161-413: Jean-Léon Gérôme ( French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ leɔ̃ ʒeʁom] ; 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism . His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The range of his works includes historical paintings , Greek mythology , Orientalism , portraits, and other subjects. He
322-589: A brief existence. The Accademia di San Luca later served as the model for the French Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture), founded in 1648 by a group of artists led by Charles Le Brun , and which later became the Académie des Beaux-Arts (Academy of Fine Arts). Its objective was similar to the Italian one, to honor artists "who were gentlemen practicing
483-477: A caricature where Gérôme is depicted in front of the wall with the art critics as the firing squad. In 1872 Gérôme produced Pollice Verso , a painting of bloody gladiators and blood-thirsty Vestal virgins in the Colosseum that became one of his most famous works. Alexander Turney Stewart purchased the painting from Gérôme at a price of 80,000 francs, setting a new record for the artist. Gérôme's imagery of
644-507: A commission to paint a large mural of an allegorical subject of his choosing. The Age of Augustus, the Birth of Christ , which combined the birth of Christ with conquered nations paying homage to Augustus, may have been intended to flatter Napoleon III , whose government commissioned the mural and who was identified as a "new Augustus." A considerable down payment enabled Gérôme to travel and research, first in 1853 to Constantinople, together with
805-402: A later academic artist, commented that the trick to being a good painter is seeing "color and line as the same thing". Thomas Couture promoted the same idea in a book he authored on art method—arguing that whenever one said a painting had better color or better line it was nonsense, because whenever color appeared brilliant it depended on line to convey it, and vice versa; and that color was really
966-559: A liberal art" from craftsmen, who were engaged in manual labor. This emphasis on the intellectual component of artmaking had a considerable impact on the subjects and styles of academic art. After an ineffective start, the Académie royale was reorganized in 1661 by King Louis XIV , whose aim was to control all the country's artistic activity, and in 1671, it came under the control of First Minister of State Jean-Baptiste Colbert , who confirmed Le Brun as director. Together, they made it
1127-583: A man out of his time. In 1903, recalling his first meeting with Charles Jalabert in 1840, he wrote: At that time, Paris had nothing to do with the Paris of today: no railways, no bicycles, no cars; we were less agitated, and certain districts, among others the one we lived in and which we called the Latin Quarter, had a provincial aspect in their calm and tranquility. Now everything is changed; we no longer walk, we run like crazy; if we are not crushed during
1288-530: A new historicist phase characterized by an interpretation not only of Greek and Roman classicism , but also of succeeding stylistic eras, which were increasingly respected. This is best seen in the work of Baron Jan August Hendrik Leys , a later influence on James Tissot . It is also seen in the development of the Neo-Grec style. Historicism is also meant to refer to the belief and practice associated with academic art that one should incorporate and conciliate
1449-530: A personal style, it provides a window into Gautier's own tastes in art and culture. Gautier was a celebrated abandonné (one who yields or abandons himself to something) of the Romantic Ballet, writing several scenarios, the most famous of which is Giselle , whose first interpreter, the ballerina Carlotta Grisi , was the great love of his life. When Carlotta rebuffed him, he began a long-term relationship and had two daughters with her sister Ernestina,
1610-412: A quasi-photorealistic manner. Some paintings have a "polished finish" where no brushstroke can be recognized on the finished work. After the oil sketch, the artist would produce the final painting with the academic "fini", changing the painting to meet stylistic standards and attempting to idealize the images and add perfect detail. Similarly, perspective was constructed geometrically on a flat surface and
1771-693: A reference for all newcomers. Despite their stay in Italy, the group continued to be celebrated in their country, and their artistic achievements received continuous press coverage until the neoclassical vogue dissipated in North America from the 1870s onwards. By this time, the United States had already established its culture and created the general conditions to promote consistent and high-level local sculptural production, adopting an eclectic synthesis of styles. These sculptors also strongly absorbed
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#17327730974301932-458: A reflection of absolutism . Overall, academicism has had a significant impact on the development of art education and artistic styles. Its artists rarely showed interest in depicting the everyday or profane. Thus, academic art is predominantly idealistic rather than realistic , aiming to create highly polished works through the mastery of color and form. Although smaller works such as portraits , landscapes and still-lifes were also produced,
