Photo by Stephanie Scott
His body doesn’t quiver as he holds each pose as if he is a statue, which he is trying to emulate for the figure drawing class that is filled with students. Each student focuses on the plains and axis of the human body they are replicating through charcoal, paint or sculpture. Each student is taking away the fundamental complexity that nude modeling offers artists.
Hernandez, 25, has modeled like this hundreds of times, and says he is never nervous; his goal is to offer students a new perspective, which only he offers by modeling nude.
“People expect me to sit down and do things that have been done before, but I am not just going to stand there,” Hernandez says. “I just go with the flow and I don’t really think about it. Your body just naturally wants to move and when you are in art class you have to hold it. I felt like there is something more to the human body than doing the same pose over and over again. It is important for me to give this to the students, give this to the world.”
Hernandez, who was once an art student, has been modeling for eight years, from Durango, Colo. to Colorado State University. He continues to focus on his art, and he is also a personal trainer, a nude model and a teaching aide for the Art Department at CSU. From traditional to sport-and-dance-inspired poses, Hernandez stresses the importance of the human body in art.
“I go in and I could have a bad hair day or a cut or stitches – that doesn’t bother me. It is more about what I can give the artist,” he says. “It’s about what they see in me and what they want to put on canvas.”
In addition to fostering his own artistic abilities, he also wants to help students to be more creative. Hernandez likes when he can be creative in poses that influence how a student chooses to draw him. Hernandez has seen himself as many different representations, including a cartoon, cadaver and like a comic strip.
“I think this whole job is wonderful because if you really want to be a part of something creative, you can,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about being looked down upon for being creative. Each artist is so different. I think, ‘This is how you see the world. This is how you see me. This is how you see everything around me.’”
Drawing the human form has been around for centuries, and according to Marius Lehene, an associate professor in drawing for CSU, the complex and recursive nature a human body offers a student is the biggest advantage and disadvantage in skills an artist can obtain.
From Leonardo Da Vinci and his work in representing the human anatomy and physical structure to artists such as Pablo Picasso, recreating the human body is a matter of trial and error. Lehene says that students benefit more from a human model because when an “elbow appears broken, it registers mentally in a different way” than an inanimate object.
“[Students] know that the human being in front of them is complex, and they apply this complexity to the internal structure, psychological structure, personality etc.,” Lehene says. “But they also see it as a complex physical thing so it is easier to help [students] pay attention and observe more carefully. If they misplace or disproportion something or mis-model something in their artwork they know.”
Lehene has been teaching for nine years, and loves to teach the figure drawing class at CSU, in which most, if not all, art majors will go through. He says that there are two ways of doing “representation” in artwork – either symbolic or through observation – and the human body is pure observation.
“Observing a human being is about conveying to you as a spectator, a viewer of art, the complexity of my observation,” Lehene explains. “Basically, what I am trying to get out of the use of a model is this trust of an investigation of observation as a tool. It needs to be looked at as a practice, not at something that happens to you.
“Just the fact that you see something doesn’t mean you have taken it in all its complexity. That figure is the human figure and drawing from a live model makes that really pragmatic.”
Photo by Stephanie Scott
Senior art major Katie Matteo learned that if a student doesn’t take the time to work on proportions and observation, then drawing things from real life would not turn out accurate.
“When drawing or illustrating in any form, you have to know proportions,” Matteo says. “When observed in a mature and professional perspective, figure drawing is just another opportunity to foster an artist’s abilities.”
And Lehene also says that the motivation and accuracy that occurs from drawing human models can come simply from a human’s inherent curiosity in other humans.
“Clearly, it is simple we are interested in each other as humans for biological, social, political, cultural reasons,” he says. “Reflection of that has always been present in art.”
Not only is it important for observation, but understanding and communication through art is highly essential, Matteo says.
“You not only learn how to observe and document the human figure on paper, but it is about being able to then communicate with other people,” she says. “At first, I didn’t understand the importance of the human body. Now, for art as whole, those basic principles of figure drawing I found you will draw upon again and again.”
Whether it is from the practical lessons or the convenience of the subject matter, students have retained skills learned by drawing nude models.
“[Figure drawing] seems to have survived the major changes of art in the 20th century. It survives both in schools and in artists’ practices,” Lehene says. “It is just didactically convenient that you have the subject matter to work from.”
Along with practicality, the art of figure drawing has lasted art movement after art movement, and continues to help students embody their human senses.
“I think all arts in one form or another deal with the senses and the senses are a function of the body,” Lehene adds. “That’s the great benefit – it makes students realize that the body is at the center of their aesthetic experience in one way or another and is crucial to how we are in the world. It is all hinged on this, us taking the world in through the body.”
As for Hernandez, the art of figure drawing is a concept that can cause the artist to have an open mind.
“If it wasn’t for the body to express feelings, emotions, whatever, how would we be able to understand each other?” Hernandez says. “An open mind can be a glamorous thing, if anything an open mind can connect you to a more enjoyable life and there is no limit to what you can create. An artwork, a friendship, a family it is all a matter of being open and what the world can show you.”
*editor’s note: lisa streeb contributed to this article.
Tags: Volume 5 Issue 1
