What is a live model?

Definition

In art, a model is a person who allows themselves to be observed by one or more artists or students for the purpose of creating a work involving all or part of the human body. Fine arts or visual arts schools often employ models in teaching. The artistic disciplines that most commonly use models are drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture.

Characteristics

A model can be called a "live model" as opposed to a non-animated model, often a drawing, painting, or sculpture.

By default, the model poses nude, designated as an "live model" or "art model" to affirm belonging to this field, unless otherwise indicated, in which case it will be indicated as a dressed or costumed model.

A model poses for teaching or an artistic project whose purpose is not to create a portrait — we say that a person "poses for their portrait," but not that they are the model. Models, whether professional, casual, or amateur, may pose clothed, costumed, most often nude, but also for their face, body, or body parts such as hands, legs, or feet.

Regardless of their gender, body type, age, or appearance, the model is considered for who he/she is and what he/she offers, and their quality of presence is essential. He/she must accept the attentive, even scrutinizing gaze of one or more people, which is rarely allowed in ordinary circumstances, and even less so when undressed.

For long poses, the model must be able to remain still and return to their pose after a period of recovery. For the short poses that multiply during a session, the model must be creative and understand the expectations and needs of the artist representing the pose and, where applicable, the teacher and their students.

Art education

The nudity and stillness — whenever possible — of the model allow a study of the morphology, proportions, volumes, shadows, lines, and gestures of the human body. The subject and the infinite variety of possible morphologies and poses make the study of the model and the representation of the body a basic exercise in all graphic and visual arts disciplines. In drawing, for example, nude sketching is one of the practices used to learn observational drawing.

Nude drawing has been considered the culmination of artistic training since the 15th century in Italy.

Since the 16th century, art education has included the study of anatomy. Artists of the Italian Renaissance created drawings based on ancient models and drew inspiration from Vitruvius’s theories to create an ideal body. Despite condemnation by the Church, some artists even practiced dissection of human bodies. The first examples of écorchés (drawings of human figures revealing muscles) are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.

Model drawing sessions were established by Article IV of the statutes of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (later "Académie des Beaux-Arts") upon its creation in 1648. The painters and sculptors of the Academy elected from among their number twelve "Anciens" who were responsible for opening the class and positioning the model.

Artistic training for painters began with copying drawings. It continued with detailed studies "from the hump" (sculpted models of hands, casts of antique busts, etc.), before moving on to drawing entire statues and " écorché " (flayed) body exercises. When the student had acquired sufficient mastery, they moved on to life drawing. They then moved on to drawing animals (mainly horses), drapery, and, in a master’s studio, the study of color.

In the academic teaching of the "Ancien Régime" in France, the nude model was exclusively male. The statutes of the Academy, in fact, were careful to state that classes were not a pretext for contact for the purpose of sexual relations (homosexuality was not supposed to exist). The few female students were excluded from the nude drawing classes. They were admitted to those at the Académie Julian in 1880 and to those at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1897.

Creation and History

For centuries, artists such as Matisse, Renoir, Degas and Michelangelo, have immortalized human bodies in their drawings, paintings and sculptures, relying on live models to capture the beauty and complexity of their anatomy.

In figurative art, using a live model allows the artist to ensure that what they represent conforms to human possibilities; the model helps to renew their imagination to avoid constantly reproducing the same method and moving away from nature. "One cannot be satisfied with drawing from the imagination. One must confront the living". According to André Lhote, writing in 1950, "for the masters, the model poses a visual problem for which it is moving to seek different solutions."

In the 16th century, Michelangelo exalted musculature and anatomical perfection. The new ideal figure, heroic and full of strength, reached its first peak in the great fresco of the Battle of Cascina. This work originated in the rivalry with Leonardo da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari, the other fresco that was to decorate the great hall of the Great Council of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. Neither of these two depictions of battles, the most famous in the history of art, has survived. Michelangelo’s anatomical study, through the play of musculature, gives the body an impressive appearance while expressing the turbulent inner life, energy, passion, and willpower of his creatures. After Michelangelo’s monumental frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the series of six sculptures depicting slaves remains among his major works today.

In the 19th century, young women like Madame Cavé and Victorine Meurent earned their living by posing, unable to make a living from their artistic production. In the role of model, they observed the painters’ methods and style in the studio, informally learned certain aspects of the profession, and participated in the artistic community. Suzanne Valadon, who had become famous in her own right, confided some memories of modeling to an art critic: "With Puvis de Chavannes, I posed not only as a woman, but also as a young guy. I am this ephebe you see here, he has my arms and legs. Puvis asked me to give him an attitude, a movement, a gesture. He transposed and idealized."

