously about learning how to draw you've surely heard of Andrew Loomis and his books on drawing and art.

Loomis was a commercial illustrator born in 1892 who had a certain class that became rare with the introduction of mass media. His work, althought stricktly for magazines and advertisements, had an air from a different age and time. Because he also felt the urge to teach people the craft of his trade, he wrote and drew several books about creating illustrations and art in general.

His books, counted among the best and brightest, have become very rare and quite expensive, if you happen to catch one of the early original prints, as most of them are now OOP (out of print). Lucky for us, Titan Books started publishing fascimile prints of the Loomis collection last year. The third volume, 'Succesfull drawing' (left), will finally be out May 4.

Unlike Loomis' first book, 'Fun with a pencil', published in 1939, this one tends to be a bit more technical, containing chapters on proper lighting and the deconstruction of complex shapes in different perspectives. In the book Loomis explains that a succesfull drawing must apply to ten fundamental laws, which he divides into two categories, called the five P's, being Proportion, Placement, Perspective, Planes and Patterns and the five C's: Conception, Construction, Contour, Character and Consistency. There are also some excellent chapters on costume drawing, showing some fine examples of Loomis remarkable talent. It was later reprinted with additional material under the title 'Three Dimensional Drawing.'

Click to enlarge: Some examples from 'Succesful Drawing', showing methods of drawing proper perspective and scale (above) and some of Loomis' excellent examples on light and shadow (below).

Born at the very end of the 19th century in Syracuse, New York, Loomis lived and worked most of his life in Chicago, where he had his own studio and taught at the 'American Academy of Art', after serving in WWI. He himself had been a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as the 'Arts Students League of New York', located at West 57th Street.

Established in 1875, the Students League had participated with the 'Society of American Artists' and the 'Architectural League of New York' in the founding of the American Fine Arts Society in 1889. Loomis studied there under teachers such as Impressionist painter Frank DuMond, who taught at the institute for over 50 years, and George Bridgman, who taught anatomy for 45 years. Bridgman himself had studied at the renowned École des Beaux-arts in Paris under Gustave Boulanger (1824-1888), the esteemed French painter awarded with the Prix-de-Rome in 1849, the annual scholarship given only to a selected few of the students of the famous French 'Royal Academie of Painting and Sculpture' since 1663.

Many of today's celebrated artists and sculptors studied there and failed miserably for years, attempting to win the prestigious prize, which came with a stay for several years at the French Academie in Rome, located in the Villa Medici, where artists would study all the classical examples in painting, sculpture and architecture, found in Italy's profound artistic history.

Francois Boucher was one of few artists honored with the award in 1720. My favorite painter, Jacques-Louis David, Boucher's student and nephew, won it in 1774, after five attempts and a period of starvation, which was meant as a protest (David finally won the Grand Prix in 1774 with his painting of 'Antiochus and Stratonice').

Above: Painting by Boulanger from 1861 titled 'Rehearsal of 'The Fluteplayer' and 'The Diomedes wife' in the atrium of the Pompeian house of Prince Napoleon, 18 Avenue Montaigne', currently on display at the Chateau de Versailles in Paris. The painting shows French playwright Émile Augier (center), the poet Théophile Gautier (in the back), actress Éthélie Madeleine Brohan (front right), actress Marie Favart (back), actor Edmond God (left, bending forward) and actor Joseph Samson (right, lying down). Boulanger had visited the ruins of Pompeii during his stay in Rome which inspired him for the painting, showing Napoleon's house in Paris where preparations are being made for a performance given before the imperial Court (Click to enlarge).

Below: various sketches by George Bridgman from his books 'Constructive Anatomy' (1920) and 'The Human Machine' (1939), clearly showing the mechanics of the human arm and hand. Bridgman used to draw simplified, interlocking wedges to break down the anatomy of the human body, using blocked out forms to represent the masses. This concept was even further explored in later artbooks by comic artist Burne Hogarth ('Tarzan'), which clearly show Bridgman's influence. In the course of his life Bridgman wrote and drew several invaluable books on anatomy which are luckily still in print.

Below: Loomis wrote/drew six artbooks altogether, of which two have been reprinted by Titan last year. 'Figure drawing for all it's worth' was his second book, originally published in 1943 while 'Drawing the head & hands' (his fifth book) was the last published during his lifetime in 1956, his last book, 'The eye of the painter' was published in 1961 after his death.

So you see, Andrew Loomis' work, althought it does not reside at the Louvre or other esteemed institutions, holds a vast body of knowledge and history. He received his education from a long line of great artists, and althought the flame of the prix-de Rome extinguished in 1968, you're still able to capture some of that style and elegance through the books Loomis worked so hard on and left behind for us. Great to see they're back in print. Check here for more on Anatomy.

New books on animation!

Focal Press just released some very cool books on digital character animation. 'Character Animation Fundamentals' by Steve Roberts was published this week and uses traditional 2D animation concepts while showing you how to apply them when designing digital characters in 3D space. Roberts has been working in animation for over 25 years, which won him two IVCA awards and the New York Film and Television Award. He is currently Senior lecturer in Character Animation at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, formerly known as the 'London Animation Studio' and part of the six colleges that make up the 'University of the Arts London'. Roberts has worked for Disney, Warner Brothers and the BBC and explains all about his traditional and digital workflow in his latest book. The companion website includes 20 fully built and rigged models which you can use to animate with and more than 50 tutorials, teaching you how to build and animate these. It also has 140 2D and 3D animated movies as examples.

Another title you might enjoy is Lee Montgomery's 'Tradigital Maya', which was published on November 15th. As with Steve Roberts' book, this one too uses traditional animation principles to learn you character animation and develop your skills in 3D animation, specifically in Maya.

Although many aspects of the techniques discussed by Montgomery will of course also translate to other animation software, this book is part of a series of 'tradigital' books, which also features other software specific titles 'Tradigital Blender' by Roland Hess and 'Tradigital 3ds Max by Richard Lapidus, both published earlier in June and October. Montgomery has worked as key animator on Rockstar's succesfull video games series 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'Manhunt' and is currently senior level member of Autodesk Media & entertainment software support team, while also being an active moderator of Autodesk's AREA forum. Many of the techniques used and provided by Montgomery rely of  Disney's 12 fundamental principles of animation, as featured in Frank Tomas and Ollie Johnson's 'Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life', which is highly regarded by the industry as the bible on character animation. If you don't have it, you should definately consider buying that first.







Above: the principles of animating a character apply to any given object. Whether it's a person, an animal or even a jet fighter, as Montgomery thoroughly demonstrates in his new book. Below: first published in 1981, 'The Illusion of Life' is still the must-have classic on animation. Written by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson (below seated), two of Disney's 'Nine Old Men', master animators on many of Disney's classic animated features, such as 'Pinocchio', 'Bambi' and 'Cinderella'.