Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

The purpose of this poster is to address the change in figure drawing at the Academies of Fine Arts in the 18th and 19th centuries and its relationship with the invention of photography. The methodologies applied during this research are based on literature review, regarding the influence of photography on figure drawing and how this new technology conditioned the drawing method of that time. Model drawing in the Fine Arts is an essential academic practice dating back to the first Academies since the Renaissance. Many artists of the 19th century used photography as an auxiliary tool in their creative process, causing a change in the human figure representation by using new graphic solutions. Therefore, the technique used for modeling the human figure before the advent of photography (hatching), was replaced by the smudging technique when rendering light and shadow. Additionally, the background also began to be drawn as opposed to leaving the figure in a blank page, as was usual in the 18th century. Photography emerges from an atmosphere of progress, with a new perception of reality and new drawing possibilities for visual compositions and rendering light and shadow.