During the Renaissance, artists were organized within a guild system and, as such, were subject to the strict regulations of their respective guilds. Their professional activities from learning to producing to selling were dependent in every aspect on the specific rules of conduct of a particular guild.
Painting and Sculpture as Liberal Arts
Academies of art were first established in the sixteenth century as informal groupings of art practitioners seeking to improve their professional status.
The primary concern of the first academies was to improve the social and professional standing of artists by breaking away from the guild system. Art practitioners sought to redefine and upgrade the status of art from a mechanical art to a liberal art. The status of art was to be on the equally intellectual level as the traditional liberal arts. The status of the artist himself was thus to be elevated from that of a mere craftsman or manual labourer to that of a learned gentleman and scholar. Being independent of guilds also meant that the artist would be able to obtain the royal, ecclesiastical or private patronage directly.
Academic Canon
The strategy was to institutionalize artistic education and intellectualize artistic production by introducing the students to the canon (a body of works by renowned masters classed as the best examples of objective beauty by authorities on art) and perpetuate its values. The aspiring artists were to be taught the classical theories of art established during the High Renaissance and to study the works of Old Masters, such as Raphael and Michelangelo. While painting and sculpture had been classified as mechanical arts since antiquity, as they involved manual labour and were taught by practice, the academies attributed more importance to the theory and scholarship than to practical experience.
Hierarchy and Genres
The Academy was a highly hierarchical institution, structurally and ideologically. High art was to be produced according to a strict set of theoretical principles and specific practices that were to be distinguished from the craft based artistic production.
The hierarchical system led to the codification of categories of subject-matter that was firmly established by the end of the 17th century. These are as follows:
- History (classical, religious, mythological literary and allegorical subjects)
- Portraiture
- Genre (scenes from everyday life)
- Landscape
- Still life
History painting was considered the highest genre since it was the genre that does not rely on mere copying but requires the most intellectual capacity and imagination in order to transform reality into a representation of a noble idea. The representation of the human figure was the highest form of artistic process.
The clear narrative was achieved through a well systematized set of stylistic rules as regards poses, gestures and expressions of the protagonists as well as compositional effects. Colour was considered less important than drawing. To view such a work of art was to use one’s intellect and colour was deemed to be a distracting element.
By the 19th century the academies had become stagnant, as they were adhering to their dogmatic theories. While new modern styles had begun to develop outside the official academic confines, academies refused to assimilate any modern trends. The Academic Art was regarded as conservative and was rejected by modern artists.
Sources
- Perry, Gill, and Cunningham Colin, Academies, Museums and Canons, Yale University Press, 1999
