Leonardo’s human anatomy notebooks, 15th C

Vitruvian Man

Fetus and womb, ca.1510

Female genito-urinary system

 

As I'm staying this week in Florence -the key city on the Renaissance- I couldn't avoid to write a post about Leonardo Da Vinci: His earliest studies recorded were of topographical anatomy carried out in Milan starting around 1485. A decade later he returned to the subject, having access to cadavers at the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, where it appears he collaborated with the young anatomist Marcantonio della Torre. His final period, at the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Rome, started in 1513 only to be cut short by papal decree three years later.

Leonardo was an Aristotelian, and later a Galenist, and the accuracy of his anatomical sketches vary widely. Some are clearly direct observations: e. g., he was the first to draw the coronary arteries. Others were based on animal anatomy. 

Excellent photos of this post were taken by Luc Viatour from the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Basilique de Koekelberg in September 2007. More photos of the exhibition (link provided)

For sure this will not be the last post about the Great Leonardo in facsimilium... 

Figure Drawing, 20th C (the "pin-up" phenomena start)

Figure Drawing, a book intended for beginning commercial artists, was in every way more ambitious than Fun with a Pencil. Loomis’ approach to geometry, proportion and perspective as well as balance, rhythm and movement was as lucid and essential as anything ever published on the subject. It was is a classic of illustration. The American Academy of Art even called it “one of the most brilliant contributions that figure drawing has ever received”

WWII pin-up adaptation to increase soldiers moral in 1943 (not A. Loomis original)

William Andrew Loomis was born in 1892 in Syracuse, New York. At age nine he moved to Zanseville, Ohio and decided to become an artist after visiting the nearby studio of Howard Chandler Christy. After high school he (along with fellow student Norman Rockwell) studied at the Art Students League under George Bridgeman and Frank Vincent du Mond.

In 1915 he moved to Chicago to work at the pioneering advertising studio of Charles Daniel Frey and continued his studies under Leopold Seifert at the Chicago Art Institute. After service in WWI he returned to Chicago and worked in several studios before establishing his own in 1922.

For the next 20 years he would be one of the most successful commercial artists in America. He did editorial illustration for Ladies Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook and Life, as well as commercial illustration for Coca-Cola, General Electric, Maxwell House, etc.

Bibliography (from wikipedia A. Loomis BIO)

·         Fun with a Pencil (1939). Reissued as a full facsimile of the original on April 5, 2013 from Titan Books.

·         Figure Drawing for All It's Worth (1943). Reissued as a full facsimile of the original on May 27, 2011 from Titan Books.

·         Creative Illustration (1947). Reissued as a full facsimile of the original on October 12, 2012 from Titan Books.

·         Successful Drawing (1951). Republished in a revised edition as Three Dimensional Drawing (16 new pages with technical material on perspective replacing the pictorial gallery sections) and reissued as a full facsimile of the original on May 4, 2012 from Titan Books.

·         Drawing the Head and Hands (1956). Reissued as a full facsimile of the original on October 21, 2011 from Titan Books.

·         The Eye of the Painter (1961).

For an excellent review of Loomis' life and work see: Harris, Jack. “William Andrew Loomis. A Legacy in Words and Pictures.” Illustration. Fall 1997 Vol. 5, No. 20; 8-47, which is online at Issuu.

New Zealand Digital Art Entropy (19-20th C)

This costume sketch was originally designed by Mollie Rodie in 1940 for the Red Cross Pageant held in Wellington Town Hall on 18 September 1940. Mollie may have redrawn this sketch for the grand finale of the Victory Queen Carnival in Wellington Town Hall 3-5 June 1941, which featured the same pageant again. Pageants and queen carnivals were popular ways to raise money during World War II (1939-45).

Stick insect seen from above

Certificate shows a map of Antarctica in the centre, penguins at the left, men with a ski sled at the right, and a photographic portrait of Sir Edmund Hillary below. The whole is bordered by a yellow "rope". The certificate is signed by Charles M Bowden on behalf of the Ross Sea Committee. The manuscript signatures of George Lowe and E P Hillary are at lower right

Lane, John (Publisher), Date(s): 1894, 1895, 1896 and 1897...Showing four covers of 'the Yellow Book'. I was unable to find this books digitized this time...

Single storey thatched roof house, with an outbuilding behind and to the left, viewed through trees. A large exotic tree, possibly a willow is growing to the right of and close to the house. This mission station was moved from Mokoia Island to Te Ngae, on the eastern side of Lake Rotorua in July 1840. The Reverend Thomas Chapman ran the station for a period then later shifted to Maketu.

Vast majority of posted images are online available at the artwork section of the DigitalNZ project (link provided)

Sometimes I move from strictly “ancient manuscripts” –which is my main leitmotif in facsimilium- to almost “contemporaneous” art pieces. I discovered today the amazing project “New Zealand digital content” and for sure I’ll be back to other sections of this site...