Le 29 août 07 à 12:49, Michael Bray a écrit :
Hello Margaret,
I am working at the American University in Dubai teaching 3D
Foundation,
Sculpture, and Drawing. We have one life drawing course that usually
runs
once a year in the Spring Semester. The difficulty we face is it is
forbidden to have nude models. In Islam, representations of the human
figure is also technically forbidden as well. One way Muslim artists
have
gotten around it is to not portray the whole figure, as only Allah
can make
something that is complete and perfect. This is a traditional
viewpoint and
many artists are doing some very strong work based on the human form. I
taught at the American University of Beirut and Cairo as well, and life
drawing situations were the same there as well.
When I studied in Canada, in our second year we had life drawing
for 6
hours a week. In the third and fourth years drawing was optional, but I
took it and continued with the six hours a week. This was
intermittent in
that we did not always have the model as we sometimes worked in other
areas.
Personally, I believe life drawing should be introduced in high
school. The
skills of heightened observation, concentration, and the ability to
"read"
the figure are important skills for anyone, not just an artist. For
an art
student though, I would like to see more figure drawing as part of the
curriculum at the beginning stages.
As to when things have changed, I imagine it is a different story in
different places. My impression is with the advent of abstract
expressionism in America becoming the cutting edge in the 50s,
working up to
conceptual art in the 70s, traditional skills such as figure drawing
were
thought to be less important. I think this is changing though as
Modernism
has lost its stranglehold over the what is considered art.
On 8/29/07 1:01 PM, "Margaret Mayhew" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I was just going over some old postings on this list and thought I'd
> conduct a quick 'straw poll'.
>
> I'm assuming most of the members on this list are associated with
> some form
> of art institution, either as students or staff.
>
> I was wondering how many *hours* of life drawing are actually
> offered per
> week/semester in various institutions?
>
> Is it compulsory/optional (including foundation year) and
> has it changed?
> and if so when?
>
> I realise that a lot of this information exists in academic
> calenders but
> I'm more interested in people's perceptions and recollections of the
> amount and extent of life drawing within art schools.
>
> cheers
>
> Margaret Mayhew
> PhD Candidate
> Department of Gender and Cultural Studies
> University of Sydney, Australia
>
>
>
>
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