Figure study

A figure study is a drawing or painting of the human body made in preparation for a more composed or finished work;^[1] or to learn drawing and painting techniques in general and the human figure in particular. By preference, figure studies are done from a live model, but may also include the use of other references^[2] and the imagination of the artist. The live model may be clothed, or nude, but is usually nude for student work in order to learn human anatomy, or by professionals who establish the underlying anatomy before adding clothing in the final work.

A related term in sculpture is a maquette, a small scale model or rough draft of a proposed work. Drawings may also be preparatory for sculptural work.

Preparatory studies may be compositional, representing the entire proposed work, or may only be of certain details, such as hands and feet. Studies may be sketches completed in a relatively short length of time, or very detailed depending upon the artist's preferred methods. Drawings may concentrate on shapes and form, while studies in painting media are about color and lighting.

The term figure study is sometimes used in photography,^[3] but does not seem to be clearly defined as different from nude photography in general, given the inherently finished nature of the medium. Photography students may do work that is for educational purposes, and an artist may take photographs with the intent of using them as references for paintings, but the terms figure study or nude study is usually not limited to these preparatory or educational photos. This usage may have begun in the 19th century, when some photographers called their nude images "studies for artists" merely to evade the censors.^[4]