Standing Male Nude

The French Academy institutionalized the practice of life drawing in the 17th century, making the practice fundamental to every artist’s training. Any carefully drawn study of the nude body (typically male) was termed an “academy.” This accomplished example by the French 19th-century painter Lhermitte likely dates from the artist’s student days at the École Impériale de Dessin in Paris. Just shy of his 20th birthday, he had moved to Paris from a small village in northern France and enrolled in the school to study drawing.