Does life drawing still have a relevance in the 21st Century or is this something from the past and anachronistic today?
Life drawing has been a rite of passage for many western artists since the renaissance era. But to survive it needs to be more inventive and innovative in the way it is delivered to budding art students who will then take it forward and continue to push boundaries of modern art.
What is life drawing?
First off, a little background. Life drawing or figure/gesture drawing is the drawing of the human form in various poses and levels of detail. It can range from highly detailed and anatomically proportional drawings to loose and expressive sketches, to gesture drawings which shows the simple form, action and pose in a short amount of time.
Life drawing has been a rite of passage for Western artists since the Renaissance period up until recent decades. Development of life drawing was inspired by the art in the classical world. Discovery of ancient Greek and Roman statues through excavations in Italy and beyond placed emphasis on naturalistic yet highly idealised human forms. Renaissance artists aimed to represent the human form faithfully; as a result, study of the human body was needed from direct observation.
Michelangelo is famous for his paintings and sculpture, where he took inspiration from the classical world. He made preparatory drawings before he embarked on his major works, therefore figure drawing is useful to develop accurate proportions and a sense of natural realism.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto),c.1510-1511.Red and white chalk. 28.9 x 21.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Life drawing can be highly useful as it allows you to get used to the drawing form – this is why many leading artists have previously used life drawing as a cornerstone of art, to paint realistic paintings and document a particular scene, to aid the storytelling
Advantages of life drawing
Life drawing forces the artist to be disciplined; to concentrate and be persistent in achieving a naturalistic form. The benefits of life drawing are knowing anatomy allows one to examine skeletal and muscular systems.

Anatomy reveals how muscles and bones connect and interact depending on whether are relaxed or tense. Observing the muscles of the body allows us to begin to notice body rotation, tonal arrangements, the proportions and relationships of parts of the body, the angle/perspective.
Noticing these elements makes for faithful and naturalistic representation of the human form. Moreover, life drawing teaches you to simplify complicated objects. Simplifying shapes involves mapping out the rough overall shapes and proportions helps plan out the drawing, leading to greater chances of success. Being conscious of mark-making when drawing the human body with minimum strokes requires problem-solving skills.
Timed practice at life drawing classes forces the artist to simplify, estimate proportions and angles, emphasise gesture using medium to suggest gesture through tone. Life drawing classes encourage focus on practice of the human form, and as the poses change the degree of difficulty increases because changing angles forces the artist to adapt. This is different from, say, drawing from a photograph where the pose is static. It is evident that life drawing is an important part of artistic training because it sharpens the drawing skillset of an artist.
Although life drawing was widely seen as foundation of art and building blocks for artists to make preparatory drawings for paintings, sculpture, etc, it has fallen out of favour up until recently. William Blake, for example, reportedly dismissed life drawing classes “as looking more like death, of smelling of mortality”.
However, life drawing can be given a new lease of life by experimenting with the media that is applied to the paper. Rather than just using pencil and charcoal, experimenting with inks and water, using colour crayons, colours, oil pastels and using coloured paper to cut out shapes in response to a model’s pose - in similar method to Matisse’s later work – could broaden its appeal. Matisse called the process of making as both “cutting directly into colour” and “drawing with scissors.” Combining elements of art such as colour with life drawing encourages dynamic experimentation.

