A Figure seen from behind, Franz Kugler, Skizzenbuch, Berlin, 1830 (the back cover of the book)
Petitot, Masquerade a la Grecque, Parma, 1771
A FAKE GUEST, avoiding 13 at a table
THE LOVERS, MANY GOOD POINTS 1894
Men Stilts (knitting)
Figures made from implements 1896
Bunbury's Whims (Square, Round, Triangle)
The Minuet, a Midnight Revel (dancing objects 1828)
Comic Composites for the scrap book 1829
A Chinese Lady from a climbing Plant (1896)
 
 

 

01. from ALBUCASIS' three volume work on surgery Strasburg 1532

02. Giovanni Battista Bracelli, engraving from Variae Caprici , a set of compositions with human beings constructed from inanimate objects.

03. hand coloured lithograph c 1820 Grimaldi as Clown battling with a vegetable man.

04. hand coloured lithograph c 1830 17 x 21 cms

05. from JUDY c1870 English humour magazine

06. The Tin Man illustrated by W.Denslow from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 1900

07.satire on Mrs.Robinson and the Prince of Wales, 1782, see GRAPHIS 16, 1946.

08. E.-A.Petitot, Mascarade de la Grecque, Parma 1771. Petitot worked in Parma as an architect, and this engraving is one of an entertaining set of caprices based on the theme of the human body embedded in classical detail.

09. A Tax Inspector attends a Fancy Dress Ball in the costume that suggests his trade c1922

10. from Gerard de Leiresse, The Art of Painting 1778 - 18 x 24cms, oppos.p.13

11. A Triumph of Taxidermy - Jeremy Betham's Body stuffed and mounted in a case at the Guildhall in London.

12. The Stick Figure Informs from de Beaumont's Fencing Techniques in Pictures
Hulton Press/ The Amateur Fencing Association London 1955

13. Nicholas de L'Armessin, The Shoe Man , print, Paris , about 1720.

14. Zanti and the Elephant - a multifigural ambiguity -Indian print handcoloured c 1820

15. from Harlequin's ABC , W.Johnson London c1845, the alphabet on the traditional clown.


The discipline is, of course to observe and convey the basics of the human figure while the constituent elements are re-shaped from your own chosen repertoire of forms. Perhaps it is an essay in thematics - like the figures of Archimbaldo - or an essay in graphic ingenuity.