(2) Both academies used drawings as powerful didactic and propagandistic tools. Drawings are a more effective form of representation than models, for example, allowing the artist to force the viewer to experience the project from a predetermined, fixed viewpoint. Subject matter, the inclusion and exclusion of various elements, presentation, and format all contribute to persuade the observer to view the monuments in a particular way.
(3) The classical tradition, the preferred academic style, was constructed as a deliberate incorporation of qualities imitated from antique art, providing support for the values of the antique past. The tradition has political, social, and artistic implications, all of which were utilized by the French and American Academies in Rome.
(4) For the nineteenth-century French academicians, classicism included not only the antique and the Italian Renaissance, but also the works of the seventeenth century, the French Renaissance, Philibert de l'Orme, François Mansart and François Blondel Ref.1. The French understood classicism to be a rational concept with canons reducible to a series of easily explained rules and models. If classicism could be codified, subjected to measurements and laws, it followed that it could be taught and handed down to successive generations.
(5) At the time of the establishment of the American Academy in Rome at the end of the nineteenth century, America was experiencing its own fascination with classical antiquity. A discovery and reinterpretation of the past led to the belief that America had a special relationship with the Italian Renaissance: a revival based on antique sources of art, architecture and writings. The founders of the American Academy drew parallels between social and political conditions in America and those of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy. Carpetbaggers and wealthy industrialists were the American equivalent of Italy's merchant princes. Americans, with their nascent country, looked to the Renaissance, which itself emerged at a moment of rupture, for inspiration and architectural models which could be imitated and transformed to suit contemporary needs. Just as during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, there was growing interest in America in the elevation and professionalization of the arts; one of the strongest factors leading to the founding of the American Academy in Rome.
(6) Long before the French and American Academies in Rome required their students to produce detailed extant-state and restoration drawings of monuments from classical antiquity as educational tools, there existed already a European tradition of this type of representation. Books illustrating classical monuments had been available since the Renaissance but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries scholars published encyclopedic material about the ancients. In addition, archaeological excavations had begun with the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 1730s and increased in Rome in the latter part of the eighteenth century. These excavations were published leading to a more critical approach to dealing with the remains of ancient monuments. Ref.2
(7) Drawings formed an essential component of the architectural program of these two institutions. They were the means for winning the entry competitions and once a student was admitted, served as the primary educational tool. Students learned about the classical past through measuring and carefully reproducing existing monuments as well as hypothetical reconstructions based on extant remains. For students, or pensionnaires, of the French Academy, these drawings served a pragmatic as well as aesthetic function. An integral part of the teaching of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, they comprised a permanent collection at the Ecole, available for consultation by students preparing projects for competitions. Ref.3 The Ecole considered drawing from classical monuments to be the basic foundation of all the arts.
(8) Pensionnaires at the French Academy in Rome were expected to spend the majority of their time during their three to five-year tenure producing sketches and measured architectural drawings of ancient and Renaissance monuments. Ref.4 As stated in the original statutes for the French Academy in Rome in 1666, the architectural students were to make plans and elevations of all the beautiful monuments of Rome and its environs. The pensionnaire was required to send back two sets of drawings, or "envois," to Paris. The first set was termed the "etat-actuel," drawings of the extant-state of the monument in which the work was studied scientifically in the manner of an archaeologist. These were executed with painstaking care. Before the use of photography, these representations of the existing monuments were the source of important first-hand documentation of the remains of antiquity, particularly valuable to archaeological research. The second half of the envois consisted of drawings of an ideal reconstruction of the antique site or monument. Unlike the extant-state drawings, these were often archaeological fiction; a product of the pensionnaire-architect's imagination. Ref.5 The restoration itself had two parts, a graphic and a written component, termed the Memoire, a description of the site's history and construction. Restoration drawings were based on published works, the comparison of different parts of a building and/or the study of other extant monuments. Ref.6 Toward the latter part of the nineteenth century architects competed to make larger, more colorful drawings of these ideal reconstructions of antiquity.
(9) Drawings were also the fundamental didactic tool at the American Academy where there were no mandatory lectures or classes. Americans adopted the European tradition of making measured drawings, or "releves," of historical buildings. As was the case of its model and inspiration, the French Academy in Rome, the American Academy required Fellows to produce measured, rendered drawings each year of the three-year program of study.
(10) The types of drawings produced by the students facilitated the manipulation of classicism advocated by the two academies. Two-dimensional plans, sections, and elevations dominated the studies. One- or two-point perspective drawing was rarely used for the restorations, preference being given for the more idealized flat projections. Drawings were considered incomplete until fully rendered. For the detail drawings this rendering was in the form of India ink washes and for the restoration drawings watercolor was used. The format of the drawings for both academies was always quite large, sometimes reaching sizes of more than four by ten feet.
