The History of Cast Drawing, and How It Can Help You Draw Form

In order to make money, Leonardo at times helped his apprentices produce pieces as if on an assembly line, as had been the practice in Verrocchio’s studio.

We were calling this a Life Class, except that the group had to describe the various positions we asked our models to strike in words, rather than with pencils or pastels. I reckoned writers had as much to learn working from a life model as artists did. They too should sit in circles studying the human form, both naked and clothed, striking differe

“Significant parts of the modeling of the Saint Jerome were added twenty years after his first outlining of the figure,” said Clayton, “and that modeling incorporates the anatomical discoveries that Leonardo made during his dissections of the winter of 1510.”

By pursuing science that went well beyond its utility for painting a picture, Leonardo could have fallen prey to academism. Some critics have suggested that his excess of diagrams showing light hitting contoured objects and his deluge of notes about shadows were at best a waste of time and at worst led him to be too studied in some later works. To