Word: draftsmen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...recorded the artistic elites of the 1850s and '60s. Ingres loved doing portraits--and hated it. It was both hackwork and the vehicle of some of his highest instincts as an artist. It drove him crazy: "I don't know how to draw anymore," this greatest of 19th century draftsmen moaned to a friend. "I don't know anything anymore. A portrait of a woman! Nothing in the world is more difficult; it's not doable. I'm starting it over. It's enough to make a man cry." And he undoubtedly meant...
...Guide" tells how picky patrons with unique sensibilities and refined tastes naturally influenced these artists. One might think the draftsmen were obsessed with French high culture, until one remembers that not all artists are happy if they are starving. Details of the teaching, evolution and politics of art and artists alike are recounted in succinct, if not breathtaking, prose. Stylistic languages, frivolous fads and "debates at the Academy on the merits of color versus line" populate the world of French draftsmanship...