French School 19th Century
The 19th century French school can almost be thought of as the model for almost all other 19th century academies. The drawing is characterized by a high contrast lighting scheme and an interest in capturing the character/likeness of the individual model. Previously students were free to change the scene and features of their model to fit their idea of a picture. Now life drawings are becoming more of an independent practice to grow an artist's skills. The strong sense of construction and movement is still there though later on the century this gives way for a bigger focus on capturing the overall light effect of a scene with the model being just one piece of this puzzle.
Included in this page is the expression head competition and painting from life competition. The expression head competition was based on the interest Charles Le Brun had to representing different emotions on the human figure. This interest becomes codified into a competition within the ecole. Along with this competition there is also the torso competition which shows the developing taste from idealized half figures to more naturalistic and earthy looking ones.
For more information about specific Ateliers and studios in Paris check out Ramon Hurtado's amazing database and the following websites for more info and images.
https://ramonhurtado.com/19cdatabase
https://catzarts.beauxartsparis.fr/fr/
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/
