In case you didn't know, the French were instrumental in the development of drawing and painting in the world. The Palais des Études of the École Nationale Superieur des Beaux-Arts also known as the French Academy or Beaux Arts proved to be the preferred source of great art for kings and emperors alike. It is also the origin of the "pedigree" of great american artists like Thomas Eakins, Robert Beverly Hale, Norman Rockwell, Daniel E. Greene among many others. Pictured above is the writer of this blog in the courtyard of the school in Paris back in 2008.
If you do your research, you will find most great contemporary figurative painters are somehow connected to this great institution, not necessarily because they attended that school, but perhaps their professor, or the professor of their professor went there. Hopefully one day somebody will be researching me and finding that I too, was connected to this school ;)
Well, my homework for this week is to draw one of the most famous faces in art, studied by thousands of students throughout the world. Most people don't know the face belongs to the death mask of a lady that was found drowned in the Seine River. No one ever claimed her, but she became a legend because of her beauty and pleasant expression: "La Jeune Femme."
For now I am only sharing the struggle of just having to draw her, but I will report my process soon...
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