Henry taught life drawing not as an anatomical exercise but as a way of "freeing the eye"; participants were encouraged to forget what they "know" about the body and to appreciate the particular arrangement of light across the body. The final drawing was not an end in itself but a record of the act of seeing, and a means by which that seeing could be shared. This meditative approach calls for a humility, a suppressing of the ego, which has reverberations into how to live one's life.