Academic Art Movement

Academic Art Movement, Academicism Paintings, and Academic Artists

Academic Art also known as Academicism oil paintings, combined Neoclassicism and Romanticism, incorporating highlights from both as well as subjects and characters from the Rococo movement. Ironically, all the art movements that inspired it began as rebellious or whimsical styles, but by the time they were incorporated into the academic style, they had become mainstream.

How to Identify Academic Art Movement Paintings?

1. Romanticized life in a peaceful landscape, similar to that found in Rococo art. Not at all like Rococo paintings, you won't find privileged aristocrats being playful, poor people, or the lower classes being depicted living in a romanticized, outlandish world. Nothing to do with reality. Look for beautiful, barefoot peasant girls The Shepherdess, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

2. While industrialization was spreading across European urban communities and affecting the lives of millions of people, academic art overlooked all that. Instead, it portrayed legendary topics or unspoiled country life. Legendary subjects and characters from the Rococo period were restored, including cherubs. William-Adolphe Bouguereau's L’Amour et Psyché, enfants Cupid and Psyche as Children.

3. Renowned painters attempted to combine Neoclassicism and Romanticism by emphasizing Greco-Roman mythology or sensational scenes. The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel.

Academic Art is very strict. Does practice make a Master?

Academic art or the Academism movement, the word academic originating from the French word académie, refers to the style of those who were trained and influenced by the strict standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts.

During the early nineteenth century, a remarkable phenomenon took place in Europe. Prompted to some degree, by the desire to develop more creative forms of expression and make them official, fine arts academies began springing up all over the continent. For many young artists, these academies became an alternative to an apprenticeship. They taught the tenets of media and expression, with a specific emphasis on history and literature. Numerous institutes also studied and conserved the art of their city or encompassing region through theoretical teaching and the foundation of local museums. The academies, for the most part, needed to provide an institutionalized program of study that left no space for individual inventiveness or individual creativity. The focus on the old masters and aesthetic norms of the past confined the creative ability of many artists. They, during the second half of the century, began to reject academic statutes. One of the express outcomes of this state of mind is the Impressionist "en Plein air" painting, which concentrated on the impact of light and color.

The Salon de Paris has been the official art exhibition of the French Academy since 1725 and is considered the greatest annual art event in the world. By the early nineteenth century, the French Academy and its Salon were powerful, in contrast to all other formal and informal salons. If you were a genuine artist, you couldn't overlook them. Having one's works of art shown at the Paris Salon to an immense gathering of people, was a dream for most artists. After your name is known through that Salon, you are more likely to gain critical acclaim and have a long and successful career. The most celebrated painters were in favor of the Academy. Shockingly, that implied that artists would need to fit in with the formally affirmed guidelines of the conservative Academy. The aesthetic standards shaped everything from colors to composition to subject matter. For example, the Impressionist artists were shut out of Paris and London, while the Pre-Raphaelite movement artists would later shun all art academies.

Keeping in mind the end goal of demonstrating that art was a scholarly pursuit, the Académie des Beaux-Arts introduced stringent guidelines to be followed, which were intended to separate artists from craftsmen. Gentlemen, men of honor who create "great art" were welcome, yet gifted lower-class individuals who appear to treat it like physical work were not accepted. The Academy was not open to the masses, only a few privileged understudies with the right connections could join.

To its critics, the movement's timeline was disconnected from real life. This sparked a debate about whether artists should be interested in the hardships of common people. The debate sowed the seeds for the future ascent of the Realist art movement, dismissing the idealism of Academicism.

By and large, and regrettably, most works of art are viewed as kitschy because of their dull topics. They appear to have been mass-produced. Despite how beautiful they appear, it is obvious they were created for the commercial market. It was criticized for its flat and unsurprising adages. It was also reviled by famous artists of subsequent generations for being an elitist form, similar to Rococo, as bourgeois for bourgeois society.

20th-century art history wasn’t kind to Academic Art.

According to recent research, it is cheesy and boring and is only suitable for replica art on calendars and postcards. It was kept out of textbooks and reference books. Academism and its most famous painters were rarely mentioned, and this trend continues today, with only a few websites explaining academic art in detail as if it never existed. Be that as it may, regardless of the subject matter painted, the artists themselves were gifted and creative, talented and imaginative, but constrained by the standards of the day. While perceptions and norms change from era to era and century to century, what they painted at the time was extremely well-crafted, multifaceted fine art, which, as usual, the next generation of artists takes the subject matter, transforms it, and creates a brand-new artistic movement for future generations of art historians.

Adapted in part from: Identify This Art