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Designo is the Italian word for drawing/design. In the Renaissance, designo was the ability to invent/design, and create, design put the artist on footing with god and was a way to raise the status of a painting from craft to art.

In central Italian painting human figure was a supreme test of an artists skill.

There was a dispute between Michelangelo and Titan as to weather designo or colourito was superior. Michelangelo was on the side of designo, wheras, Titan was colourito.

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A storng focus on colour contrast, texture and light to tell a story. vivid colors were achieved by the use of oil paint which was more accessable to Venice due to the geography of the country, which possibly may encouraged the manipulation of light in venetian artists due to the reflection of the canal.

Usises color to envoke human emotions and express religious beleifs. Priorities the end product that gets produced over the start of the creative procsses, with the layering of the oil paint and use of brush strokes helping to achieve the end product.

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"Some scholars speculate that Venetian painters adopted a softer, more loosely colorful style of painting because Venice is a city built entirely on water — and with no land there, the light of the city takes on a diffusive, glittery quality. The Florentines said that it was because the Venetians lived a loose, decadent lifestyle, that they lacked classical learning, that their artists painted the canvas the way “a whore is painting her face.”" https://medium.com/@nodoveacovenant/design-versus-illusion-disegno-vs-colore-in-painting-1d05e6969e07

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Design Versus Illusion (Disegno vs. Colore in Painting

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“We are cut out silhouettes, we are empty ghosts that move in the fog, without perspective.” — Virginia Woolf

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Macy

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Colorito and the treatment of the figure. The introduction of oil painting allowed for artists to treat the figure differently, portraying not just their ideal but the psychological complexity of the person

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An emphasis on colour - to create forms caused a distinction. "This resulted in works of revolutionary dynamism, unparalleled richness, and distinct psychological expression."

Strong interest on the effects of light, and the emphasis of patterns with the categorization of deep and rich colours.

New genres erupted during this period: mythological narratives, and the introduction of female nudity without the premise of religion or historical tale. "Eroticism began to appear, entwined in these new forms of subject matter, unconstrained by moralistic messages."

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Determaned the composition of the figures, posed with intention.

envoked debate and collaberation between artists and patrons.

Art had to be 'worthy of devine approval' achieving more than the portrayal of nature and the world.

disegno reflected upon the skill of an artist

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Vasari (Renaissance Artist and Art History) was a champion of Disgegno, declaring it to be the father of all other disciplines. The inventiveness of the artist was thought to be really important. The artist is put up on a pedalstool as a creator on an equal footing with God as the ultimate creator. Interestingly the creativity was viewed as being in the planning. Disegno artists looked down on Venetian artists and their love of the Colorito approach "The Florentines said that it was because the Venetians lived a loose, decadent lifestyle, that they lacked classical learning, that their artists painted the canvas the way 'a whore is painting her face.' "

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Socially, spiritually, an emotionally involved in the subjects painted

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Socially, spiritually, an emotionally involved in the subjects painted

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"Portraiture was revitalized during this time as artists sought a naturalistic treatment of their subjects that simultaneously conveyed their social importance. They focused not on the idealized role of a person, but their psychological complexity."

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Titian was interested in Classical poetry as inspiration for his non religious paintings " Titian used the term ‘poesie’ for the paintings because he regarded them to be visual equivalents of poetry.

Combining his talent as both artist and storyteller, Titian selected the stories' most dramatic moments; an unexpected and fatal encounter; a shameful discovery; a terrifying abduction; set in atmospheric, enchanted, landscapes. We look on as the gods change the lives of flawed mortals, irrevocably.

Like poetry, the paintings touch our emotions and imagination through their rhythm of colour, language of symbols, and expressive subjects."

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The Venetian School's groundbreaking emphasis on colorito, or using color to create forms, made it distinct from the Florentine Renaissance emphasis on disegno, or drawing the forms then filling in the color. This resulted in works of revolutionary dynamism, unparalleled richness, and distinct psychological expression.

painted primarily in oils, first on wood panels, then pioneering the use of canvas, which was better suited to the humid climate of the city, and emphasized the play of naturalistic light and atmosphere and dramatic, sometimes theatrical, human movement.

