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How to draw the human figure? The trite answer, much in vogue in the hands-off school of drawing instructors, is “just draw what you see”. This is good enough advice for amateurs who may use art for purposes ranging from amusement to therapy, and there is nothing wrong with that. But even skin deep reflection will show that we have no clear concept of what we see, nor how to translate what is seen to what is drawn. All it takes is a peek at the optical illusions of anamorphosis (Araújo, 2020) to make sure of that. The fact is that there is no clear road from the object to the visual brain and certainly no straight road from eye to hand. There are several attempts in the literature at codifying what “drawing what we see” might mean. One who enjoys favor in art schools is the method of Nicolaides, who equates seeing with a sort of phantom touching, a sort of trick of proprioception. It is a method with great charm, but to call it “The” natural way to draw, as Nicolaides does in the title of his book (Nicolaides, 1990), is going too far. “Natural for what” is the question. The illustrator who must draw to tight requirements will not be using that method. Not touch, but geometry, subdivision, analysis, measurement, will be his tools. In short, there are many “natural” ways to draw, just as many as there are purposes for drawing. Some types of drawing require that you draw what you see (in some sense), some require that you draw what you know.
So today, as ever, the artist who must draw or sculpt to spec must know. And so it is in particular with drawing or sculpting the human figure. And in that field a great hurdle of learning is the understanding of the high volume of information on human anatomy (Eaton, 2006). The knowledge of the human body has been mostly acquired by anatomical exploration (Skrzat & Zdilla, 2019), and today this knowledge can be transmitted in more accessible ways than through direct human dissection (Chaker et al., 2021), the digested information embodied in virtual models. Yet the wide and deep well of detailed, medical anatomical knowledge is hard enough to translate into the specific abstractions required by the artist, which are different than those of the medical doctor. Another “dissection” is required.
The 3D sculptor with his digital tools faces the same problem of the mind as the old masters with their chisels and scopes, because the problem is one of the intellect: the body is incomprehensible when seen as a whole. That is the purpose of the anatomical canon.
The canon is today in disfavor in many artistic circles due to its association with the notion of a measurable standard of beauty, and both beauty and, dare one say, standards, are out of favor. But even without questioning the trend itself, it can be said that dropping the canon over that objection would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The canon is not just a standard of anatomical beauty – it is also an anatomical mnemonic (Azevedo & Araújo, 2020). It is a model of the body that above all must be simple enough to keep in the artist’s mind, as a standard against which a real body may be triangulated and measured: upon seeing or conceiving a specific body the artist can ask: are the legs longer, is the chest wider than that of the canon? For we see only by comparison to a reference. Without a reference, all is confusion. To complain that the canon does not have the shape or proportions of “real bodies” (whatever that means) is as misguided as to complain that a one meter ruler should not be used for measuring because not all measurable things are one meter long. That’s not how you measure things.
So the canon — and in particular the digital canon — serves both as starting point, and as continuous support and guide during the process of sculpting; it is a compass and a map.
We are not claiming that there is one correct canon! The canon is not unique. Every artist could have his own personal canon. But a good, ready-made canon is a useful tool that the artist — sculptor or painter — profits from acquiring at the start of his creative life. The canon carries the experience of more senior artists. Slowly, as time progresses and experience grows, the artist is almost sure to tweak the canon to his own preference, to make in fact his own canon, slowly evolving for the rest of his life. But a start is required. What we propose here is one such canon (or at least a first iteration of one) that is especially fitted to the needs of the digital sculptor.