2093-535: A series of disciplinary measures for studies and instituting a system of awards for the most capable students. In 1582, the painter and art instructor Annibale Carracci opened his very influential Accademia dei Desiderosi (Academy of the Desirous) in Bologna without official support; in some ways, this was more like a traditional artist's studio, but that he felt the need to label it as an "academy" demonstrates
2254-493: A severe critic was well-known. One of his American students, Stephen Wilson Van Shaick, commented that Gérôme was "merciless in judgement" yet possessed a "singular magnetism." Although Gérôme was very demanding of his students, he offered them considerable assistance outside Beaux-Arts, inviting them to his personal studio, making recommendations to the Salon on their behalf, and encouraging them to study with his colleagues. Gérôme
2415-570: A sinecure as her librarian in 1868, a position that gave him access to the court of Napoleon III. Elected in 1862 as chairman of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts , he was surrounded by a committee of important painters: Eugène Delacroix , Pierre Puvis de Chavannes , Édouard Manet , Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and Gustave Doré . During the Franco-Prussian War , Gautier made his way back to Paris upon hearing of
2576-512: A singer. Absorbed by the 1848 Revolution, Gautier wrote almost one hundred articles, equivalent to four large books, within nine months in 1848. In his essay La République de l'avenir , he celebrated the advent of the new republic and the onward march of individual liberty. Gautier experienced a prominent time in his life when the original romantics such as Hugo, François-René de Chateaubriand , Alphonse de Lamartine , Alfred de Vigny and Alfred de Musset were no longer actively participating in
2737-479: A single Sunday, and as many as 500,000 could see the exhibition during its two-month run. Thousands of paintings were displayed, hung from just below eye level all the way up to the ceiling in a manner now known as "Salon style". A successful showing at the salon was a seal of approval for an artist, making his work saleable to the growing ranks of private collectors. Bouguereau , Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Léon Gérôme were leading figures of this art world. During
2898-421: A son, Théophile Gautier, fils . From a subsequent relationship with the singer Ernesta Grisi (sister of the dancer Carlotta Grisi ), he had two daughters, Judith Gautier and Estelle Gautier. Despite his attraction to "mystery, legend, tradition, the picturesque and the imaginative," and the occasional "excursion into the realms of the beyond," Gautier did not practice any established religion. Gautier spent
3059-492: A still-life. Furthermore, following Greek concepts, it was believed that the highest form of art was the ideal representation of the human body, hence landscapes and still-lifes, in which man did not appear, had little prestige. Finally, with a primarily social and didactic function, academic art favored large works and large-format portraits, more suitable for viewing by large groups of spectators and better suited to decorating public spaces. All of these trends were influenced by
3220-506: A successful example in a smaller country, which achieved its aim of producing a national school and reducing the reliance on imported artists. The painters of the Danish Golden Age of roughly 1800–1850 were nearly all trained there, and drawing on Italian and Dutch Golden Age paintings as examples, many returned to teach locally. The history of Danish art is much less marked by tension between academic art and other styles than
3381-428: A survey of the natural world, for Le Brun it was above all the product of an acquired culture, inherited forms and an established tradition. During this period, academic doctrine reached the peak of its rigor, comprehensiveness, uniformity, formalism and explicitness, and according to art historian Moshe Barasch, at no other time in the history of art theory has the idea of perfection been more intensely cultivated as
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#17327730974303542-430: A symbolic manner, landscapes offered perspectives of idealized virgin nature or city panoramas, and still-lifes consisted of groupings of diverse objects in formal compositions. The justification for this hierarchization lay in the idea that each genre had an inherent and specific moral force. Thus, an artist could convey a moral principle with much more power and ease through a historical scene than, for example, through
3703-461: A way to talk about the "value" of form. Another development during this period, called historicism , included adopting historic styles or imitating the work of historic artists and artisans in order to show the era in history that the painting depicted. In the history of art , after Neoclassicism which in the Romantic era could itself be considered a historicist movement, the 19th century included