It was Géricault, with whom he will become a friend, who launched Joseph’s career as a art model from 1818, by giving his features to three characters in The Raft of the Medusa, including the man seen from behind, placed as a lookout, waving a scarf. He will become a favorite model of painters of that time. From 1832, Joseph was one of only three male models at the "École des Beaux-Arts". As a professional model, he received a salary of 45.89 francs.

Profession

As a professional occupation, the art model has, for as long as there is any record of it, been on the borderline between formal and informal employment. Schools employ models, paid annually. A collection among students, the "cornet" of paper into which a coin or bill is slipped, supplements the low salary and testifies to the model’s popularity. Artists recognize permanent models, without their names being given, in the work of their colleagues; they seek a greater variety of bodies to draw, which opens up the possibility of employing occasional models, whose remuneration is decided entirely by mutual agreement. Requiring no initial capital or training, the position of model is open to anyone willing to face the difficulties. In some cases, the "cornet" becomes the only salary. In the 21st century, this precarious situation, which was also that of cafe and restaurant servers, is no longer officially recognized in France. Undeclared remuneration, however, persists largely among individuals who have no legal means of paying a model.

The Model in Literature

"The narrative possibilities arising from a plot between painter and model are far more numerous and easier to present and develop than a discourse on creation." The relationship between the artist and their model, experienced at least in the 19th century, as intimate and troubled, has inspired numerous pages of fiction, theater, and opera, such as in George du Maurier’s Trilby.

In 1840, Émile de La Bédollière wrote in 1840 about the portrait of the model, a poser (male or female), a profession he described as disparaging, but "an integral part of the raw material used by the painter or sculptor," who deserved respect. However, his description of it is singularly lacking in sympathy : the model, poorly paid at three francs a day, does everything to reduce her workload. There are famous models in the studios, although ignored by the public, but the posing models, never admit their profession, despite the story of an idealized female model published by Jules Janin.

In Manette Salomon, the Goncourt brothers sought to describe apprenticeship and artistic practice during the July Monarchy. The character who gives its title to this novel, considered the first realistic depiction of the artist’s life in the 19th century, is a woman who poses for artists. Descriptions of studio methods and habits accumulate, as well as value judgments, notably the high-society anti-Semitism of the end of the century. The predominance of the male model is evident: "three weeks as a male model, one week as a female model," with the names and characteristics of the most famous; all hired for week-long poses in five-hour sessions.

Amaury-Duval "tried to give an idea of ​​this kind of profession to people of the world". Around 1825, the model posed for five hours, always in the morning, with, as today, a quarter of an hour’s rest every hour. "Four francs for women, three for men"; the profession was "very hard and difficult. You don’t know the value of a model who understands the movement you desire, and who knows how to render it". Amaury-Duval nevertheless cites a man, with a beautiful beard, who became a model because of poverty. Regarding women, he states that the "purified cult of beauty" protected the chastity of the "female posers", as the high society called them; but that times have changed.

In 1884, Émile Blavet was one of the few authors to describe the role of the model. For him, female models were, above all, diverse. Posing suspended the scandalous or erotic aspects of nudity. The female model could be modest or have a high opinion of her contribution to art. The artist valued, more than her physique, her ability to pose well.

In 1884, according to Émile Blavet, one of the few authors to describe the role of the model, female models were, above all, diverse. Posing suspended the scandalous or erotic aspects of nudity. The female model could be modest or have a high opinion of her contribution to art. The artist valued, more than her physique, her ability to pose well. The modeling profession was no more lucrative in the 20th century: "I had three models in Nice, three young girls aged seventeen to eighteen, very pretty. They were extras in the theater, and they posed. They were virtuous; they didn’t run. They were sometimes very hungry, so hungry that they lay on their stomachs to soothe the pains in their stomachs. They were waiting for something... a miracle.

The model’s point of view can be a literary project. "I exist for the work, but once the work is finished, I am forgotten. And I am quite happy about that," writes one philosopher, while another turns her gaze to the illustrators. "Observing a naked body from all angles has become very natural to them. Discomfort sets in when they come into contact with the clothed owner of this body, whose skin they know every square centimeter. The exposure of my nudity establishes a distance that only I can break".

Recognition of the Model

In 2008, following the abolition of the "cornet" in the Ateliers Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, models protested by posing nude in the middle of December in the courtyard of the Department of Cultural Affairs. This spectacular initiative led the models to denounce the lack of consideration for their profession and to create professional organizations demanding the valorization and recognition of the live modeling profession and its distinction from modeling, although they may differ on the statutory perspectives of the profession.

The accounts of these modeling collectives on their profession describe their working conditions and the particular condition of the person who appears nude for the work of the clothed people who voteize them.

Since 2008, these demands have revived a certain awareness of the contribution of the model to teaching and creation. In the 1920s, art lovers did not disregard the testimony of models. A movement of models had already demanded a wage increase in 1926.

Source: Wikipedia... among others.