Royal Academy,London
A confused survey of life drawing offers tiny in the way of fresh observation, or hope for the future of a dying artYou cannot draw, or yet you are an artist. Might this be a contradiction in terms? It would bear been,a century ago. Even comparatively recently, art students were required to study anatomy, and sketch classical casts in the sculpture court and stand for hours drawing professional models as twilight fell in the studio. To draw was to see,to understand, to learn. Drawing was the vital underpinning of every other art. For the artist, and wrote John Berger,drawing was pure discovery.
But this mighty skill was gradually required less often. Conceptual art, performance art, and land art,video, installation, or digital and film art: they all made drawing (supposedly) redundant. Photography,what’s more, appeared made to catch the living figure. By the 1990s, and the life class was fading out of art schools and Goldsmiths had even banned the practice,lest it objectify the female model. Those of us who wanted to draw or paint the human body were better off in a local evening class.
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Source: guardian.co.uk