3864-421: Is also closely related to Beaux-Arts architecture , as well as classical music and dance , which developed simultaneously and hold to a similar classicizing ideal. Although production of academic art continued into the 20th century, the style had become vacuous, and was strongly rejected by the artists of set of new art movements , of which Realism and Impressionism were some of the first. In this context,
4025-514: Is an art. It forces artists to discard their old routine and forget their old formulas. It has opened our eyes and forced us to see that which previously we have not seen; a great and inexpressible service for Art. It is thanks to photography that Truth has finally come out of her well. She will never go back. In 2012, the Anne de Beaujeu Museum in Moulins , France, which now owns the painting, mounted
4186-439: Is considered one of the most important painters from the academic period. He was also a teacher with a long list of students . Jean-Léon Gérôme was born at Vesoul , Haute-Saône. It was here that Gérôme first received instruction in drawing during his youth in school. He was instructed by local artist and teacher Claude-Basile Cariage , under whom he produced work of sufficient quality to merit more auspicious tutelage. In 1840 he
4347-556: Is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism , Symbolism , Decadence and Modernism . He was widely esteemed by writers as disparate as Balzac , Baudelaire , the Goncourt brothers , Flaubert , Pound , Eliot , James , Proust and Wilde . Gautier was born on 30 August 1811 in Tarbes , capital of Hautes-Pyrénées département (southwestern France). His father
4508-560: Is known to have said that he would not paint "a war", but would paint "War". Many paintings by academic artists are simple nature allegories with titles like Dawn , Dusk , Seeing , and Tasting , where these ideas are personified by a single nude figure, composed in such a way as to bring out the essence of the idea. Stylistically, academic art cultivated the ideal of perfection and at the same time selective imitation of reality ( mimesis ), which had existed since Aristotle . With perfect mastery of color, light and shadow, forms were created in
4669-484: Is not for them! This Monet , do you remember his cathedrals? And that man used to know how to paint! Yes, I've seen good things by him, but now! Similarly he objected to the Manet memorial exhibition at the École des Beaux Arts in 1884. But he did attend the opening, after which he paid Manet the backhanded compliment that the exhibition was "not so bad as I thought." Beginning in 1890, Gerome again drew inspiration from
4830-576: Is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art ; it shows the sculptor and his living statue from the rear. A variation (in private hands) shows them from the front. Also in 1890, responding to widespread fascination with the ancient Tanagra figurines recently excavated in Greece, Gérôme sculpted the 5-foot-high, tinted-marble Tanagra , a female nude personifying the Tyche , or presiding spirit, of
4991-828: Is the case in other countries. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the model expanded to America, with the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico being founded in 1783, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the United States in 1805, and the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Brazil in 1826. Meanwhile, back in Italy, another major center of irradiation appeared, Venice, launching the tradition of urban views and " capriccios ", fantasy landscape scenes populated by ancient ruins, which became favorites of noble travelers on
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5152-501: The École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts). Drawings and paintings of the nude, called "académies", were the basic building blocks of academic art and the procedure for learning to make them was clearly defined. First, students copied prints after classical sculptures, becoming familiar with the principles of contour, light, and shade. The copy was believed crucial to the academic education; from copying works of past artists one would assimilate their methods of artmaking. To advance to
5313-577: The École des Beaux-Arts . He started with sixteen students. Between 1864 and 1904, more than 2,000 students received at least some of their art education through Gérôme's atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts . Places in Gérôme's atelier were limited, keenly sought and highly competitive. Only the best students were admitted and aspirants considered it an honour to be selected. Gérôme progressed his students through drawing from antique works, casts and followed by life study with live models generally selected on
5474-665: The Académie française 's school at the Villa Medici in Rome for up to five years. To compete, an artist had to be of French nationality, male, under 30 years of age, and single. He had to have met the entrance requirements of the École des Beaux-Arts and have the support of a well-known art teacher. The competition was grueling, involving several stages before the final one, in which 10 competitors were sequestered in studios for 72 days to paint their final history paintings. The winner
