A life model is a person who poses for an artist as part of the creation of a work of art.
This term is often used in artistic disciplines such as drawing, painting, sculpture, modeling, and photography.

Artistic Importance : Using a life model allows the artist to examine in detail the morphology of the human body, to ensure the accuracy of what it represents, and to renew his imagination by capturing its bodily expression, thus avoiding the repetition of styles or forms.

Role in Teaching : Life models are essential in art schools to help students understand the proportions, volumes, and gestures of the human body. Studying the life model is considered a fundamental exercise in learning the graphic and plastic arts.

Pose: Historically, since the Renaissance and even before, the model has posed nude, but may also pose clothed, and may be observed for their entire body or for specific parts such as the face, bust, hands, or legs. Long a fundamental exercise in artistic training, the nude allows for the study of human anatomy, composition, proportions, shadows, and volumes. Poses can be short (from a few seconds to two minutes) for quick sketches, or longer (from ten minutes to several hours for sculpture or modeling). However, the longer pose encourages observational drawing, creation and graphic or plastic experimentation.

Diversity : There are no strict criteria regarding the model's gender, age, or body type, with the emphasis being on diversity rather than a specific standard of beauty. Moreover, in our time, gender parity in the choice of models is increasingly becoming the norm in art schools and art workshops.