Angle, Angle, Angle, Twist, Twist, Twist

Once upon a time, Western figurative artworks didn’t express much movement.

…and then someone bent their knee, shifted their weight, and the (boom-pow) interplay of weight and balance in Western art began.

Over time, artists began to relax and exaggerate the pose, and we had figures like this:

It wasn’t a straight line from standing to fully dynamic sculpture. There were some fits, stops, and detours along the way, but picking and choosing what we wish from art history starting with Greek classical sculptures, grabbing a few Romans along the way (it was probably Greeks that made Roman sculptures anyway), skipping the medieval period entirely to get a big boost in the Renaissance, then sashaying through Baroque, Neoclassical/Romantic, and up to today, we can make a thread.

When a figure shifts from standing straight to standing contrapposto, the weight of the body shifts to one leg, and that side of the hip goes up. Gracefully, the ribcage follows with a counter movement. In figure drawing, there are landmarks on the body that can help artists identify these shifts, recording the cascading series of diagonals and the dynamic S curve down the body. These landmarks form a line from hip to hip (asis to asis), a line from nipple to nipple, or more commonly, a line from shoulder to shoulder (acromion process to acromion process), and we can use meridians around the head – one going through the eyes.

An artist can also mark the spine, the sternum, and even the position of the feet in relationship to each other.

The angles of the hips, shoulders (ribcage), and head are our “angle, angle, angle.” Starting with this basic structure, a drawing can then be rounded out with mass and volume to add to the visual weight. The weight bearing leg is strong and pushes up into the pelvis, the pelvis holds the belly, ribcage tilts and juts out to the opposite side of the pelvis, and the neck and heavy head finish the curve at the top.

Looking at a drawing on the page, a figure with angle, angle, angle is a great example of weighted form and balance interplay.

Sculpture, if it chooses to accept the additional challenge, can take this idea even farther, because a sculptor has the opportunity to provide compositional weight and movement not just in two dimensions, but in three. This is where the twist comes in. Take those same blocks of the body, turn each to face a different direction. We now have a twist, twist, twist, and the figure is dynamic not just in two dimensions, but in three.

This is the stuff that artists love, and models fear. Why? Because it’s really, really hard to hold. Try it. Count the seconds. See if you can go 10 minutes. You’ll be uncomfortable in two and in pain at five. (If you can go 20 without untwisting, please contact me because you’re amazing and I want to hire you.)

So if you want to draw figures that have angle, angle, angle, twist, twist, twist poses, you’d better draw fast… or look at sculpture.

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