5635-619: The American Philosophical Society in 1895. The Execution of Marshal Ney was exhibited at the Salon of 1868. On behalf of Ney's descendants, Gérôme was asked to withdraw the painting, but did not comply. The general reception was very split and the 1868 Salon marked the beginning of a lasting divide between Gérôme and many French art critics, who accused him of relying on literary techniques, of commercialising art, and of bringing politics into art. Henri Oulevay made
5796-718: The Art Students League took over as the leading American art academy, founded by students inspired by the model of the French Académie, establishing the guidelines for national art education until World War II , while also opening its classes to women. Offering better working conditions than its Parisian model, the League was created by artists who saw in the French academic environment an appeal to culture and civilization and believed that this model would discipline
5957-578: The Catholic Church , then the greatest political force and social unifier in Europe, began to lose some of its influence as a result of the greater secularization of societies. Sacred art , by far the largest field of artistic expression throughout the Middle Ages , came to coexist with an expanding profane art, derived from classical sources, which had been experiencing a slow revival since
6118-661: The Grand Tour . Even with its wide spread, the academic system began to be seriously challenged through the actions of intellectuals linked to the Enlightenment . For them, academicism had become an outdated model, excessively rigid and dogmatic; they criticized the methodology, which they believed produced an art that was merely servile to ancient examples, and condemned the institutional administration, which they considered corrupt and despotic . However, an important Enlightenment figure like Diderot subscribed to much of
6279-697: The Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg (1757), and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan (1776), to name a few. In England, this was the Royal Academy of Arts , which was founded in 1768 with a mission "to establish a school or academy of design for the use of students in the arts". The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen , founded in 1754, may be taken as
6440-579: The Kraków Academy of Fine Arts . Many of these works can be seen in the Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art at Sukiennice in Kraków . The academies had as a basic assumption the idea that art could be taught through its systematization into a fully communicable body of theory and practice, minimizing the importance of creativity as an entirely original and individual contribution. Instead, they valued
6601-556: The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen . Among his other sculptures are Omphale (1887) and the statue of the duc d'Aumale which stands in front of the Château de Chantilly (1899). He experimented with mixed ingredients, using for his statues tinted marble, bronze and ivory inlaid with precious stones and paste. His Dancer was exhibited in 1891. His lifesize statue Bellona , in ivory, bronze, and gemstones, attracted great attention at
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6762-590: The New World , where there was a shortage of both marble and capable assistants to help the artist in the complex and laborious art of stone carving and bronze casting. Horatio Greenough was just the first in a large wave of Americans to settle between Rome and Florence. The most notable of these was William Wetmore Story , who after 1857 assumed leadership of the American colony that had been created in Rome, becoming
6923-785: The Paris Salon of 1857 by his display of Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert , Memnon and Sesostris , Camels Watering , and Suite d'un bal masqué (purchased by the duc d'Aumale , now in the Musée Condé in Chantilly ; a copy made by Gérôme in 1859, The Duel After the Masquerade , is in the Walters Art Museum ). In 1858, he helped to decorate the Paris house of Prince Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte in
7084-467: The Platonic theory that the arts are questionable because they are imperfect imitations of an abstract ideal reality , he considered this idea only in a moral sphere, politicized and republicanized it, relating the truth of the arts to that of social institutions. He also claimed that the political reality of the republic was a reflection of the republic of the arts that he sought to establish. But beyond
7245-522: The Pre-Raphaelites , it managed to remain a disciplinary, educational and consecrating agency of the greatest importance, able to largely accompany the progress of modernism , contradicting a common view that academies are invariably reactionary. In Germany, the academic spirit initially encountered some resistance to its full implementation. Already at the end of the 18th century, theorists such as Baumgarten , Schiller and Kant had promoted
