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THE BODY116

Measurement and Foreshortening

FORESHORTENING IS AN ASPECT of perspective. In the life class But if we could take a scaffold and climb up to the work,
it is the mechanism for ensuring that a drawn figure lies we would arrive to find many of the same figures strangely
correctly in pictorial space - limbs happily receding, or distorted, elongated as if stretched across the plaster. Up close
coming forward, without taking off, plummeting, or shrivelling on the scaffold we would witness Michelangelo's subtle
at odd, unfathomable angles. It is not so hard; patience, application of accelerated perspective, which is imperceptible
persistence, and a few measured comparisons are key. How from below. Smaller, more extreme examples have been made
to make and apply these is explained below and opposite. for court entertainment, to be translated by mirrors or seen
from only one point in the room; for example, the skull in
We also look at another very interesting branch called Holbein's The Ambassadors (The National Gallery, London).
accelerated (or anamorphic) perspective. This is chiefly a
correcting device by which figurative painters and sculptors Accelerated perspective plays a great role in much art. It
have for centuries countered the effects of our viewing their can also be a little demon in the life room, when beginners
work from far below or on the curvature of a vault. Imagine prop their board in their lap and look down at too steep an
Michelangelo's murals in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, with angle. To avoid its effects ensure you always look flat onto
dramatic illusions of figures painted in normal proportion. the surface of your page.

MEASURING

This is a simple method of making measured comparisons for relating the true
size of one part to another This is a tool to assist observation and thinking. It is
not complicated, and measurements do not have to be carried to the paper
and slavishly drawn the same size they appear on your pencil.

1Hold your arm straight. Lock your 2 Hold your pencil upright. Align the top 3 Keep your pencil perpendicular Measure
shoulder; elbow, and wrist joints. If your with a point on your subject. Close one and compare at any angle. Spend time
arm is not straight, you will make inconsistent eye. Move the tip of your thumb down to a making comparisons before you draw.There is
and unrelated comparisons. Return to this second chosen point. The length of exposed no need to mark them all down on paper; just
posture every time. pencil is your measurement. making them helps you see.

"Simple measured comparisons reveal surprising
truths about proportion, helping us to see more
clearly, and to draw what we see, rather that what
we believe we know from experience."