New genres were born during this period including grand depictions of mythological narratives and the introduction of the female nude of its own accord rather than as a reflection of a religious, mythical, or historical tale. Eroticism began to appear, entwined in these new forms of subject matter, unconstrained by moralistic messages.

the Venetian School's emphasis on color, light, and delight in sensory life, as seen in the works of Titian, also created a contrast with Mannerism's more cerebral approach

naturalistic and conveying the play of light and color

emphasis on portraying natural light and atmosphere by employing color and tonal gradations

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This word was closely associated with designo art. It wasn't just about inventing subject matter from the artist's mind. Often they would study the figure, but experiment with complex poses and perspectives.https://smarthistory.org/venetian-art-an-introduction/

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Smarthistory – Venetian art, an introduction

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Venice’s watery streets inspired generations of painters, while its port supplied them with pigments and oils.

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Venetian art, an introduction
by Dr. Heather Horton

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Venetian art, an introduction
by Dr. Heather Horton

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"While Venetian painters knew about linear perspective and used the technique in their paintings, depth is just as often suggested by gradually shifting colors and the play of light and shadow."

"To achieve deep tones, Venetian painters would prepare a panel with a smooth white ground and then slowly build up layer-upon-layer of oil paint. Since oil dries slowly, the colors could be blended together to achieve subtle gradations."

"The Bellinis and their peers developed a particularly Venetian style of painting characterized by deep, rich colors, an emphasis on patterns and surfaces, and a strong interest in the effects of light"

colorito was use to escalate an deescalate aspects of the paintings, creating a natural emphasis.

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There was an emphasis on the artist's mind and inventing through drawing

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"Do you use a rigid methodology (Florentine) or intuitively create the content in the moment (Venetian)?"
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/real_property_trust_estate/publications/probate-property-magazine/2023/july-august/disegno-vs-colorito/

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You might find this useful. 45 min doco which goes in depth on the Colorito style Titian uses, influences and deeper meanings

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Titian: Flesh - Venetian Art Documentary

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My initial understanding of Colorito and Disegno

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My initial understanding of Colorito and Disegno

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"the oafish painters and the foolish masses, who until then had seen nothing but the dead and cold works...which were without movement or modeling, grossly defamed that picture. Then, as envy cooled and the truth slowly dawned on them, people began to marvel at the new style established in Venice by Titian."

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Michelangelo Expulsion from the garden of eden

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Michelangelo Expulsion from the garden of eden

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https://smarthistory.org/michelangelo-ceiling-of-the-sistine-chapel/

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What makes their work particularly Disegno?

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Giovanni Bellini  San Zacharia (Sacred Conversation)

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Giovanni Bellini  San Zacharia (Sacred Conversation)

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"Madonna con il Bambino, santa Caterina, sant'Orsola, san Pietro, san Gerolamo ed angelo musicante" (Giovanni Bellini), chiesa di S. Zaccaria, Venezia

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What makes their art particularly Colorito?

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What theories do you have about why the disegno process took developed and was valued in Rome and Florence?

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Interesting link about the development of Colorito

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Interesting link about the development of Colorito

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I need to understand the processes the Disegno artists used (fresco painting, painting with tempera, carving carrara marble)

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I need to understand the processes the Disegno artists used (fresco painting, painting with tempera, carving carrara marble)

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Lodovico Dolce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodovico_Dolce

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t1ck1540k&view=1up&seq=127

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=2aFZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.academia.edu/2118064/How_did_Ludovico_Dolce_go_about_attacking_the_art_of_Michelangelo_Why_did_he_think_Titian_to_be_a_supreme_painter

What did Dolce say about Colorito?

How do you know?

What is his argument?

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Would Colorito have been possible outside of Venice?

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Would Colorito have been possible outside of Venice?

