Écorché

An écorché is an exercise in drawing, painting or sculpture of the human figure that shows the body's muscles without the skin or subcutaneous fat, so that the bone and muscle structure is visible. The term was commonly used in French academies in the 19th century.

As a method of anatomical study, écorché involves a constructive approach to modelling the figure, sculpting the bones and muscles that cover the bone structure layer by layer, working down to the outer layers. This allows the artist to reach a deeper level of understanding of how bone, muscle and fat combine to create the human form.

Aims

• To achieve an excellent level of understanding of how bone, muscle and fat combine to create the human form.
• To learn to simplify the complex forms of the human body to be able to construct the figure from imagination.
• To learn how to use anatomy as a storytelling medium, in order to give life and movement to figures.