The French artist François Lemoyne recreates in this drawing recreates the lower half of a human body, which includes a half exposed leg and a protruding suggestion of a knee behind it. He also incorporates a draping fabric over the half-body which do not cover the legs to their entirety and the half-body is suggested to be resting on leveled ground. The master artist uses black and white charcoal, and tinted paper as his medium, this allows him to make fast nonstop lines that, for the most part are not blended, giving the drawing a sense of rapid motion that immortalizes the physical movements of Lemoyne’s hands.
The most distinctive characteristics of Lemoyne’s drawing is the variety of line work that are used in techniques throughout the drawing forming areas where the light reflects such as; the fabric, knee, and surface on which the figure rests; and the black areas of shading like
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This motion is enhanced by the drapery that invites the eyes of spectators to fall from the upper right corner of the fabric down to the left corner on which it ends which visually ties the legs together creating a unity in the design and an engaging fluid composition. Another characteristic of the composition is the placement of the elements; there seems to be an invisible line that is drawn from the rightmost marking where the fabric begins to falls, towards the bottommost marking where the drapery ends and an equal line from the knee farthest in space to the exposed foot. These two invisible lines create an X-shaped balance throughout the composition that is more engaging to the human eye that is subconsciously drawn towards symmetry and balance and accentuates the figure’s left knee as a central focal