1603
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Studies of a Naked Seated Boy is a 1603 by Jacob de Gheyn II, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a boy sitting on a stool, drawn from three different angles on one sheet of paper. This is one of the first times an artist in the Netherlands drew a real person naked, just to study the body. Most artists then painted gods or heroes, not everyday kids. The light and shadow make his muscles look real, like you could touch them. If you like how the light plays on skin, look up *chiaroscuro*.
This sheet of studies of a young male model drawn from various angles is among the earliest nudes drawn from life in the Netherlands. The artist Jacques de Gheyn carefully observed the boy’s body and poses, concentrating on the modeling of his skin and muscles through light and shadow rendered with a combination of black and white chalks on gray-blue paper. The directness of this study was unusual in the Northern Netherlands around 1600, where the vogue for mythological scenes inspired human bodies that were more artificial than natural.
This sheet of studies of a young male model drawn from various angles is among the earliest nudes drawn from life in the Netherlands.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jacob de Gheyn II was a Dutch painter and engraver, whose work shows the transition from Northern Mannerism to Dutch realism over the course of his career.
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