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| attributed to Andrea Sacchi Académie before 1661 drawing British Museum |
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| attributed to Andrea Sacchi Académie before 1661 drawing British Museum |
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| Simone Cantarini Académie from three viewpoints before 1648 drawing Prado, Madrid |
The drawing-exercise known traditionally throughout Europe as an Académie has persisted as a formal training tool from the early Renaissance even up to the present (though that "present" is a narrow one, comprising only the most conservative pedagogical settings where an old-fashioned and even quaint "Art Institute" ethos partially survives). Intense study from live models – repeated innumerable times – was intended (is intended) ultimately to liberate the artist from dependence on any model at all. The ideal was to build such a confident grasp of anatomy and disposition that figures could be improvised and yet retain an aura of full truth to nature.
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| Louis de Boullogne Académie 1710 drawing Cantor Center, Stanford University |
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| Pietro de' Pietri Académie before 1716 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Benedetto Luti Académie before 1724 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Nicolas Guibal Académie 1757 drawing Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
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| Francesc Agustín Académie 1780 drawing Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona |
And last, suppose great Nature's voice should call
To thee, or me, or any of us all,
What do'st thou mean, ungrateful wretch, thou vain,
Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain,
And sigh and sob, that thou shalt be no more?
For if thy life were pleasant heretofore,
If all the bounteous blessings I could give
Thou hast enjoy'd, if thou hast known to live,
And pleasure not leak'd through thee like a sieve,
Why dost thou not give thanks as at a plenteous feast,
Cramm'd to the throat with life, and rise and take thy rest?
But if my blessing thou hast thrown away,
If indigested joys pass'd thro', and would not stay,
Why dost thou wish for more to squander still?
If life be grown a load, a real ill,
And I would all thy cares and labours end,
Lay down thy burden, fool, and know thy friend.
– Lucretius, from On the Nature of Things, translated in the 1690s by John Dryden
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| Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié Académie before 1784 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Johann Friedrich Overbeck Académie 1808 drawing Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
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| Johann Scheffer von Leonhartshof Académie 1814 drawing Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
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| Ford Madox Brown Académie (full length) ca. 1847 drawing Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (England) |
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| Ford Madox Brown Académie (three-quarter length) ca. 1847 drawing Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (England) |
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| Ford Madox Brown Académie (half-length) ca. 1846-49 drawing Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (England) |
May all be fair and well for Ageanax,
And waft him sweetly to the wished-for port.
And I that day will wear upon my head
Wreath of anethum, or a garland-crown
Of roses or white violets, and quaff
From a deep flagon wine of Ptelea,
And by the fireside stretch myself to rest.
And I will have two shepherds flute for me;
The one from Attica, Aeolian one;
And Tityrus shall stand beside, and sing
How Daphnis burned for Xenia long ago,
And how he roamed the mountain, and the oaks
Sighed dirges for him by the river-banks
Of Himera, what time he died away,
As dies a snow-flake upon Haemus' top,
Athos, or Thodope, or on the steeps
Of extreme Caucasus.
– from an Idyll of Theocritus, translated by Maurice Purcell Fitzgerald (1867)