Dynamic Figure Drawing is the most essential-and the most difficult-of all skills for the artist to learn. The hardest problem is to visualize the figure in the tremendous variety of poses which the body takes in action, poses which plunge the various forms of the body into deep space and show them in radical foreshortening. Foreshortening itself is, in fact, the single most challenging aspect of figure drawing.

This book introduces the author's own revolutionary system of figure drawing-a system which makes it possible to visualize the forms of the human body from every conceivable point of view as they interlock in deep space. With this system you will be able to draw an incredible variety of poses, actions, and gestures without a model, and with the correct relationships between forms.

Burne Hogarth was a founder of the School of Visual Arts in New York Citiy, where he served as Coordinator of Curriclum, Design, and Art History. His famed lecture demonstrations of anatomy and drawing provided the material for Dynamic Anatomy, Drawing the Human Head, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing Dynamic Hands, and Dynamic Light and Shade.

Mr. Hogarth received his education and art background in Chicago, where he started a diversified professional career that embraced some forty years of experience in art education, fine art, illustration, advertising, and newspaper art. He achieved worldwwide recognition with his illustrations for the Sunday newspaper illustrated 'Tarzan' and has since published Tarzan of the Apes and Jungle Tales of Tarzan in book form. His cartoons, drawings, prints, and paintings have been exhibited at the Musee des Arts at Decoratifs of the Louvre in Paris.

Contents

Introdcution
1 The definitive body forms
Shape-masses of the figure
Shape-masses of the head: Ball and wedge
Barrel shaped rib cage
The wedge box of the pelvis
Column forms of the arms and legs
Wedge masses of hand and foot
2 Figure notation in deep space
The torso is primary
The legs are secondary
The arms are third in importance
The head is last
Exercises in notation
3 Figure unity in deep space: Interconnection of forms
Overlapping forms
Form flow and form unity
Interconnection lines
Outline and contour
Tone gradation
4 Figure invention: Controlling size in foreshortened forms
Cylindrical and barrel forms
The cylinder as a rational form
Finding constant factors
Width of form as a constant factor
The arms
The hands
The joints
5 Figure invention: Controlling length in foreshortened forms
The circle in space: the ellipse
The joint as pivot; The member as radius
The isosceles triangle measuring device
6 Figure projection in deep space
Parallel projection of solid forms
Deep space projection of the figure in action
Figure invention by reversible projection
Perspecitve projection of the figure
Phase-sequence projections: the multiple action figure
Chin thrust leads body action
The hand in phase-sequence projection
Conclusion
Index

Browsed at Heather's. Neat geometric approach to body construction.

I love Burne Hogarth's drawing style. His Tarzan was one of the first graphic novels I read. He first made me see the connection between comic book art and classical figure drawing. ( )

All Burne Hogarth's art books are fantastic but this one is nothing less than a landmark in the field of art education. This book, along with Dynamic Anatomy are at the top of every 'get this book to learn human figure ' list. Really if you have a serious interest in drawing the human figure and it's a choice between this book and a days food ,starve yourself, I'm serious this book is that important. ( )