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What was so special about the way that Venetian artists worked with oil paint (their painting technique)

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How did contextual events impact on the art that was made?

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How did contextual events impact on the art that was made?

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Essential properties of media in Disegno?

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Essential properties of media in Disegno?

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How important was the media of fresco, sculpture and tempera to disegno?

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Do you agree or disgree?
Why?
To what extent?

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‘Florentine ‘disegno’ and Venetian ‘colorito’, are opposing artistic responses to the Italian Renaissance challenge of representing nature in art’.

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Key source:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vefl/hd_vefl.htm

General sources:

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/vasari-giorgio/
https://www.theartstory.org/movement-venetian-school.htm
https://www.theartstory.org/definition/the-academy-of-art/
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/keywords/florentine-school/
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/high-renaissance/

http://venice11.umwblogs.org/disegno-vs-colorito/

http://www.artmumble.com/2011/12/colore-verses-disegno-juxtaposition-of.html

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/painting/colorito.htm

http://www.researchomatic.com/essay/Colore-And-Disegno-95979.aspx

http://udel.edu/~monicadt/ARTH218/colorito.htm

http://www.inha.fr/colloques/document.php?id=1820

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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

The Important Artists and Works of The Academy of Art

Artist: Gabriel de Saint-Aubin

Artist: Johan Joseph Zoffany

Beginnings

The Academy in the Renaissance

In 1563 Cosimo I de' Medici, the ruler of Florence, and the most powerful art patron in Europe, founded the first academy dedicated specifically to the advancement of the arts. His Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy and Company for the Arts of Drawing) was to establish and further the cultural and artistic dominance of Florence. At the same time, the progressive institution celebrated what was in effect the "birth of the artist". Superseding the medieval guild system, which set training standards and governed artistic production and commerce, the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno instigated an educational system based on humanist principles derived from the philosophical model of Plato's fourth century Academy of Athens. No longer the anonymous craftspeople of the Middle Ages, artists were viewed as the recipients of divine inspiration with masters of the standing of Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo considered the very embodiment of the learned Renaissance man. The historian Mary Ann Jack wrote, "The Accademia del Disegno was the most important institution for Florentine artists in the late sixteenth century. Records show that virtually all of the city's artists matriculated in the academy, and some of the most prominent artists in Florence [...] Cellini, Vasari, Ammannati, Giambologna, and Buontalenti, were among its officers".

Giorgio Vasari and Disegno

The noted artist and critic Giorgio Vasari, and his friend and colleague, the humanist scholar Vincenzo Borghini, shaped the Accademia curriculum, which included lectures on geometry, anatomy, classical literature and philosophy. Students learned technical skills by imitation, drawing copies of both classical works and those of more recent Renaissance Masters.

In his Vite ( The Lives of the Best Painters, Sculptors and Architects) (1568) Vasari noted the primary importance of disegno (drawing). As he wrote: "Proceeding from the intellect, drawing, the father of our three arts - architecture, sculpture and painting - turns multiple elements into a global concept. The latter is like the form or concept of all things in nature, all original in its measurements [and] the animating principal of all creative processes". Disegno drew firmly upon Renaissance Humanism, recalling Petrarch's De remediis utriusque Fortune (Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul) (1366), which argued that drawing must be the origin of both painting and sculpture. At the same time, Vasari saw the Academy as heir to both the medieval guild and the Christian tradition (which attributed the origins of painting to the legend of St. Luke painting the Virgin Mary when she appeared to him as an apparition). The Academy became thus a conveyer of classical culture and antiquity, but reconceived to accommodate the new age of human inspiration.

Accademia di San Luca (Rome)

Rome's Accademia di San Luca was officially invested in 1593 under direction of the Roman Mannerist Federico Zuccari (it became the Royal Academy in 1872 and the National Academy from 1948). The Accademia promoted the theoretical and aesthetic foundations of disegno. Raphael was singled out as the master of disegno and was especially revered for his history paintings. In 1509 he had painted The School of Athens (1509-1511), part of a series of frescos he made in the living quarters of Pope Julius II. Based on the teachings of ancient Greek philosophy, Raphael painted four stanzas representing different fields of knowledge but with a self-portrait on the right of the picture, as an assertion of the Renaissance artists' claim to be deserving of a new and higher humanist standing.

