Summary of The Academy of Art
The Academies of Art promoted classical specifications of excellence in painting, sculpture and architecture and their popularity spread subsequently throughout the great cities of Europe and America. With a primary role of training and supporting artists, academies also housed and hosted exhibitions, managed archives, published books, undertook restoration work, and acted as lenders to national and international partners. The status of academies remained largely unchallenged until the mid-nineteenth century when their authority started to be undermined by avant-gardists who (somewhat hastily) dismissed them as an outdated mechanism of the ruling classes. Though they continue to serve an important role in state identity, academies have had to move with the times and their standards have evolved to accommodate changing attitudes towards what might, or might not, constitute art.
Key Ideas & Accomplishments
- The idea of an Academy education was based firmly of the belief that art was a "discipline" that deserved to take its place alongside advanced other forms of human learning. It too could be organized around a set of agreed rules and principles that students would master by a system of rote learning (a system which involved copying the works of Old Masters). A student would only then earn the prestigious position of "artist" once they learned painting in the live studio setting of established masters.
- As an academy standard, the "Hierarchy of Genres", was established in France in the seventeenth century. The "Hierarchy" ranked history painting at the most scholarly genre and classified "lesser" genres accordingly. History paintings not only made the greatest demands on the artist's technical capabilities, it also required a learned quality that asked the artist to form their picture narratives from mythology, the Bible, classical literature, and from history. Mastery of history painting became a benchmark requirement for academy students.
- Academies were vital in providing artists with a regular exhibition outlet. Before the rise of the independent Salon and gallery, academies were the arbiters of popular tastes and by featuring prominently in an "official" academy exhibition, an artist's future career could be all but secured.
Overview of The Academy of Art
Very much in the spirit of the Academy, the great English landscapist, John Constable said: "An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed." Many followed that kind of establishment thinking, but the few who didn't, the avant-garde of the next centuries, trod their own path, and are remembered just as well for it.
