vlajean:

art history meme. 5/5 movements

academicism
»» lawrence alma-tadema, alexandre cabanel, pierre auguste cot, jean-léon gérôme, frederic leighton, hans makart

Present in Europe since 1562 with the creation of the Academy of Drawing of Florence and disseminated throughout various countries during the 18th century, academies of art were responsible for establishing a standardised artistic training which brought together the sciences (geometry, anatomy and perspective) and the humanities (history and philosophy).

In arguing for the possibility of teaching every and any aspect of artistic creation through communicable rules, these institutions discarded the idea of the genius driven by divine inspiration or by intuition and individual talent, thus entailing a radical change in the status of the artist: no longer craftsmen in guilds, they came to be considered as theorists and intellectuals. In addition to teaching, academies were responsible for organising exhibitions, competitions, prizes, art galleries and collections, implying the control of artistic activity and the rigid standards of taste. (x)