Answer to Question #305560 in History for Pierre OLLIER

Question

The Royal Academy in France (as well as its counterpart in Great Britain) essentially set the standards of taste and style in art from the mid-1600s through the 1800s.

• Think about who or what sets artistic styles and tastes today.
• Are there a select few authorities or institutions whose opinions are respected? Or, is an art more democratically produced?

Answer 1

The Royal Academy in France was founded under King Louis XIV in France as the

Académie Royale de Peinture et de sculpture. The Royal Academy in England was founded under

the patronage of King George III, as a breakaway group from the Society of Artists in 1768.

These Academy’s including those of Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno (Florence) founded in

1562 and Accademia di San Luca (Rome) founded in 1583 all strove to enhance the principal,

technique, style, education, and teaching of art (Art Encyclopedia, n.d.).

Subsequently, the Académie Royale de peinture et de Sculpture merged with the “Académie

de Musique (founded in 1669) and the Académie d'Architecture (founded in 1671) to form the

Académie des Beaux-Arts (French Academy of Fine Arts)” (Gersch-Nesic, 2017). The French

Academy as it became (casually) known, decided upon the authoritative and bona fide art of

France. The French Academy juried what was defined as good or bad art, and protected France

from the malfeasance of art. The Academy became a national institution that set the standards for training, artistic requirements, style, and the genre of art, even opening its own fine arts school - École des Beaux-Arts (Gersch-Nesic, 2017). The Academy was the patron of an annual

exhibition where artists could submit their creative work called the Salon (Art Encyclopedia,

n.d.). Rejection from the Salon meant that an artist would have to wait an entire year before

being allowed to resubmit their work (Gersch-Nesic, 2017).

The Impressionist movement steered away from the Salon and effectively opened the door

for a new generation of artists to display their work in galleries and markets that accepted a new

type of art. The Impressionist movement also opened the door for Post-Impressionism, and

Fauvism, and expressive use of form, light, and color in abstract interpretations. Later expressive

and intellectual genres of art brought Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism (The Art Story, n.d.) through

to contemporary art.

In answer to the question – the question is too big to answer. As an artist myself, I dapple in

the abstract, portraiture, and design. My styles are mixed, just as my emotions are. I, like many

other artists, do not subscribe to any particular genre but rather a mix of them. As individuals’

artists are allowed free expression and to be uninhibited by any formal structures. Museums and

galleries such as MOMA or the Guggenheim all have important roles in art today but in my

opinion, I see Saatchi and Basel as two important influencers of contemporary art on a broader

scale. Also, I see individual artists such as Bansky, Daniel Arsham, Michael Graves, and Antony

Gormley as influencers of art today. And, because art is so subjective at an individual level, I

posit that the individual in society is the authority, not any one defined institution