At the same time, the power and vibrancy of Venetian painting had begun to attract supporters. Artists such as Titian composed by means of colorito (color). Rather than creating preparatory sketches and studies, Venetian artists worked directly onto the picture surface. As art historian Bruce Cole noted, Titian would paint with "empirical method, working his way through the design as it laid out on the prime canvas ... slowly and carefully, always adjusting his forms and paint to achieve a premeditated effect and often strikingly original results". The Colorito technique was viewed, as art historian Paul Hills described it, as "the source of animation, of the pulse of life and likeness". Though the concept of disegno would ultimately prevail in Rome and in other European academies, the quarrel between the value of disegno and colorito would be a source of heated critical debate that passed down through the centuries.

Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Paris)

The painter and designer Charles Le Brun played a leading role in establishing the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, or the French Royal Academy, under the patronage of King Louis XIV in 1648. Le Brun was part of a group of artists who felt constrained by the medieval guild system, which was still dominant in France and operated according to political allegiances and nepotism over individual merit.

By 1661 the French Royal Academy began emphasizing a classical - or royal - style, devoted to the glorification of Louis XIV, and this model of an academy influenced the development of academies throughout Europe. Academies were vital in fostering national schools of painting and sculpture and remained pinnacles of aspiration for most French artists long into the nineteenth century. Appointed as the Academy's director in 1663, Le Brun modelled the French system on the Italian Academies, opening an art school, enlisting noted patrons, and upholding strict classical standards. At the same time, the French Academy made its own unique contributions, expanding its role to include: an annual Salon where members exhibited their work; a branch of the Academy in Rome; the Prix de Rome award which granted a three-year scholarship for a student to study in Rome; and the establishment of a "Hierarchy of the Genres". These elements were widely adopted by new academies, including the British Academy of Art and the Danish Royal Academy of Art.

Poussinistes versus Rubenistes

For the Académie Royale, the conflict between colorito and disegno took on new energy between the Poussinistes - those who preferred the classical works of Nicolas Poussin - and the Rubenistes - those who favored the sensuous works of Peter Paul Rubens. At a 1672 Academy conference entitled Sentiment on the discourse on the merit of colour, Charles Le Brun argued "drawing imitates everything real, whereas colour only represents the accidental". Color was considered an aesthetic embellishment, or, as Le Brun put it, "color depends entirely on matter, therefore it is less noble than drawing, which depends only on the mind".

The Poussinistes would win the debate, establishing Poussin as the central figure to the Academy's teachings. Indeed, many Academians cited Poussin as Raphael's rightful heir. As art historian Michael Paul Driskel put it, "by interpreting Poussin as the 'French Raphael,' French art theorists in and around the Academy heightened Poussin's prestige and strengthened his pedigree as the father of the French classical tradition [...] in the hope of creating their own version of the beau ideal".

The Royal Academy of Arts (London)

In 1768 Sir William Chambers headed a group of 22 artists and architects - including four Italians, a Frenchman, a Swiss and two women - who signed a petition seeking permission from King George III to "establish a society for promoting the Arts of Design". With the King's blessing, the Royal Academy of Arts emerged as an independent institution ran by 36 artists and headed with an elected President, the esteemed portraitist Joshua Reynolds. The Academy featured an art school, a design school, public exhibitions - including its famous Summer Exhibition - and a public lecture series through which the Academy disseminated its scholarly principles.

Reynolds's own "Discourses" series of annual lectures followed the "Hierarchy of Genres" already established by the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Reynolds, however, laid the foundations for what would become known as the Grand Manner; a style that applied the academic standards of history painting to portraiture. The art historian Cecil Gould observed that in Reynolds's vision of portraiture "Landscape backgrounds or ornamental detail must be reduced to a minimum and individual peculiarities of human physiognomy absolutely eliminated [while] Draperies should be simple, but ample and noble, and fashionable contemporary costume absolutely shunned".

