In art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, a study is a drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

, sketch

Sketch (drawing)

A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work...

 or painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 done in preparation for a finished piece, or as visual note

Notetaking

Notetaking is the practice of recording information captured from a transient source, such as an oral discussion at a meeting, or a lecture. Notes of a meeting are usually called minutes. The format of the initial record may often be informal and/or unstructured. One common format for such notes is...

s. A study can have more impact than a more-elaborately planned work, due to the fresh insights the artist is gaining while exploring his/her subject. The excitement of discovery can give a study vitality. Even when layers of the work show changes the artist made as more was understood, the viewer shares more of the artist's sense of discovery. Written notes alongside visual images add to the import of the piece as they allow the viewer to share the artist's process of getting to know the subject. Unfortunately notepaper lacks the quality needed to ensure the study's longevity.

Studies inspired some of the first 20th century conceptual art

Conceptual art

Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

, where the creative process itself becomes the subject of the piece. Since the process is what is all-important in studies and conceptual art, the viewer may be left with no material object of art.

Studies can be traced back even as long ago as the Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

, from which art historians have maintained some of Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

's studies. One in particular, his study for the Libyan Sibyl

Libyan Sibyl

The Libyan Sibyl, named Phemonoe, was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Zeus Ammon Oracle at Siwa Oasis in the Libyan Desert....

 which can now be viewed on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...

, is quite ironic. Though he used a male model on which to base his study, the finished painting was of a woman. Details such as that one only help to delve deeper into the thought processes and techniques of many artists.