7406-551: The Revolution of 1848 , many theatres were closed down and therefore plays were scarce. Most of the plays that dominated the mid-century were written by playwrights who insisted on conformity and conventional formulas and catered to cautious middle-class audiences. As a result, most of Gautier's plays were never published or reluctantly accepted. Between the years 1839 and 1850, Gautier wrote all or part of nine different plays: Two poems from "Émaux et camées"—"Sur les lagunes" and
7567-399: The right wing populist party, Alternative for Germany , used The Slave Market in a campaign poster in the 2019 European Parliament election .) In his travels, Gérôme collected artefacts and costumes for staging oriental scenes in the studio, and also made oil studies from nature for the backgrounds. In an autobiographical essay of 1878, Gérôme described how important oil sketches made on
7728-413: The "Hoop Dancer" figurine held by Tanagra (these became "Gérôme's most popular and widely reproduced sculpture"); two paintings of an imaginary ancient Tanagra workshop where copies of his own Hoop Dancer are on display; and two self-portraits of himself sculpting Tanagra from a living model in his Paris atelier, in which a Hoop Dancer and two different versions of Pygmalion and Galatea can be seen in
7889-637: The 12th century, and which, by the time of the Renaissance , had been established as the most prestigious cultural reference and model of quality. This re-emergence of classicism required artists to become more cultured, in order to competently transpose this reference to the visual arts . At the same time, the old system of artistic production, organized by guilds —class associations of an artisanal nature, linked more to mechanical crafts than to intellectual erudition—began to be seen as outdated and socially unworthy, as artists began to desire equality with
8050-551: The 16th century, during the reign of King Henry III , especially through the work of the poet Jean-Antoine de Baïf , who founded an academy linked to the French Crown . Like its Italian counterparts, it was primarily philological - philosophical in nature, but it also worked on concepts relating to the arts and sciences. Although it developed intense activity with regular debates and theoretical production, defending classical principles, it lacked an educational structure and had
8211-699: The 17th century onward: this was first evident in the activities of the Ionian school , and later became especially pronounced with the dawn of the Munich school . This was also true for Latin American nations, which, because their revolutions were modeled on the French Revolution , sought to emulate French culture. An example of a Latin American academic artist is Ángel Zárraga of Mexico . Academic art in Poland flourished under Jan Matejko , who established
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#17327730974308372-520: The 1892 exhibition in the Royal Academy of London . Gérôme then began a series of conquerors, wrought in gold, silver and gems: Bonaparte Entering Cairo (1897), Tamerlane (1898), and Frederick the Great (1899). In 1903 Gérôme executed a two sculpture commission, Metallugical Worker and Metallurgical Science for the American millionaire Charles M. Schwab meant to glorify Steel production . Schwab sent an actual steel worker to Paris to pose for
8533-584: The 19th century, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In this period, the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts were very influential, combining elements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism , with Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres a key figure in the formation of the style in painting. The success of the French model led to the founding of countless other art academies in several countries. Later painters who tried to continue
8694-612: The Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma (Academy of Painters and Sculptors of Rome), better known as the Accademia di San Luca (named after the patron saint of painters, St. Luke ), was founded about a decade later in Rome . It served an educational function and was more concerned with art theory than the Florentine one, attaching great importance to attending theoretical lectures, debates and drawing classes. Twelve academics were immediately appointed as teachers, establishing
8855-474: The Ancien Régime. By the second half of the 19th century, academic art had saturated European society. Exhibitions were held often, with the most popular exhibition being the Paris Salon , and beginning in 1903, the Salon d'Automne . These salons were large scale events that attracted crowds of visitors, both native and foreign. As much a social affair as an artistic one, 50,000 people might visit on
9016-679: The Birth of Christ , but it was the modest painting Recreation in a Russian Camp that garnered the most attention. In 1856, Gérôme visited Egypt for the first time. His itinerary followed the classic Grand Tour of the Near East, up the Nile to Cairo, across to Faiyum , then further up the Nile to Abu Simbel, then back to Cairo, across the Sinai Peninsula through Sinai and up the Wadi el-Araba to Jerusalem and finally Damascus . This heralded
