Academies of art
From Encyclopædia
Academies of art are generally both art schools and honorary bodies; they provide training for students and, through restricted membership, prestige for recognized professionals. Since such prestige depends on the power and opinion of particular groups, it has varied throughout history, with the academies rising or falling in esteem according to social taste. The aim of art academies is to preserve the
Renaissance identification of artistic practice with the ideals of HUMANISM and to perpetuate the craftsmanship that makes this association meaningful.The term
academy is derived from the Greek akademia, which originally referred to an olive grove situated near Athens and named for Akademus, a local hero.
Plato founded his school of
philosophy there, and it became known by the same name. Later applications of this term carried all the honorable associations of the philosopher's august
assembly. Eventually, it came to mean a higher school or a specialized institution such as a military
academy. The term was also used by learned societies that were not schools in the ordinary sense, and it subsequently became attached to honorary groups seeking to cultivate and promote the arts and
sciences.Until recent times, art academies epitomized the highest expression of art for an elite audience and for various government bodies, who relied on
academy members to design and decorate royal houses and public monuments. An
academy's association with these groups and its tendency to support the status quo predisposed outsiders to label all its products "official art." Modernist ideals in particular have done much to devalue and discredit the historical contribution of art academies. Since 1900 academic art has for many people been associated with "bad art," and the term academic is often used as a reproach for hackneyed work. That almost all artists revered in modern times by both specialists and the public attended one form of art
academy or another is generally overlooked. Significantly, academic art is currently being reevaluated as various avant-garde ideals based on tentative experiments exhaust themselves and are subject to commercial exploitation. Most of the major academies are still in existence. Society seems to have a need for such institutions, which tend to maintain a balance between tradition and innovation.The first academies of
fine arts were founded in
Italy: the Accademia del Disegno (
academy of Design) in
Florence in 1563 under the sponsorship of Duke Cosimo I de' MEDICI; and the Accademia di San Luca (St. Luke was the patron
saint of artists) in 1593 in Rome. These were primarily associations of artists and patrons that attempted to challenge the powerful and restrictive GUILD system, in which artists were identified with artisans, and to elevate the status of painters and sculptors. Their founders recognized that a permanent break required a drastic revision of the pedagogical system. As against the practical, on-the-job training in the workshops of the guilds, the academies formulated a theoretical component they termed disegno--the
drawing and design that underlay all artistic activity. This embraced the principles of
perspective and
anatomy. Since
Renaissance humanism regarded the human being as the highest expression of the divine ideal, life
drawing became the keystone of academic curricula.The art schools of later academies were divided into two basic sections: one for the study of the antique (plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman statues and reliefs) and an advanced section for study from live models. Since the academies taught that art should ennoble nature, they claimed that nature itself was an insufficient model for "high" art. The "ideal" works of the ancients compensated for nature's imperfections and were therefore considered a necessary first step in preparation for work with a live model.The most important
academy of modern times was the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, founded in 1648 in Paris to overcome restrictions pressed on court painters by the guild. Eventually, this organization was encompassed in the centralized planning of LOUIS XIV and his finance minister Jean Baptiste COLBERT and was subject to their review. They had clear ideas about how art should be used (mainly to glorify the king and to embellish the royal residences), and consequently the Academie Royale systematized its pedagogical procedures. For the first time, problems of technique and composition were explicitly formulated, methods explained, and basic conventions defined. These procedures were in turn handed
Down to later academies, most notably
Madrid's Academia de San Fernando (1752), the
Dusseldorf Akademie (1767), London's Royal
academy (1768), the
Munich Akademie (1770), and New York's NATIONAL
academy OF DESIGN (1825), founded by the painter-scientist Samuel F. B. MORSE.Academies burgeoned during the 18th century, often sponsored by the ruling aristocracy since they coveted the implicit commitment to the
Enlightenment ideals of social progress denoted by academies. Although academies originally obtained support from artists because it gave them improved social and professional status, they proliferated because the dominant classes saw in them an instrument for their own glorification. By also giving the academies a monopoly over art instruction, they could further
Control the actual images produced. The French Academie Royale instituted a hierarchy of modes that persisted through the 19th century in practice, if not in principle. Subjects for
painting were carefully ranked: at the top was history
painting and
portraiture, and at the bottom STILL LIFE, LANDSCAPE, and
genre painting (scenes of everyday life). History
painting comprised biblical motifs, events from ancient and contemporary history, especially scenes featuring the king or his ancestors, and allegorical and mythological
representation.During the
French Revolution, the Academie Royale was suppressed, but it was reconstituted two years later (1795) as part of the
Institut de France, with the honorary and pedagogical functions strictly separated. The art school, which eventually became the
world-famous ECOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS (School of
fine Arts), offered advanced
drawing instruction, architectural training, and a series of competitions culminating with the PRIX DE ROME--a special traveling fellowship enabling the gifted pupil to reside at the
academy's branch in Rome. Other art academies were established in Rome, for example, the American
academy in Rome, founded in 1894 as a school of
architecture.The Royal
academy in London became one of the best regulated in the
world under the painter Sir Joshua REYNOLDS, its founder. GEORGE III provided it with "
patronage, protection, and support," and he early made his influence felt in selecting as its second
president the American expatriate artist
Benjamin WEST.The National
academy of Design in New York is also both a school and a body of professionals. American academies of art such as the National
academy and the PENNSYLVANIA
academy OF THE
fine ARTS, founded in 1805, were unique in admitting women early on, much earlier than the European academies.Albert BoimeBibliography:
Hutchinson, Sidney C., The History of the Royal
academy, 1768-1986 (1987); McMann, Evelyn, ed., The Royal Canadian
academy of Arts (1981); Pevsner, Nicolaus, Academies of Art, Past and Present (1940; repr. 1973); Rosenblum, Robert, and Janson, H. W., Nineteenth-Century Art (1984).
