Back View of a Male Model

In a break with the academic tradition, artists in the modern era favoured female nudes. Exceptionally, here John Lyman used a male model. The twist to one side of his pelvis is counterbalanced by the opposite tilt of his shoulders, making the trunk of the body form the trapezoid defining the chiastic pose typical of Classical statuary; the triangle of the G-string echoes the trapezoid of the trunk.