19th - early 20th century · Study of the body, ideal and mythological pretext

The academic nude results from rigorous learning of the living model, then from a transformation of the body into an ideal figure, bather, bacchante or study.

Drawing from a living model is at the heart of academic training. Students and painters study skeleton, musculature, balance and proportions before integrating the nude into a history painting. In the 19th century, the bather offered a privileged setting: water, toilet and mythology made the body acceptable at the Salon while allowing a wide variety of poses. Bouguereau seeks continuous skin, a clean outline and readable gestures. Flandrin, in his Young Naked Man Sitting by the Sea, transforms study into an image of withdrawal and silence. Flandrin, in his Young Naked Man Sitting by the Sea, transforms study into an image of withdrawal and silence. Flandrin, in his Young Naked Man Sitting by the Sea, transforms study into an image of withdrawal and silence. Couture, Cabanel, Gérôme or Leighton move the motif between antiquity, orientalism and a studio scene. This tradition manifests one high technical mastery, but it also conveys canons of beauty and asymmetries of the gaze. The collection invites us to compare the function of study, idealization and staging. The "Nudes and academic bathers" selection notably compares Allant au bain (1887) and Baigneuse crouchie (1884). His reading favors drawing.

The academic nude is never just a body without clothing: pose, title and setting determine whether it becomes study, allegory, bather or spectacle.