Abstract Depiction of Human and Animal Figures: Examples from Two Centuries of Art and Craft

Abstract

The human figure is important in art. I discuss examples of the abstract depiction of the human figure and the challenge faced in attempting to mimic algorithmically what human artists can achieve. The challenge lies in the workings of the human brain: we have enormous knowledge about the world and a particular ability to make fine distinctions about other humans from posture, clothing and expression. This allows a human to make assumptions about human figures from a tiny amount of data, and allows a human artist to take advantage of this when creating art. We look at examples from impressionist and post-impressionist painting, from cross-stitch and knitting, from pixelated renderings in early video games, and from the stylisation used by the artists of children's books.