As one of the most direct and accessible art forms, drawing is often a child's first encounter with art making. Requiring only the simplest of materials, it has been a vital part of artistic practice for millennia. Drawing can be an instant route to self-expression or a tool for developing and experimenting with ideas for artworks and designs. Before the invention of photography, it was also the most direct means of recording the appearance of the world around us.

The Antique School at New Somerset House

It is not a surprise, then, that drawing played a crucial role in formal art education for centuries. Despite the inherent spontaneity of the medium, however, the approach that developed in art academies from the sixteenth century onwards was not concerned with giving free rein to creativity. Instead, based on the Renaissance theory that drawing was the foundation of all the arts, the focus was on learning 'correct' draughtsmanship as the 'grammar' of art.

Students honed their skills in depicting the human figure, initially through drawing sculptures, and, later, through drawing from life and learning to paint by copying earlier works. The goal of this mode of art education was to enable artists to produce grand artworks in the manner of the Old Masters.

Drawing of Carved Acanthus Leaf Ornament

When the Royal Academy Schools opened its doors in January 1769, it was the first art school in England to adopt this system as a whole. Following its predecessors in Italy and France, the new institution gathered a collection of plaster casts after ancient Greek and Roman sculpture (with a few Renaissance examples like Ghiberti's Baptistery doors thrown in for good measure) as well as anatomical models for its students to draw.

This offered both ideological and practical advantages: art students imbibed their knowledge of the body, pose and expression through the lens of the classical ideal and, because the casts – unlike real bodies – could stay still for hours on end and did not need to rest, eat or be paid, they could be drawn for longer periods at a time. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy (RA), favoured this approach, arguing that the 'reiterated experience' of drawing from casts was key to understanding the essence of human form and 'the real simplicity of nature.'

Would-be painters, sculptors, engravers and architects flocked to the new school, however, whatever genre they intended to follow, the mainstay of teaching during the historic period was drawing the human figure. There were some concessions though: aspiring sculptors could also make models of the figures while architects could draw from casts of architectural ornament instead. The latter would also train in the office of an established architect, but they could continue to attend the Academy's lectures, library and annual exhibition and were eligible to compete for RA Schools' prizes.

Each week, students drew selected casts in the 'Antique Academy'. The seats were allotted on a first-come-first-served basis and students vied for the best places. The painter George Richmond is reported to have stacked up a precarious pile of boxes and sat on top to get the best view for his drawing of the Apollo Belvedere. As this and other surviving examples suggest, the casts were dramatically lit to encourage the young artists to focus on the contrasts of light and shade.

Challenging the stereotype of highly finished academic drawing, though, evidence suggests that overly fine drawings were not particularly encouraged at this date. The Swiss painter Henry Fuseli was Keeper (head) of the RA Schools from 1804 to 1824 and was said to have struck through drawings displaying what he called a 'neegling tooch.'

Drawing of a Bust of a Companion of Odysseus

Women were initially excluded from most art academies and the RA Schools was no exception (despite the institution counting two women among its founding Members, the painters Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman).

Laura Herford broke the first barrier at the RA by sending in drawings for enrolment signed only with her initials and surname. Her admission was approved with most of the Academicians involved unaware that she was female. On her first day, Herford recalled that the Keeper of the Schools, Charles Landseer, greeted her 'good naturedly thought very awkwardly as if he scarcely knew what would come of it.'

Initially confined to drawing casts, the women soon got permission to make portrait and drapery studies. However, Gertrude Massey – a student in the 1880s – complained of being expected to accept that figures 'had heads, arms and feet, apparently linked together by clothes.' After decades of campaigning, the women were eventually admitted to the life drawing class in 1893.

Anatomical Drawing of the Muscles and Bones of a Cadaver Seen from the Back

In preparation for entry into the life class, RA students could also study prints and illustrated books in the library and attend lectures on painting, sculpture (from 1810), architecture, perspective and anatomy. Practical study of anatomy was required but the level of engagement with this subject varied depending on the professor. Some, like the first Professor of Anatomy, Dr William Hunter, conducted dissections and created anatomical models specifically for RA students while others believed that artists only needed a theoretical understanding of surface anatomy acquired from textbooks.

