I have no answers. A lot of artists do great without ever privileging the figure: Morandi, Chardin, Monet , Constable come to mind - there may be a few figures in their works, but it's not what the viewer thinks of when she hears their names. I'm on the other side, stuck with the figure. The figure is what I use to explore and express via lines and colors. Guston, Diebenkorn and De Kooning are people who come to mind - especially the latter two.
In the last few years my approach to the figure has matured. I've used a model on occasion (myself) and so my sense of structure and weight has improved.
There are figure traditions in other cultures, but their impetus for drawing the figure is foreign to me. I take delight in the Indian temple and in Persian and Chinese scrolls, but like Jung wrote of westerners appropriating yoga, I cannot claim an internal knowledge or intuition about them.
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