''Study (Young Male Nude Seated Beside the Sea)'' (French: ''Jeune Homme nu assis au bord de la mer, figure d'étude'') is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist
Hippolyte Flandrin
Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin (23 March 1809 – 21 March 1864) was a French Neoclassical painter. His most celebrated work, ''Study (Young Male Nude Seated Beside the Sea), Jeune Homme Nu Assis au Bord de la Mer'' (1836) is held in the Louvre.
Biog ...
executed between 1835 and 1836. It is held in the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
, in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, and is the best-known work by the artist.
History
Flandrin had won the
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...
in 1832, a bursary which provided the winner with a trip to Rome to concentrate on their vocation. There, Flandrin produced this
study
Study or studies may refer to:
General
* Education
**Higher education
* Clinical trial
* Experiment
* Field of study
* Observational study
* Scientific study
* Research
* Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning
Other
* Study ...
, which he sent back to Paris in 1837, in fulfillment of the bursary's requirements for the student to submit works in the tradition of various genres. In 1857,
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
purchased the painting, which is now in the collection of Paris's
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
.
Description and analysis
The painting gained attention among contemporary French art critics, and remains one of Flandrin's best-known works, despite being produced relatively early in his career. The subject is an unidentified youth, an "
ephebe
''Ephebos'' (; pl. ''epheboi'', ), latinized as ephebus (pl. ephebi) and anglicised as ephebe (pl. ephebes), is a term for a male adolescent in Ancient Greece. The term was particularly used to denote one who was doing military training and pr ...
", who sits nude on a rock with his arms wrapped around his legs and his head resting on his knees, eyes closed. There is a sea in the background, and no distinguishable landmarks locate the figure. The enigmatic scene provides no explanation for the figure's pose:
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rema ...
(1811–1872) commented that the young man could be shipwrecked on a deserted island, or be a
shepherd
A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...
who has lost his flock. Ultimately, any explanation for this scene is left to the imagination, leading to comparisons with
Surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
art in the twentieth century.
Critical evaluation
In examining the influence of German
aesthetic theory on
French art
French art consists of the visual and plastic arts (including French architecture, woodwork, textiles, and ceramics) originating from the geographical area of France. Modern France was the main centre for the European art of the Upper Paleoli ...
, critic
Elizabeth Prettejohn
Elizabeth Francesca Prettejohn (born 15 May 1961) is an art historian and author of several books about art history. Her books have included '' Rossetti and his Circle'' (1997), ''The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites'' (2000) and ''Art for Art's Sa ...
finds that the roundedness of form and "flawless" modeling of flesh would have met with
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( ; ; 9 December 17178 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenism (neoclassicism), Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Ancient Greek art, Greek, Helleni ...
's approval as an exemplar of the beautiful. Prettejohn compares the figure's almost circular pose and sparse framing with that of
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
's ''
Vitruvian Man
The ''Vitruvian Man'' (; ) is a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to . Inspired by the writings of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, the drawing depicts a nude man in two superimposed positions ...
''.
Cultural influence
Vital to the painting's spread were reproductions based on an 1887 engraving by
Jean-Baptiste Danguin that was commissioned by the state. As awareness of the work grew, the painting, despite arguably meant to have no sexual subtext, became an
icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
of homosexual culture in the 20th century. Photographers
Marcel Moore and
Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun (, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob; 25 October 1894 – 8 December 1954) was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer.
Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portra ...
adopted the pose in a photograph of the lesbian Cahun, c. 1911. The painting was similarly evoked in early twentieth-century
art photography
Fine-art photography is photography created in line with the vision of the photographer as artist, using photography as a medium for creative expression. The goal of fine-art photography is to express an idea, a message, or an emotion. This stand ...
by
F. Holland Day
Fred Holland Day (July 23, 1864 – November 23, 1933) was an American photographer and publisher. He was prominent in literary and photography circles in the late nineteenth century and was a leading Pictorialist. He was an early and vocal ...
and
Wilhelm von Gloeden
Wilhelm Iwan Friederich August von Gloeden (September 16, 1856 – February 16, 1931), commonly known as Baron von Gloeden, was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boys ...
, and later by
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe ( ; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female Nude (art), n ...
.
[Latimer]
Notes
References
* Aldrich, Robert and Garry Wotherspoon (2003). ''Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II''. Routledge. .
* Latimer, Tirza True (2005). ''Women together/women apart: portraits of lesbian Paris''. Rutgers University Press, pp. 71–73. .
*
Prettejohn, Elizabeth (2005). ''Beauty & Art, 1750–2000''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 65–67. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Study (Young Male Nude Seated Beside the Sea)
1836 paintings
Paintings in the Louvre by French artists
Paintings by Hippolyte Flandrin
Nude paintings of men