Two Statues of Male Nudes c. 1754 - 1765

Hubert Robert made this drawing of two male nudes with graphite on paper. Robert was a French artist working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period defined by renewed interest in classical antiquity, and with it the male nude as an emblem of ideal form. The drawing shows two idealized male figures derived from Greco-Roman sculpture. These statues, and the artistic practice of drawing from them, speak to the central role of the Academy in defining artistic standards during this period. Robert himself trained at the French Academy in Rome, which promoted classical ideals as the foundation of good art. But in France the naked body was still seen as something shocking and so the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture restricted the use of nude models in the classroom. To understand this drawing better, we might research the curriculum of the French Academy, the debates around the nude in French art, and Robert's own biography. Doing so helps us to understand the complex social and institutional context in which this drawing was made, and the ways in which it reflects and shapes the artistic norms of its time.