apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Don't know of any but thank you for the research! This is one of the reasons why I am SO happy AT added a DC section.

I find it strange that "figure drawing" exists. Nude models were appropriate in past times, when art designs were based on human form; but today's art is based on the rejection of human form. Besides, we have photography; so who needs traditional drawing, anyway?

The movie Art School Confidential showed how crazy art schools are. In the life class depicted there, the students were just as willing to draw the ugly guy as the beautiful girl.

I guess that "art" requires us to do inexplicable things, because "art" is itself inexplicable. Again and again we see the results of this opinion on the pages of AT.

ebanfield-

Wow. I find your comment very intriguing. I couldn't ever imagine an absence of figure drawing classes. I remember feeling the same way about still life lessons in my art classes (and still hate still lifes) but I can't deny the lessons wrapped in the practice: light & shadow, form and how the objects relate to their surroundings, space, etc. that pictures do not even come close to capturing. Even in today's movements towards the abstract and beyond abstract, I would be surprised to find very many artists who did not have a stake in the fundamentals. And even if they progressed to their current abilities and styles without them, they couldn't deny the influence of the human form.

Even outside of 2-d art, any furniture designer, for example, would need an understanding of the human form when considering how real people would be interacting with these products. I myself, am constantly generating ideas for furniture based on the shapes the human body creates and the first thing that occurred to me was to return to taking figure drawing classes to help better understand and develop my ideas.

Also, beyond that, we have to acknowledge the cyclical ebb and flow we see throughout history, in fashion, music, politics and life as a whole. So even though today in a given gallery showing you might not see direct influences of a figure drawing class, it is not to say we won't in the future.