Notable painters that were good at the human figure.

[Samari]

Hey I'm looking for a few notable artists like John Singer Sargent who were really good portrait/human figure artists. It's basically from my Introduction to Figure Painting class at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. The upcoming assignment consists of finding a painter in the such mentioned description and find a painting they did and basically recreate the image with the palette given to us.

So I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions? I'm really excited for this assignment because human figure is the thing I like to draw the most. I'm still new to painting (mostly been a drawer all my life) but I'm anxious to learn.

I apologize in advance if a thread like this has already been created a bunch of times. I just wasn't sure what to put in the search box.

[Hexokinase]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=129632

[Samari]

Thanks.

[sweetoblivion314]

I did Thomas Eakins for that project.
this painting
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eapa/ho_17.172.htm

my class had a huge variety of master copies. Michaelangelo, Sargent, Frazetta, Caravaggio and many more. Find a painting that really hits home with you and it will turn out good.

[B u r l]

You might want to try and stay away from artists who's brushwork is too loose or stylized, as the paint application might distract you from the actual form and construction of the figure. Maybe have a look through here - http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2005/Reasons/museum1.asp

[Samari]

This is the image I'm thinking about using. I checked a few samples of a lot of the artist's given as examples from the other thread and I thought that Joaquin Sorolla was really impressive...or rather he had two images that caught my eye. I choose to go with this one:

http://www.cult.gva.es/mbav/data/0903.jpg

I'm still really raw when it comes to painting. So I didn't want to choose something that was super difficult in terms of a lot of colors. Hopefully my teacher doesn't see this work as "too easy". Not that I want an easy painting to work from, but like I said I don't think I'm ready for a super detailed painting.

[FlameDragon]

I always liked William Bouguereau's paintings of the human figure.

[Psypomp]

Man, I cannot get enough of Jean-Leon Gerome's women (sorry that sounds weird). He really understood skin as something supple and brilliant. He had a way of painting that just makes skin glow.
Here's a very large img example ("Pygmalion and Galatea"):
http://rtmulcahy.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/pygmalion_and_galatea_ca_1890_.jpg