Customer Reviews

Undressed Art: Why We Draw

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Steinhart's subtitle should be expanded to "why we draw the human figure," which would explain his title and better account for the content of the book, three-fourths of which concerns figure-drawing groups. The remaining chapters are independent essays on learning to draw, field sketching, how composing a picture differs from representational drawing, the impossibility of drawing for a living, and a final unrewarding speculation on artistic sensibility.
The heart of the book is a deeply felt and insightful set of reflections on the author's long experience with figure-drawing groups in the San Francisco Bay area. This includes a useful sketch of the history of nude modelling, and exemplary attention to the model as an equal partner in the figure-drawing experience.
As someone who has spent the better part of the last ten years in a weekly group of the sort Steinhart is describing, I can vouch for the accuracy of his account. The book has many wise things to say about the manifold challenges of depicting the human form on a sheet of paper. Our experiences do not always coincide. For Steinhart, figure drawing both is (Chapter 11) and isn't (Chapter 2) about sex, in a dance of desire that is more erotically charged than my own history of learning to see the human form. I didn't recognize his view "that artists tend to draw themselves in the model's pose," and to inflict their own physical needs on the forms they depict (p. 144). His use of art history to reinforce his arguments is highly selective.
However, if you want to learn what it would be like to participate in a figure-drawing group, or to compare your own experience with that of a stimulating and knowledgeable companion, you will find this volume hard to put down.

In this age of photography, there is still a healthy subculture of models and artists who hold drawing the nude figure in the highest regard. Peter has numerous recent interviews with both models and artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. His book covers the experience of the art model particularly well. If you have ever wondered what it is like to get up in front of a bunch a strangers and model in the nude, there are good insights here. Highly recommended.

I have recently joined a figurative drawing class and find this book very encouraging and insightful. We live in a world that instant gratification becomes the key to everything we do. Drawing teaches us to slow down and see things the way they are. As a beginner for drawing, this book answers many questions about figurative drawing: why we draw, why we like to draw nude and how drawing can help me see many things I miss out in this fast paced world.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in drawing and art in general.

Out the outset of this book I was unsure of its purpose. Initially filled with too many references to others' writings, theories, and pontifications, I struggled with wanting to continue. But while sitting on a plane and having moved through the opening chapters, I reached a point of no return and unable to put it down. Upon completion and further reflection, I came to reallize that the book is not unlike a drawing - initially the artist (author) is finding his way, refining his line and contour, and in the end providing the form to give it shape, tone, appeal and emotion. One clearly gets the sense that regardless of the creative outlet, the mind processes in the same way - it is who one is more than about what they do or rather, what they do is who they are.

This book validates why some of us love to draw - simply for ourselves and hopefully the results may be enjoyed by others. Filled with a lots of anecdotal information on a variety of subjects that relate to the desire to create, I made the mistake of not underlining and making notes in the margins - so I get to read it again.

The Undressed Art is a solid book for those interested in the why's drawing. It profiles both the people who draw and those who are drawn, making them two sides of the same picture. Even though I found it fascinating, I wish he had included more anecdotes. This book comes alive when the author narrates someone in the act of drawing, or visits a drawing group and includes scraps of dialogue, or decribes his wife hanging one of his own drawings on the refrigerator. The best chapter covered models and modeling, maybe because the focus was so much on people. Steinhart is so good at writing about people and their actions (maybe because he was trained as a naturalist?) that I longed for more of it.

Good book, worthwhile.

Painfully hard to read at the outset, due the author's appeal to some authority or another in just about every paragraph, the first few chapters of the book have the feel of an tediously extended freshman term paper. That sense abates toward the middle of the book, and after a while I began to enjoy reading it. A naturalist by avocation, Steinhart puts a naturalist spin on the inclination of humans to draw, and ultimately identifies the making of art as and act of "dispersion" that is, a manifestation of the species tendency to extend beyond physical boundaries (and one must assume, for thinking beings, beyond intellectual boundaries as well). While the book says little that is ground-breaking, it provides a somewhat interesting view of the workings of figure drawing groups and an overview of the history of art modeling.

I bought this thinking I was getting an art book but found early on that it was as much or more of an anthropological tome. I suspect the author would welcome this characterization. Reading this book was not a waste of time, and I would recommend it if only as a mild diversion from the standard art fare.

A wonderful insight into the realm of figure drawing; the whys and wherefores of what it's about and why we pursue it, written by a man with extensive exposure to the genre.

I came upon the book as a result of having asked a well-regarded portrait artist why, at this point in her career, she had decided to pursue life drawing sessions again. Her response was to refer me to this book. Upon reading the work, I have a better appreciation of the place life studies hold in the continued development of the dedicated artist. An added benefit was the overview of the place the model holds in the whole process.

A great read!

An enjoyable and insightful exploration of the author and others' motivations to draw and particularly, to drawing live figure models. Steinhart makes distinctions between the many people he knows with who do art or model for the experience itself, and of those few artists who make a living in the art world. He also provides insight into the reasons why some artists still choose to start and finish their art with a pencil and brush, while a majority of art schools increasingly focus on digital media and galleries seek astracts. With his access to a large number of local drawing groups, the author's community differs from my own, but the motivations and aspirations of the artists and models he introduces ring true. Like Steinhart I make my living as a natural scientist and I generally gravitate towards realism in my art, so I found it easy to identify with his thinking. I've also shared comparable experiences to some of the artists who he profiled, such as having enrolled and then dropped out of my only academic art class when the instructor told us that assumed everyone everyone already knew how to draw and that he was there only to help us to see. I was also fortunate to find a scientific illustrator in the biology department, who assumed (correctly) just the reverse.

This is an unusual book about how and why so many people follow their child's instinct to draw and as adults gather in groups to draw figures and to improve their skills and understanding of the human form. The author is an artist and a participant in many of these groups and brings great understanding to the needs and feelings of the other artists - as well as to the impulses, motives and feelings of the models. It is well illustrated but is not particularly a "how-to-draw" book but is rather an encouragement to recognize an authentic and deep need for this kind of human response and find the courage to follow this need. Try to get the hard cover: it is bigger and easier to see the important illustrations - which are courtesy of the artist.

This book was recommended to me by an art professor at the university. As an artist's model I found it interesting. I mainly enjoyed the stories about artists and models and drawing groups and the historical aspects as well. I found the other parts less interesting but still worth reading.