#plaster head

A still life with a plaster head in the artist's studio   -  Henri Frédéric Boot 

Dutch, 1877–1963

That head attracted my attention most of the others. I was looking at it, and there was such an unusual feeling as if that head hypnotized me. There were many other plaster heads, Apollo, Caesar, Amazon and they were really beautiful and perfect, but i looked at that very head, which seemed to be so simple and so complicated at the same time. 

Later, i learned that that head is the ‘Houdon Head’ or ‘Ecorche’, a plaster head of generalized planes. The tutorial gives and idea of the construction of three-dimensional structure of the head, patterns of light and shade and perspective reductions. 

Jean-Antoine Houdon, the french sculptor, has created the figure of Saint John the Baptist, the first draft of which, he executed in the form of an anatomical figure, using all the knowledge he got from Segur, the surgeon. Segur taught Jean-Antoine Houdon anatomy on corpses in the hospital of St. Louis of the French.