Henri Matisse "Blue Nude II", 1952, Gouache paper, cut and pasted on paper laid down on canvas, 103.8 x 86 cm Henri Matisse, 1952, Henri Matisse "The Flowing Hair"
Moving away from naturalism
The techniques employed in traditional art can be used to create new art. Having a good understanding of an accurate human form means that it can be distorted and disrupted. This is true for contemporary art in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a small island which has experienced violence and war over the last thirty years, fertile ground for expression. In the 90s and early 2000s, four artists emerged: Jagath Weerasinghe, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan and Muhanned Cader. Jagath Weerasinghe coined the term para-modernism.
They critiqued Sri Lankan anxieties, responding to collective attitudes - the rise of Singhalese Buddhist nationalism to the detriment of minority Tamils, Muslims and Christians. Poignant exchanges between the four artist culminated in ‘The One-Year Drawing Project’ from May 2005 - October 2007.
Muhanned Cader, Thamotharampillai Shanathann Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Jagath Weerasinghe May 5–August 1, 200 Curated by Sharmini Pereira Presented by SAVAC in collaboration with UTAC, University of Toronto Art Centre I believe life drawing remains important in a contemporary setting because, to disrupt and distort and depict images of topics like violence, genocide, war and human rights abuses, as the Sri Lankan artists did during the 90s and early 2000s, first of all, you need to understand how to draw the human figure. Jagath Weerasinghe’s expresses his frustration when confronted with organized political violence:

In other words, the skills you learn in life drawing can be used in so many other ways to depict the social concerns that are important to modern art and illustration. The human figure is key to commentating on human stories. Life drawing will always be critical to artist to give the artist adaptability and flexibility in whichever way the artist wants to tell the human story.
The need for more diversity
As the history of life drawing shows, this form of art hasn’t always been the most accessible. It often restricted, for instance, women from applying to courses at the Royal Academy of Art. There’s also an argument that it’s perceived as too elitist and equality, diversity and inclusion has not been at the heart of life drawing.
Classes can be expensive, preventing people without the means from taking part. There also needs to be a more concerted effort to improve the diversity of the artists taking part in life drawing courses, as well as the models who sit for life drawing classes. If all the models look the same, it’s impossible to get the depth and variety and different features that come from someone from an Asian or African or Caribbean background.
At present, it feels too heavily Caucasian-dominated, and for life drawing to still have a place in the 21st-century this will need to change, to challenge art students more. And give students from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to depict a wider breadth of humanity, which will encourage them to push the boundaries of modern art and illustration.
Overall, then, life drawing doesn’t need to be anachronistic, but it does need to make changes to still be relevant.
References
Books
Cader, Muhanned. The One Year Drawing Project. Raking Leaves, 2008.
Friedman, Samantha, et al. Henri Matisse : The Cut-Outs : [Exhibition, London, Tate Modern, April 17-September 7, 2014 ; New York, Museum of Modern Art, October 12, 2014-February 9, 2015]. New York, Museum Of Modern Art, Cop, 2014.
Journals
Gray, Maggie. “Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe.” Third Text, vol. 27, no. 2, Mar. 2013, pp. 292–295, https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2013.772354.
Ismail, Q. (2009). Bound Together: On a Book of Antiwar Sri Lankan Drawings. Art Journal, 68(4), pp.6–23. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2009.10791358.
Weerasinghe, J., 2005. Contemporary Art in Sri Lanka. Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific, pp.180-193.
Blogs
Royal Academy Drawing Blog
“Strike a Pose: 250 Years of Life Drawing at the RA | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts.” Royalacademy.org.uk, 2018, www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/from-life-history-of-life-drawing-annette-wickham.
The White Review
“Sri Lankan Contemporary Art - the White Review.” The White Review, 11 Oct. 2017, www.thewhitereview.org/feature/sri-lankan-contemporary-art/.
MOMA blog
“Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2014, www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1429.
Videos
“The One Year Drawing Project (2009).” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=lIbKgf2hA8o. Accessed 13 Apr. 2023.
Image References

Michelangelo Buonarroti,Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto),c.1510-1511.Red and white chalk. 28.9 x 21.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


Mcilroy, Pat https://artprof.org/learn/drawing-a-skeleton-inside-a-figure/ https://www.instagram.com/mcilroy_pat/


Henri Matisse. Two Dancers. 1937 | MoMA, New York 82×64 cm

Henri Matisse "Blue Nude II", 1952, Gouache paper, cut and pasted on paper laid down on canvas, 103.8 x 86 cm Centre Pompidou, Paris

Henri Matisse, 1952, Henri Matisse "The Flowing Hair"Abstract Expressionism,: nude painting,gouache, paper, Private Collection 108 x 80 cm

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