Study (art) in the context of "Sketch (drawing)"

In visual arts, the support is the solid surface on which the work is painted, typically a canvas or a panel. Support is technically distinct from the overlaying ground. Sometimes "ground" is used in a broad sense of "support" to designate any surface used for painting, for example, paper for watercolor or plaster for fresco.

The support for an oil painting can be either rigid or flexible, both providing certain opportunities and challenges for the artist. In order to get both the stability and the desired texture, painters for finished paintings usually use canvas that are pre-stretched on a solid frame or panel (so-called stretchers usually made of stretcher bars). These stretched canvas became popular in Venice in the 17th century. Since these supports are expensive, studies are frequently executed on pieces of canvas or paper. Canvas board, a piece of canvas mounted onto a paper board, provides another low-cost alternative for sketches.

An écorché (French pronunciation: [ekɔʁʃe] ) is a figure drawn, painted, or sculpted showing the muscles of the body without skin, normally as a figure study for another work or as an exercise for a student artist. The architect and Renaissance man Leon Battista Alberti recommended that when painters intend to depict a nude, they should first arrange the muscles and bones, then depict the overlying skin.

Some of the first well known studies of this kind were performed by Leonardo da Vinci, who dissected cadavers and created detailed drawings of them. However, there are some accounts of this same practice taking place as far back as ancient Greece, though the specifics are not known.