Over time, the Grand Manner expanded the status of genre works further to include full landscapes (typically depicting the British countryside as ideal pastorals). In 1770 The Academy's future president, and the King's personal "History Painter", the American ex-patriot Benjamin West, produced The Death of General Wolfe, a painting that transformed history painting by representing a scene from contemporary history with its heroic figures presented in contemporary clothing.

For the public, the Academy became a vibrant center of cultural life; the summer exhibitions were so popular in fact that catalogue sales and ticket fees made the Royal Academy financially independent. Open to artists outside the Academy (including amateurs) each exhibition received thousands of entries. A committee would choose several hundred works, filling entire walls with paintings, though the advantageous placement of the work often became a matter of infighting and debate. While central to the success of its members, these exhibitions also launched the careers of affiliates of the Academy.

The Academies of German-speaking Europe

The success of the Acad émie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture inspired the founding of other academies in cultural centers throughout Europe. Even powerful independent regions and cities established academies that were nationalistic in their ambition. Prior to the establishment of modern-day Germany and Austria, German-speaking Europe was divided into numerous independent states, a number of which established respected academies. Noted engraver Jacob von Sandrart founded the first art academy in German-speaking Europe, the Nuremburg Academy of Art, in 1662. Subsequently, The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna was founded in 1692, and the Brandenburg Academy of Art in Berlin soon followed in 1694.

These academies played an important role in shaping the national consciousness via art, as exemplified by Johann Gottfried Schadow's 1793 sculpture on Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The classical sculpture, which secured the 29-year-old Schadow's standing as an academician, would become a symbol of German power (not always for the good) down the centuries. The Academy's emphasis on classicism was not seriously challenged until the fin de siècle and the emergence of Modernism. Indeed, in 1897, a group of young artists, including Gustav Klimt, Kolomon Moser, and architects Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich, formed the Vienna Secession movement. Rebelling against the Academy's conservatism, the movement elevated the standing of the applied and decorative arts and would play the leading role in emergence of Art Nouveau.

The Academy in Spain and New Spain

In the 18 th centuries, the Spanish monarchy established three academies in Madrid, Valencia, and in Saragossa. The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, established in Madrid in 1752, was the first and most influential, as, closest to the crown, it influenced the building of academies in the colonies of New Spain. The Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City began as an engraving school in 1778 but soon expanded to teach Mexican students in sculpture, painting, and architecture. In Spain and in Mexico, the academy remained a powerful artistic force well into the 20 th century. Though they would rebel against the academy system, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Fernando Botero all studied at the Academy in Madrid, and the noted Mexican artist Diego Rivera trained at the Academy of San Carlos.

The Academy in Russia

The Russian Academy began in 1757 with Ivan Shuvalov's founding of the Academy of the Three Noblest Arts; renamed the Imperial Academy of Art in 1764 by Catherine the Great. The name change reflected the Russian Empire's emergence as a great world power and its Academy operated as a de facto arm of the government. The Academy extended Russian influence throughout Europe. Noted Russian artists were sent to Rome and Paris, while celebrated European artists were invited for extended stays to the court in St. Petersburg. The institution remained closely allied with the values of the French Academy, so much so in fact that in the mid 1800s a group of young artists, led by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi, rebelled against the Academy's insistence on the practice and principles of the leading defender of Classicism, Dominique Ingres. Lobbying for realistic treatments of everyday subject-matter, they formed the Peredvizhniki, a movement emphasizing landscape painting and Russian rural life. The leading member of the group, Ilya Repin, was so esteemed that, when the Academy was abolished following the Russian Revolution in 1917, it was renamed the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting.

