Jacques Desbois, “Femme,” 1896, earthenware.

The Erie Art Museum presents “Charting A Century of Change: French Nineteenth Century Drawings and Sculpture from the Collection of Herbert and Carol Diamond,” on view through September 24 in the Main Floor Gallery.

The Diamond collection of French Nineteenth Century drawings and sculpture encompasses a range of works by artists both well known and obscure. The collection includes drawings by artists such as Degas, Corot, Ingres, Cezanne, Delacroix, Gauguin and Matisse, as well as a sculpture by Rodin. The works range from traditional to vanguard, exhibiting a variety of styles and techniques.

The Nineteenth Century, a period of social unrest in France, inaugurated a moment of change in the French art world. There was a pull between those artists who depicted the traditional concepts of beauty and allegory and the more experimental work of the vanguard, which moved toward depictions of realism and naturalism. The Diamond collection incorporates works from the traditional academic idealist images to the more experimental work of the late Eighteenth to the early Twentieth century.

Much of the collection is comprised of pen and pencil drawings, revealing that although the Realists, Impressionists and post-Impressionists were departing from traditional artistic subjects and themes, they still maintained drawing as the foundation of the artistic process. Viewers are also provided with a glimpse into the sculptural process, in preparatory works such as Rodin’s “Study for ‘The Vase of the Titans.'”

Auguste Rodin, “Study for Vase of the Titans,” earthenware.

The drawings in this exhibit can be divided into traditional and vanguard – neoclassical and Romantic, or Realist and Impressionist. Several drawings are mere fragments, studies for later paintings, but they reveal the difference between the process of producing a classical work, which relies on systematic studies of various parts of the figure, and the Realist and Impressionist works, in which the artist works as quickly as possible to capture the moment in a “croquis,” a quick sketch to refer to when working in the studio.

The wide array of sculptural works in the Diamond Collection also reveal a century of rapid change as French artists enacted a struggle between tradition and experimentation by maintaining some aspects of the old order through traditional formal training in drawing while simultaneously moving forward with the pace of technology and innovation.

The Erie museum exhibit includes additional pieces from the collection since it was first shown at the Carnegie Museum of Art with 60 drawings and 23 pieces of sculpture.

The museum is at 411 State Street. For information, www.erieartmuseum.org or 814-459-5477.