Studies of a Youth Pulling Ropes (recto); Faint Study of a Youth Pulling a Rope (verso) c. 1610s

Aurelio Lomi made this chalk drawing, Studies of a Youth Pulling Ropes, in the late 16th or early 17th century in Italy. During this time, the Catholic Church heavily influenced artistic patronage, as part of the Counter-Reformation. Lomi, who worked in Genoa and Florence, completed many public religious works, and so would have been alert to the need to meet the demands of his patrons. This image is not a finished artwork but a study of the male nude. Artists in this period would have been expected to master the representation of the body, not through direct observation, but by studying classical sculpture. The bodies of saints and heroes were idealized through the study of the male form. You can see how Lomi has worked on the same figure several times, paying particular attention to his musculature. The role of the art historian is to reconstruct these complex histories through careful study of archival documents, combined with an understanding of the social and cultural conventions of the period.