(11) Critical to the success and usefulness of these drawings was the adoption of an academic convention of representation. It was assumed that light came from the upper left to the lower right at a forty-five degree angle. This allowed the object to be read in three dimensions, with the depth of the shadow equivalent to the measurement of the projection of the object. An intricate systems of values was developed to represent the distance between planes. In this manner, elements could be compared with one another to determine scale. Before tone was considered, all of the information in the drawing had to be recorded. The drawing was then carefully transferred in ink to the watercolor paper which was then mounted on a board. Each tone of the rendering was built up through several layerings of wash so the ink appeared to be part of the paper. Ref.7 The entire process was extremely time-consuming and did not allow much room for error.
(12) For the purposes of this study I have chosen to compare a representative set of drawings from each academy. The subject of both sets is the Tabularium and Temple of Concord in the Forum Romanum. The remains of the temple which were seen at the time of these studies belong to a restoration begun by Tiberius in 7 B.C. and dedicated by him in 10 A.D. as Aedes Concordiae Augustae. Excavations of 1817 show conclusively that the temple lay between the Tabularium and the Arch of Septimius Severus Ref.8.
(13) The examples from the French Academy in Rome were made by Constant Moyaux in 1865. Ref.9 The subject was a popular one for pensionnaires of the French Academy, having been drawn by fifteen different students throughout the nineteenth century. Moyaux, alone, completed nineteen drawings of the Tabularium and the adjacent monuments. Among Moyaux's drawings are included the actual state of the plan of the Tabularium and adjacent monuments, actual and restored states of the elevation of the ensemble, elevation of the Tabularium and sections and details of the Tabularium. This project is an example of a fourth-year envois, intended to show the pensionnaire's understanding of the value of classicism, while observing issues of the program, materials, and methods of construction. The drawings successfully illustrate Moyaux's knowledge of the complete vocabulary of classicism, including multiple building types, and the interrelationship of the parts to each other and to the whole. Scale of the different monuments is determined by comparison of the different elements to each other.
(14) In the extant-state and "restored" renderings of the site, the Temple of Concord was depicted by Moyaux in its hypothetical urban context, nearly half obscured by the Arch of Septimius Severus. All the structures in the drawings were given equal importance by means of their placement, lighting, and degree of detail. No single structure dominated the compositions. Each monument was lit uniformly with clear shadows cast at a forty- five degree angle to the right as dictated by conventions of elevation drawing. Changes in plan were produced by advancing or receding masses and are indicated only by cast shadows and minor variations in tone. The building materials were clearly articulated and the drawings were very detailed, giving the observer at first glance an extremely realistic appearance. The meticulously drawn and rendered restoration is idealized, glorifying and paying homage to the French classical tradition. The absence of people or landscaping encourages the viewer to concentrate solely on the architecture. In the introduction to the accompanying Memoire, Moyaux was one of the first pensionnaires to express doubts concerning the archaeological value of the exercise of the envois. Archaeologists had expressed reservations for years in relation to the restoration drawings, but the extant-state drawings produced by the pensionnaires proved to be quite useful due to their extreme detail and painstakingly accurate representation of the ruins.
(15) In the spirit of collaboration on which the American Academy in Rome was founded, two fellows worked on this project for the Temple of Concord, produced in 1925. Ref.10 They were Homer Rebert, Classical fellow, who wrote the analysis of the remains, and Henri Marceau, an architect who was responsible for decisions on construction details and for executing the drawings. Their reconstruction depicted the temple as they imagined it looked during the time of Augustus when it was restored. Marceau's study includes the following drawings: Actual Remains on the Temple of Concord Site and of its Environs, Restored Plan of the Temple of Concord, Restored Longitudinal Section, Restored Cross Section, and a drawing of how the temple would have looked restored. They also included nine photographs of the actual state of the extant remains.
(16) One of the most notable differences between these two sets of drawings is seen in the extant-state drawings. Typically, the French pensionnaires devoted as much energy to these as they did to the restoration studies. The Americans often supplemented or replaced extant-state drawings with photography. Even after photography was widely used as a documentary tool, the French continued to devote their efforts to drawing the ruins. A meticulously executed drawing was tangible evidence of their superior knowledge and talent. Drawings of the type the pensionnaires produced required years of training and practice to develop the necessary skills. For the Americans, photography replaced drawing as a modern, accurate way to study ancient monuments. They were not as bound to tradition as the French and therefore, more open to innovation. The use of photography reflected the progressive technical innovations attractive to contemporary American thinking. Also, unlike an enormous drawing, photographs had the advantage of being easily reproduced and transported.
