I totally agree that notions of beauty and “ideal” are subjective, but that still allows an artist to have a clear personal idea of what they mean. That might be some cultural stereotype or it might be very idiosyncratic, but it can still be the basis for a work of art. True, that work will probably be saying something rather different from one created by drawing from life. In this post, I think Rex is not saying that all figures should be representations of some ideal, but that, for practical reasons at least, an artist should have a good enough mental model of the figure that drawing without models is feasible.

And looking at it from the angle you saw, Anteaus should not have been challenging everyone to fights. He should have been helping mortals, not using them as toys to be broken and discarded. He denied the nature of his life giving connection to Gaea.

I didn’t get the ‘simple’ message of the legend until your rephrased it because I was looking at it from the different angle: where ‘should’ Antaeus have rested his faith so that he did not get killed? It is odd because I do feel connected to nature. It probably just speaks for my psychology, running away from a small town in post war Germany because of its intellectual, artistic poverty etc etc. perhaps, I am still running.

Brenda,

One thing about ancient times is that in addition to the Greeks practice of nude athletlics (the word “gym” comes from gymnos which means naked) there were usually plenty of dead bodies around to cut up and examine. The Greeks were famous for their medical skills even into the late Roman period. Most of our medical terms are of Greek origin. Also, they had plenty of books. Even now, ancient Greek texts outnumber Roman ones by about forty to one.

Steve,

I agree about the background. It was an afterthought, not part of my original conception. It does serve to plant Hercules’ feet though. And something is always lost from those first pencils. This is always frustrating. Yes, I go over the pencil with ink and erase the pencil. This is a standard tewchnique. That’s one reason I draw so lightly. I have a lot of work with elaborately detailed backgrounds. I just didn’t do it here or the past few weeks. For a picture that hangs on a wall for some time, one needs more going on, more mystery, more subtlety, but here I was just single focused.

Usually what appears to be single, flowing brush strokes are in fact strokes that have been carefully joined together. I do that with oils, but not with the ink. There’s this recent fad of drawing heavy profile lines around everything, but to me the look is overly stylized and contrived. In fact, I’m trending to more broken, looser lines. They feel like quick sword strokes when I do them, and I like that feeling.

Hanneke,

Thanks :)

Birgit,

That’s cool you picked up that quote off my blog. It is a complex question. For one thing, I became, at that time of my life, estranged from my family. There was no sane reason for that and that disconnection hurt them and me. For another, I learned that I was motivated by a desire to do great art, not fame or money. Additionally, I learned that I had to be true to my own artistic sensibilities — to ignore trends and fads and stay tuned to my own sense of truth and beauty. In trying to please others, I became insincere and ironically, my work was less well received than when I was totally honest, but I went through this backlash period of actually trying to upset people with art before I figured that out. Last, I learned that I could not deny the powerful effects of sexuality, but until I learned to sublimate that, it hindered rather than helped my art. So yes, there is strength in connecting with and embracing what IS rather than shoulds and oughts and maybes.

So the Wiki is most apropo.

Yet I’ve also at various times sought my own Walden Ponds, seeking and finding in wild places great inspiration and serenity.

Having said that, I have to wonder how the ancient Greeks arrived at such lifelike athlete figures in sculpture without such books. Perhaps because they had such outstanding examples of live, nude figures available for direct study? If they were like most sculptors, they must have had strong life drawing skills. You’re right in that attending a life drawing class is hardly the same. Thanks once again for sharing your methods.