Unlike the 'Antique Academy', which was run by the Keeper, the life class had no permanent teacher and was taught instead by nine Academicians elected each year on a rota basis. This was a deliberate attempt by Sir Joshua Reynolds and the early Academicians to avoid the tendency to promote a particular style that they felt had 'infected' other academies. This gave rise to very variable teaching, with tutors ranging from William Mulready, who habitually drew alongside the students, to Sir Edwin Landseer, who leaned more towards 'wise neglect' and was caught by his father reading Oliver Twist instead of guiding the students.

In a departure from European academic tradition, the Academy Schools provided both male and female models in the life class. Wary of moral concerns, the institution insisted that students must be aged at least 20, or be married, before they could attend when the female model was present. In an unusual reversal of the pay gap, the women were paid more than the men, but this was considered 'shame money' due to the perceived damage to their reputation and respectability. In early accounts, their identity is shielded and they are referred to anonymously whereas the men are named.

This page from the RA housekeeper's accounts records James Dyer and Charles Cranmer as male models (an extra duty in addition to their day job as the Academy's porters) but the female model is simply the 'Woman'.

Intriguingly, the Academy did not collect examples of its students' drawings though, fortunately, a handful of examples have come into the collection via other routes. Many examples of life drawing collected by the RA are in fact by Royal Academicians who taught the class, including James Barry, Thomas Stothard and William Mulready. This gives an insight into the approaches of its teachers.

Stothard, in particular, made many small, rapid sketches moving around the room to view the model from different perspectives, a method similar to the short pose exercises often used in life drawing classes today. One student recalled how James Barry drew in pen and ink on scraps of paper 'making a bold clever sketch...with coarse materials that cost him nothing.'

This system remained close to its roots for over a century, but by the late nineteenth century, the emphasis on drawing plaster casts was already outdated. A practice that initially symbolised the kudos and intellectual ambition of the Academy eventually came to represent all the perceived failings of academic art training.

The caricaturist Harry Furniss summed this up in his critique of 1890: 'Why do we not make the introduction of Art more attractive to the boy? A cold, meaningless scroll is first placed in front of him... next a head, a hand, a foot... a sort of mutilated corpse in plaster of Paris and about as cheering to be stippled, cross-hatched and worked up for months. By the time he sees the art student's life is not a happy one; he finds relief in throwing lumps of bread at the heads of other students and a little extra excitement when he hits his Professor by mistake.'

Eventually, the insistence on drawing plaster casts gave way at the Academy to a focus on drawing, painting and sculpting from life as well as specialist teaching in printmaking and mural painting. In contrast to many art schools in the twentieth century, however, the RA did not jettison its plaster cast collection and other teaching apparatus. The painter Peter Greenham, who was Keeper of the Schools from 1964 to 1985, jokingly referred to the many casts that remained in situ in the studios as 'the army of unalterable law.'

A selection of the historic plaster casts can still be seen at the Academy today. The recent refurbishment of the historic Schools premises at Burlington House provided the opportunity for an innovative redisplay of the casts alongside new additions from Royal Academicians, current students, and faculty members.

By the end of the twentieth century, the RA Schools had evolved into its current form as a postgraduate art school, supporting students working across all media. Although drawing has ceased to be compulsory since the 1990s, the Eranda Professorship of Drawing at the Schools was inaugurated in 2000. Many students and teaching staff incorporate drawing in their practice while others have engaged with the traditions of art education and the Academy's collection. In recent years, the Keeper's Purchase Prize has ensured that work by contemporary students is now acquired for the RA collection annually.

Annette Wickham, curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Academy of Arts

This content was funded by the Bridget Riley Art Foundation

Further reading

Then and now: the new RA Schools