The Academy in Sweden and Denmark

In Sweden and Denmark, the foundation of academies became central to a "golden age" of art that developed subsequently in each country. Founded in 1754, the Royal Danish Academy of Portraiture, Sculpture, and Architecture in Copenhagen later became the vibrant center for the Golden Age of Danish painting. Beginning in the early 1800s, the artistic flowering was shaped by the work and teaching of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersburg. A Neoclassicist who had studied with Jacques-Louis David in Paris, Eckersburg mentored a new generation of artists including Wilhelm Bendz, Constantin Hansen, and Martinus Rørbye. Shaped by a rising middle class, and strongly influenced by the Dutch Golden Age, the Danish Academy adapted its approach away from history painting in favor of landscapes, genre scenes, and portraits. The Danish Academy's reputation and approach attracted young foreign artists such as the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich who studied in Copenhagen.

Modelled on the French Academy, Carl Gustaf Tessin set up the Royal Drawing Academy in Stockholm in 1735. The prime destination for Sweden's aspiring artists, painters such as Guillaume Taraval, John Henrik Scheffel and Olof Arenius, and the architect Carl Harleman, all taught there. The Academy duly expanded and change its name to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1768. Soon after, in 1773, King Gustaf III wrote the first binding statutes for the Academy and its new curriculum covered painting, architecture, graphics, anatomy, philosophy and history. The late eighteenth century witnessed the dawning of Sweden's own Golden Age, with the famed Neoclassical sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel elected to the Academy's board. In 1810, the institution was renamed the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts ( Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna) the name it bears to this day.

The Academy in the United States

The Pennsylvanian artist Benjamin West (who succeeded Joshua Reynolds as president of the Royal Academy following the Englishman's death) produced paintings of contemporary American events that did much to transform the Royal Academy's concept of the genre. At the same time, the Royal Academy offered a model for an American arts institution of similar stature. Founded in 1794 in Philadelphia, the Columbianum was the first attempt at an American Academy based on the English model.

Though the Columbianum was rather short lived, it paved the way for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), which opened in 1805. It was founded by the painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, the sculptor William Rush, and other artists and business leaders, and its charter stated that the PAFA's role was to "Promote the cultivation of the Fine Arts, in the United States of America, by [...] exciting the efforts of artists, gradually to unfold, enlighten, and invigorate the talents of our Countrymen". Arts academies were considered key attributes for cities vying to become America's cultural capital and the PAFA was in fact a rival to the New York Academy of the Fine Arts (later named the American Academy of Fine Arts (AAFA)) which had opened just three years earlier.

Between 1816-36, The AAFA was led by John Trumbull. Dubbed the "artist of the American Revolution", Trumbull had studied extensively with Benjamin West at the Royal Academy, and, as head of the AAFA he adopted its dogmatic, conservative approach to arts education. In 1825, advocating a naturalistic approach to landscape based upon scientific observation and en plein air painting, and led by the polymath Samuel F.B. Morse (himself a former Royal Academian), some thirty artists including Thomas Cole and Asher Brown Durand founded the National Academy of Design (NAD) in New York. The NAD opposed to the PAFA and AAFA which was run by businessmen and collectors, whose aim (so the NAD members argued) was to cultivate public tastes that, in turn, served their own commercial concerns. The NAD, on the other hand, put the needs and ideas of the artist at the forefront of its agenda. Although a single national academy failed to govern in the United States, the PAFA and the NAD are arguably the country's most important arts institutions and remain ongoing concerns.

Concepts and Trends

Training

The art historian Michael Driskel noted that the "formation of the Academy and the development of academic theory was predicated on the notion that painting was a 'discipline' governed by rules that could be defined and taught. These rules were derived from the works of the most exemplary past masters". Copying the classics was the favored mode of academic study, as students focused exclusively for the first two years on drawing copies of Old Masters' paintings or casts of classical sculpture. Students also studied geometry, human anatomy, and the literary classics. Later on, students would begin by "drawing from life", sketching live male models; a practice which was seen as central to a complete arts education. On completion of their courses, students would finally learn painting and the use of color in the studios of established masters.

