The study of the skeleton and soft tissues of the human body. Learning all the long scientific names has no value except for communicating with other artists, but the understanding of what is happening beneath the skin (and why) has a profound effect on life drawing.
The great life drawing masters like Egon Schiele achieve powerful effects through understanding form and structure. In the case of Schiele, this evident knowledge is made more exciting where he selectively chooses to distort and exaggerate or be accurate in a creative dance between knowledge, observation and imagination. Before Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and their dissections, the study of anatomy was considered a mortal sin, even for doctors except in the rarest of circumstances. Since that time it has been considered an important component of the artists training
