thumb|300px|A meeting of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture at the [[Louvre Palace () by Jean-Baptiste Martin]]

thumb|300px|[[The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717, was Antoine Watteau's reception piece for the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.]]

The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (; ) was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution. It included most of the important painters and sculptors, maintained almost total control of teaching and exhibitions, and afforded its members preference in royal commissions.

Founding

In the 1640s, France's artistic life was still based on the medieval system of guilds like the Académie de Saint-Luc which had a tight grip on the professional lives of artists and artisans alike. Some artists had managed to get exemptions but these were based on favoritism rather than merit.

According to the 17th century Mémoires about the founding of the Académie royale, a few "superior men" who were "real artists", suffered and felt humiliated under the guild system.

In view of increasing pressure by the Parisian guilds for painters and sculptors to submit to their control, the young but already very successful painter Charles Le Brun conceived a plan to free those he considered to be true artists from the humiliating influence of mere artisans. He involved his two close friends, the brothers Louis and Henri Testelin, to lobby for an independent organisation where membership was based on merit alone, following the examples of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence and the Accademia di San Luca in Rome.

Soon, the courtier Martin de Charmois and several more artists became involved and drafted a petition for the foundation of the Académie. Charmois assembled as many artists with royal patronage as he could to sign it, which a great number did. With the support of Le Brun's patron Pierre Séguier, Chancellor of France, Charmois presented the petition to the nine-year-old King Louis XIV, his mother Anne of Austria who acted as regent and the whole Royal Council on 20 January 1648 at the Palais-Royal. All present approved and the foundation of the Académie royale was granted.

The promoters immediately got to work and in January 1648 formulated statutes with 13 articles (approved in February and published on 9 March 1648), a key element of which was a public art school. There were 22 founding members, who, in February 1648, elected 12 anciens (elders), who would be in charge of the academy in turn, each for a calendar month. These first anciens were the painters Charles Le Brun, Charles Errard, François Perrier, Juste d' Egmont, Michel I Corneille, Henri Beaubrun, Laurent de La Hyre, Sebastien Bourdon, Eustache Le Sueur and the sculptors Simon Guillain, Jacques Sarazin and Gerard van Opstal. There is a common misconception that "there were twelve founders" and that all of the original members were called anciens, but this is not correct.

Charmois was elected Chef (Head) of the Académy as stated in article XIII of the statutes.

With revised statutes from 24 December 1654 the offices of chancelier and of four recteurs were created, and the title ancien was abandoned in favour of the title professeur (with the exact same duties for a calendar month in turn).

Vice-protectorate of Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Following the death of the Protecteur of the Académie royale, Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661, the office reverted to his predecessor Chancellor Séguier. Later that year, Séguier named Jean-Baptiste Colbert, King Louis XIV's trusted minister, as Vice-protecteur. Colbert took full strategic control and, working through Charles Le Brun, ensured that the arts were devoted to the glorification of the King. A "royal style" was enforced which in practice meant a classical style.

Dominance of Charles Le Brun

The Académie experienced its greatest power during the involvement of Charles Le Brun who, from its beginnings in 1648 until his death in 1690 occupied many positions within the Académie. After being an original ancien, in 1655 he was the first to be appointed chancellor of the Académie (from 1663 chancellor for life), then he became rector from 1668 and director from 1683. Despite his short seven-year reign as director, Le Brun controlled a majority of decisions within the Académie. In February 1675 he ordered that no decision would be validated in the Académie without his approval. and made available online:

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Conférences de l'Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture

|-

! scope=row | Tome I: Les Conférences au temps d'Henry Testelin 1648-1681 (2006)

| Vol. 1 || Vol. 2

|-

! scope=row | Tome II: Les Conférences au temps de Guillet de Saint Georges 1682-1699 (2008)

| Vol. 1 || Vol. 2

|-

! scope=row | Tome III: Les Conférences au temps de Jules Hardouin-Mansart 1699-1711 (2009)

|-

! scope=row | Tome IV : Les Conférences entre 1712 et 1746 (2010)

| Vol. 1 || Vol. 2

|-

! scope=row | Tome V : Les Conférences au temps de Charles-Antoine Coypel 1747-1752 (2012)

| Vol. 1 || Vol. 2

|-

! scope=row | Tome VI : Les Conférences entre 1752-1792 (2015)

| Vol. 1 || Vol. 2 || Vol. 3

|}

See also

  • Academic art
  • French art salons and academies
  • List of members of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • Brosnan, Kelsey (2016). "Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France". Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, , no. 3 (16 October). .
  • Burchard, Wolf (2016). The Sovereign Artist: Charles Le Brun and the Image of Louis XIV. London: Paul Holberton Publishing. .
  • (Vol. 1 and 2 at Internet Archive, Vol. 1 and 2 at Gallica.)
  • Janson, H.W. (1995). History of Art, 5th edition, revised and expanded by Anthony F. Janson. London: Thames & Hudson. .
  • Klingsöhr, Cathrin (1986). "Die Kunstsammlung der "Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture" in Paris". Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte,, no. 4, . .
  • Landois, Paul (2003). "Academy of Painting". The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Reed Benhamou. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library. Originally published in 1751 as "Académie de Peinture," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, , . Paris.
  • Michel, Christian (2018). The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture: The Birth of the French School, 1648–1793, translated from French by Chris Miller. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. .

Further reading

  • Issues of L'Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture online in Gallica, the digital library of the BnF.