Hierarchy of Genres

The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was the first to establish a codified Hierarchy of Genres in 1669. Academy Secretary, Andre Felibien, had ranked history painting at the most scholarly and edifying genre followed, in diminishing rank, by portraiture, genre painting, landscapes, and still lifes. History paintings were large works depicting subjects taken from classical mythology, the Bible, literature, or from important historical events. Mastery of the genre was a necessary requirement for any student who wished to be admitted to the Academy as a member or to win the prestigious Prix de Rome. As Driskel noted, the French Academy's "rules were derived from the works of the most exemplary past masters, including Titian, Correggio, Michelangelo, and above all, Raphael and Poussin, whose art perfectly fit the classicizing predilections of the French".

Paragoni

Though academies were often viewed (especially by modernists) as having entrenched ideas on artistic practice, they were in fact shaped by paragoni, an Italian word meaning "comparisons". The comparisons between the merits of painting and sculpture, or disegno versus colorito, led to ongoing aesthetic debates. Such debates hinged partly on the complexity and range of skills involved in mastering each art and played a role in formulating the Hierarchy of Genres. The debates also took on geographical or nationalistic concerns, as the rivalry between artistic approaches often reflected a shifting power dynamic that was as much political and cultural as aesthetic. When Rome and Florentine disegno vied against Venetian colorito, for instance, the artistic debate was informed by the political and economic rivalry of the city-states. Similarly, the French Academy resolved the debate between Poussin's disegno and Rubens's colorito preferences, coming out in favor of the Frenchman (Poussin).

These debates also sparked new movements and fluctuations in academic taste. For example, in 1820, the works of Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and François Boucher launched the Rococo movement. Their exuberant and sensuous use of color became an academy standard. Similarly, Neoclassicism dominated the late 1700s only then to be challenged by Romanticism, with artists such as Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Géricault using color to intensify the emotional impact of their painting.

The Academy Exhibition

A primary function of academies was to provide artists with a regular exhibition venue. Since their authority lent considerable credence to the juried shows, academy shows were often considered arbiters of taste and, as such, the most important event in the arts exhibition calendar. Possibly the most famous example was the biannual exhibition of the French academy, the Salon, so called because it was initially held in the Salon Carré of the Palace (in The Louvre). The Salon became the most important regular exhibition in Europe throughout the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was key to a successful career since it ensured that a student would graduate to academy member. At the same time, the enormously popular exhibitions drew art collectors and those who commissioned portraits and other artistic projects.

The challenge to the authority of the academy system began with the rise of "alternative" salons. Having been rejected by the official Salon, artists such as Camille Pissarro, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, and James McNeill Whistler were among the avant-garde artists who exhibited in the 1863 Salon des Refusés. Attracting more visitors and art critics than the official Salon, the Salon des Refusés hastened the demise of the French Academy's dominance and was a signifying development in the dawning of the modern age of art.

Later Developments

By the nineteenth century, many artists began to challenge the idea of a centralized authority. Modern artists, whose preference was for naturalism, began painting en plein air. While nature was, for groups such as the rural Barbizon School, a source of great inspiration, the Romantics were emphasizing the power of color to conjure scenes of drawn from an impassioned imagination. As Delacroix noted, "Draughtsman may be made, but colorists are born". The case against the academy became so compelling that by the mid-nineteenth century even academic artists such as Bouguereau and Cabanel aspired to combine the classical elements of the academy with Romanticism's passion and color (though such concessions were dismissed by avant-gardists as stale and sentimental and only served the interests of the bourgeoisie).

It wouldn't be long before many artists were rejecting authority entirely; indeed, it is arguable that in its early stages modern art came to be defined exclusively by its opposition to academy art. Today, with the state having withdrawn from large-scale patronage, and official exhibition venues having ceded ground to a variety of public museums and commercial galleries, art schools have also modernized. For example, many academies have reduced their emphasis on life drawing classes, and others remain sceptical of the value of dogmatic training programs.

Useful Resources on The Academy of Art

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The Academy of Art - Modern Art Terms and Concepts

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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.