(17) While some aspects of Marceau's renderings appear to be more realistic, such as the inclusion of landscape and figures, it shows a view of the temple that would probably have been impossible to apprehend all at one time because of the scale of the building and the proximity of the other structures. The temple, placed nearly in the exact center of the composition is clearly the subject of the restoration drawing.
(18) In the Americans' drawing, lighting, in the form of shade and shadow, provided additional clues to the importance of the subject matter. The lighting in the restored elevation drawing is very dramatic. The Temple of Concord is shown brightly lit by sunlight and the Tabularium, the only other building visible in the drawing is in deep shadow, leaving little doubt as to the importance of the temple in the drawing. If any doubt remained on the part of the observer, the title block clearly spelled out the focus of the work. This is the type of drawing that would have been useful as a "blueprint" to take home to America as a model for the construction of large public buildings such as banks and libraries based on this design.
(19) These two sets of drawings show the generally greater degree of completeness and thoroughness associated with the projects from the French Academy. In this one project, nearly all the goals of the French Academy were illustrated. The almost photographic quality of the rendering shows that the artist possessed an expert degree of skill and knowledge. An awareness of classical antiquity and its rules, required in the fourth-year envois, is clear in the drawings, as is the required understanding of the building materials and methods of construction.
(20) These drawings also show how the system of competition at the French Academy was replaced by a spirit of collaboration at the American Academy. The American Academy drawings result from the combined efforts of a Classical fellow and an architect. According to the American Academy's founders, this type of cooperation among the Fellows from different disciplines would elicit the best results. Continued contact between classical, architectural and archaeological Fellows was intended to foster an elevation of standards and taste.
(21) It appears that although the founding members of the American Academy stated a strong interest in and appreciation of classical antiquity and the architecture of the Renaissance, the Fellows' drawings prove that this interest only extended to the degree that it could be utilized to promote the ideals and aims of the American Academy, particularly the professionalization of architecture and the creation of a national identity through architecture. When they existed at all, the extant-state drawings done by Americans were fewer in number and far less detailed than those of the French pensionnaires. The real interest for the Americans was in the restoration studies. It was there that they were able to propose a monument adaptable for their own contemporary needs and purposes. By establishing a link between American architecture and the architecture of the ancients they hoped to appropriate those qualities of classicism that they valued, and to acquire culture through the process of association.
(22) While formal aspects of academy restoration drawings often appear similar, the goals and philosophies of the two institutions varied. The American Academy, modeled on the French Academy, was concerned with the establishment of a national identity through architecture, as well as promoting individual careers in the profession. In their drawings, this is made manifest through the isolation of particular buildings from the rest of the site and the more stylized, individualized manner in which the Fellows executed their drawings.
(23) The French, who already had a clearly established identity, were seeking instead to show continuity from classical antiquity to contemporary French architecture and to prepare "pensionnaires" for careers in the service of the French government. These goals are evidenced by the way they typically depicted the entire site or urban concept, giving equal attention to each monument in the landscape. Additionally, the enormous amount of time spent on extant-state drawings reflects the French concern for establishing a direct link between the classical past and contemporary French architecture.
Ref.2: Holliday, Peter J. The Fascination with the Past: John Henry Parker's Photographs of Rome (San Bernardino: California State University, 1991), 2.
Ref.3: Marie-Christine Hellman, Philippe Fraisse, and Annie Jacques, Paris Rome Athenes: Le voyage en Grece des architectes francais aux XIXe et XXe siecles (Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), 15.
Ref.4: Egbert, Donald Drew. The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, ed. David Van Zanten (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 29.
Ref.5: Hellman et al., xvii.
Ref.6: Levine, Neil. "The Romantic Idea of Architectural Legibility: Henri Labroutse and the Neo-Grec," Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977), 358.
Ref.7: Hector d'Espouy, Fragments from Greek and Roman Architecture: The Classical America Edition of Hector d'Espouy's Plates, introd. by John Blatteau and Christine Sears (New York: Norton, 1981).
Ref.8: Platner, Samuel Ball. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London: Oxford University Press, 1929), 138.
Ref.9: For the French Academy drawings please refer to: Annie Jacques et al., Roma Antiqua: Forum, Colisee, Palatin (Rome: Academie de France a Rome, 1985), pls. 25-28.
Ref.10: For the American Academy drawings please refer to: Homer F. Rebert and Henri Marceau, "The Temple of Concord in the Roman Forum," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome (Rome: American Academy in Rome, 1925), V, pls. 44, 49-51.
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