 |
| School of Fontainebleau Figure in Defeat 16th century drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Sébastien Bourdon Académie ca. 1640 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Simon Vouet Académie before 1649 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Jacob Van Loo Figure Study before 1670 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Louis Boullogne the Younger Académie 1690 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| François Lemoyne Académie ca. 1720 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Charles-Joseph Natoire Académie ca. 1725 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays Académie ca. 1750 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Carle Vanloo Académie before 1765 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| attributed to Carle Vanloo Académie before 1765 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié Académie before 1784 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié Académie before 1784 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Elie Delaunay Académie ca. 1850 drawing Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
 |
| Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Académie ca. 1855-60 drawing Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
 |
| Édouard Vuillard Académie ca. 1885-88 drawing Musée du Louvre |
"These seven years drawing after the model at the Academy, do you consider them well spent, and would you like to know what I think about them? It's here, during these seven cruel and difficult years, that one's draftsmanship becomes mannered. All these studied, artificial, carefully arranged academic poses, all these movements coldly and ineptly imitated by some poor devil, and always the same poor devil, who's paid to appear, undress, and let himself be manipulated by a professor three times a week, what do they have in common with postures and movements in nature? . . . This man who begs, prays, sleeps, reflects, and faints upon request, what does he have in common with a peasant stretched out on the ground from fatigue, with a philosopher meditating at his fireside, with a suffocating man who faints in the crowd? . . . What an art, and a great one, is the posing of the model; one need only observe how proud of it is Monsieur le Professeur. No need to fear that he might say to the poor salaried devil, my friend, strike a pose on your own, do what you like. Rather than allow him to assume a simple natural posture, he much prefers to assign him some eccentric one. And currently one has no choice but to put up with this. A hundred times I've been tempted to say to young students I encountered on their way to the Louvre with their portfolios under their arms: My friends, how long is it you've been drawing there? Two years? Why, that's too long. Leave this shop of mannered tics."
– Denis Diderot, from Notes on Painting (1765), translated by John Goodman