Welcome to our third online lecture series organized by the EU4ART Universities in June 2020. 4 universities from 4 countries have united for one goal: sharing knowledge in the EU about our best and latest artistic practices to help the future’s generation to connect, share and create. The project is in the developing phase between 2019-2022. During this time we will offer you different possibilities to participate in: common exhibitions, open calls, virtual studios and lectures and short-term mobilities.
In the next few weeks you will have a chance to listen to artist talks and lectures online, from your couch!
Students can participate from the universities below:
- The Hungarian University of Fine Arts
- Dresden University of Fine Arts
- Academy of Fine Arts in Rome
- The Art Academy of Latvia
DATE AND PLACE OF THE 3rd LECTURE: 10th June 2020, 12.00 pm (Riga 13.00) on ZOOM (will send the link later)
REGISTRATION PERIOD: between the 3rd June – 8th of June 2020.
WHERE TO REGISTER: copy here the wp3 coordinator’s e-mail address
There is a limit of maximum 7 students per each university, so don’t hesitate to register!
Lecture 3 | Uldis Zariņš
Sculptor, Anatomy Lecturer and Author of two books
Uldis Zarins (Riga, Latvia, 1976)
Uldis Zarins is currently teaching anatomy at the Art Academy of Latvia.
He is the author of two books:
Anatomy for Sculptors (2013)
Anatomy of Facial Expression (2017)
Originally Uldis is a sculptor with more than a 25 years of figurative sculpting experience. After graduating from the Art Academy of Latvia in 2005 he became involved in numerous figurative sculpture projects all around the world. During this time Uldis realized there was a huge deficit of good visual material that could explain the form of the human figure. In 2013 he published his first book on the subject called Anatomy for Sculptors (Understanding human form). This quickly became popular worldwide among sculptors and CG artists and until now is still one of the most recognized books in the CG industry explaining human anatomy from the standpoint of the form.
There is no point of knowing the muscles and bones
if you do not understand the form itself.
The main idea of the 1st book was to break down the complex concepts and forms into simple, easy to understand geometrical primitives and then step by step increasing complexity, guiding the reader to complete understanding. It is nothing new of course. This concept was already described in the period of European Renaissance by Luca Cambiaso (1527- 1585) who in the mid-1560s began to draw in a simplified, geometric style that may have been inspired by similar works by Albrecht Dürer (1471- 1528).
This philosophy of multi levelness was later developed by such great anatomy teachers like George B. Bridgman (1865–1943) with his dynamic analysis of the human form in the great book Constructive Anatomy published in 1973. Later came Gottfried Bammes (1920 – 2007) with his anatomical and anthropometric principles described in the famous work Der nackte Mensch.
U. Zarins in his works is following the same path of these giants but rather using modern analysis methods and the latest discoveries in anatomy, physical anthropology and biomechanics.
‘’Visual Artists are the visual thinkers’’
According to Wolff, U., & Lundberg, in (2002) research, Art academy students reported significantly more signs of dyslexia than non‐art university students. That encouraged U. Zarins to use in his books less textual material and rather focus on visuals. It seems to be one of the factors of the popularity of his method.
What can medical science offer to Art education?
In 2017 U. Zarins published his second successful book Anatomy of Facial Expression. This idea of which came in 2015 when U. Zarins was studying contemporary medical research papers and plastic surgery literature on the anatomy of the soft tissue of the face. By his surprise he realized how useful this information could be for figurative artists. In the process of creating the book he was using advanced surface data analyzing methods such as Photogrammetry scanning and volume rendering analysis of the sophisticated medical diagnostic imaging such as CT, MRI and x-ray. Revealing very detailed analysis of the facial anatomy, physiology of the facial expression and dynamic age-related morphological changes of the human face.This along with plenty of reference materials from various angles. Anatomy of Facial Expression is popular not only among the artists but also plastic surgeons and Facial augmentation specialists.
U. Zarins is very interested in the practical value of the knowledge of anatomy but this knowledge must be applicable. Currently U. Zarins is doing his PHD on Ontogenetic morphological changes of the human face as well as working on his 3rd book Form of the Headand Neck that is supposed to be released in December 2020. It will be a fundamental and practical work on the detailed analysis of the form of the human head and neck, based on the latest discoveries in the anatomy of the face.