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lesh is what makes the human form so very fascinating for artists. Its individual layers are translucent allowing for varied hues on an overall opacity. It elasticity allows for demonstrations of tension and relaxation and though it is generally only capable of convex surfaces, it can form elaborate shapes that suggest concavity and straightness. Most exciting though is the way that it can be used to suggest otherwise invisible forms. Spend a few moments watching your hand in motion and soon you will begin to see through the flesh to the bones, muscles, and tendons beneath. It is a fascinating coverlet for an equally fascinating structure but it has the additional feature of being able to convey a narrative. Look at the hand as it crooks into a claw or settles into fist and you will see that more than just following the movements of the articulation, the flesh emotes. It hardens and softens, twists and smoothens or forms knots of tension as required. Study the fist in two modes: first when it is dormant and relaxed and then tighten it up in an effort to bring the flesh in line with the sentiment of tension. We know when flesh is dormant. It communicates itself very clearly.
 
That is why, when I sat among the life drawing sessions that were put on by the Uffizi, that I first became frustrated. When a model poses and holds that pose for an extended time they put their flesh (and muscles) to sleep. We draughtsmen therefore have no choice but to draw upon our experience and imagine how the figure should look if the flesh were excited to be there. Degas had the right of it when he had his models not ever stop but to walk and dance about the studio au natural. There is remarkably little life to be drawn from traditional sessions.
 
Every city has these institutions where aspiring or practicing artists can drop in and, for a small fee, work from a nude model for several hours. Naively, I had expected Florentine life drawing sessions to somehow be better than most. Unfortunately though it followed the same problematic procedures as every other session that I'd found. We all settle into our places in a semi-circle and the model would unveil herself and then perform a short series of 'gestures' . There is in all of these sessions no authority nor instruction. An organizer communicates with the model on our behalf and we all watch her as she goes through her motions. These gestures, as noted above, are not short energetic expressions of movement as they once would have been intended to be, they are instead minute long poses with relaxed flesh. The common impression is that this is to warm up on and this is how the Florentine artists used it. Following the gesture drawings, the model adopts poses for fifteen minutes and then moves on to thirty or sixty minute poses.
 
So, after a few hours of this, I stood up to stretch my own flesh and took the opportunity to see what the modern masters were doing in this city that is so much the birthplace of figurative drawing.
 
Bah! Here too, as everywhere else, the attendants failed to grasp the concept of what life drawing was supposed to be...or even drawing at all. Here they were trying to make their pretty pictures where sadly contemplative figures stand in for bored models. This insipid picture making demonstrates no knowledge of the human form and worse, detracts from making any effort to learn it.
 
I did not vent. I did not murmur nor do much more than brood. Had the city lost its legacy? Had I been fooled by the splendid monuments and architecture strewn about the squares into thinking that Florence still understood what it had? How can one live among such art without appreciating it? I do think that one cannot appreciate art if does not understand it and if it is understood then when one goes to emulate it, it will have more resonance and reflection.
 
What left me so certain that these students of art and life were missing the point? When one draws from a model the purpose is not to make art. It is to study the human form so that later, when you fully understand it, you have the tools to make art. Beauty does not come from sketches of bored naked students sitting on stools. Knowledge though can. My own sketchbooks have no finished drawings. There is a knee in one corner, a thumb attempted three times in another, perhaps a variation on abdominal retraction with annotations and observations noted throughout. It is not uncommon for me to spend an entire day concentrating on ankles. Life drawing is for note taking not art making.
 
You can imagine, I imagine, why I managed to not make any friends among the art community while I was in Florence. I was able to combine shyness, language problems and bitter arrogance into a splendid cocktail of anti-social surety.
 
I was forced to stop going to life drawing sessions regularly when I realized that they were, instead of leaving me amused and inspired, depositing me into my tiny apartment angry and disillusioned. It must be understood that my arrogance was not a personal arrogance but rather arrogance on behalf of the dead.
 
I know that I will never be good enough as an artist until I am on par with Michelangelo, Raphael, Masaccio, and Leonardo. If I were only as competent as Vasari I would count myself a failure and perhaps that is where I stood at that time. Vasari at least was much more knowledgeable on varnishes, paint application, and practical techniques. So I saw myself as a very poor artist since I could not compete yet with the Sistine ceiling yet still I was many leagues ahead of the masses of other would-be artists because I at least understood the goal and was working toward it. These people, regardless of whatever dexterity they may have had with a stick of charcoal, had but a mediocre objective and were taking a wrong road to get there. I could look down on them while still being a failure myself. This ability is not unique to myself, of course. It is true that all through our societies that the downtrodden look down upon those beneath themselves with contempt. This phenomenon is as repugnant and irrational to me is at is a truth.
 
As long as we are exploring the absurd, it should be remarked that during these days while I was forcefully cut off from all society, I was obsessed with my explorations of man and how to represent man and his soul in my art. Certainly I would sit in the park and observe people as they went about their days and would read discarded newspapers to keep abreast of the world but one imagines some wise man saying that in order to understand mankind you must immerse yourself in it and, more, you must be a man. Enter society and live. There I am again studying the stars while earthbound. I should perhaps ascend.
 
 

V