9177-646: The English neoclassical-romantic movement and one of the main European names of his generation in the field of history painting. He made a number of fellow disciples, such as Charles Willson Peale , Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull , and his influence was similar to that of Copley on American painting. The first academy to be created in the United States was the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts , founded in 1805 and still active today. The initiative came from
9338-662: The Imperial Court in Compiègne . Along with the most eminent French artists, he was invited to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français (Society of French Orientalist Painters), founded in 1893, named Gérôme honorary president. Gérôme was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1875 and an International Member of
9499-629: The Pompeian style. The prince had bought his Greek Interior (1850), a depiction of a brothel also in the Pompeian manner. In Ave Caesar! Morituri te Salutant , shown at the Salon of 1859, Gérôme returned to the painting of Classical subjects, but the picture failed to interest the public. King Candaules (1859) and Phryne Before the Areopagus and Socrates Seeking Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia (both 1861) gave rise to some scandal by reason of
9660-664: The Prussian advance on the capital. He remained with his family throughout the invasion and the aftermath of the Commune , eventually dying at the age of 61 on 23 October 1872 due to a long-standing cardiac disease. He is interred at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. In 1873, A. Lemerre published a collection of memorial poems, Le Tombeau de Théophile Gautier , with homages by Anatole France , Victor Hugo , Algernon Swinburne , and many others. The young Gautier's appearance
9821-585: The Red Cardinal ( L'Eminence Rouge ), who was France's de facto ruler under King Louis XIII beginning in 1624. In the painting, François Leclerc du Tremblay , a Capuchin friar dubbed L'Eminence Grise (the Gray Cardinal), descends the ceremonial staircase immersed in reading the Bible while all others either bow before him or fix their gaze on him. As Richelieu's chief adviser, L'Eminence Grise
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#17327730974309982-559: The State continued to be the biggest sponsor of art. Quatremère de Quincy , the secretary of the new Institut, which had been born as an apparatus of revolutionary renewal, paradoxically believed that art schools served to preserve traditions, not to found new ones. The greatest innovations he introduced were the idea of reunifying the arts under an atmosphere of egalitarianism, eliminating honorary titles for members and some other privileges, and his attempt to make administration more transparent, eminently public and functional. In reinterpreting
10143-417: The academic ideal, supported the hierarchy of genres ( see below ), and said that "the imagination creates nothing". At the end of the 18th century, following the turmoil of the French Revolution , a real campaign was mounted against the teaching of the Academy, which was identified as a symbol of the Ancien Régime . In 1793, the painter Jacques-Louis David , closely linked to the revolutionaries, took over
10304-459: The actor Edmond Got , and in 1854 to Greece and Turkey and the shores of the Danube, where he was present at a concert of Russian conscripts making music under the threat of a lash. In 1853, Gérôme moved to the Boîte à Thé, a group of studios in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris. This became a meeting place for artists, writers and actors, where George Sand entertained the composers: Hector Berlioz , Johannes Brahms and Gioachino Rossini and
10465-444: The admission of women, requiring new members in an enlarged membership to renounce their affiliation to other societies and reforming its administrative structure to appear as a private institution, but imbued with a civic purpose and a public character. In this way, it managed to administer a significant part of the British artistic universe throughout the 19th century, and despite the opposition of societies and groups of artists such as
10626-474: The ancient city. She holds on her upraised palm a figurine of a female Hoop Dancer (Gérôme's own invention, inspired by, but not a copy of, an actual Tanagra figurine ). "Inspired by his characteristic desire for both archaeological accuracy and realism, Gérôme delicately tinted the skin, hair, lips, and nipples of his Tanagra , causing a sensation at the Salon of 1890." Gérôme subsequently created smaller, gilded bronze versions of Tanagra ; several versions of
10787-434: The ancient world with an interconnected, slyly self-referential series of paintings and sculptures that depicted Pygmalion and Galatea ; the spirit of Tanagra ; and himself. In 1890, Gérôme made at least two paintings of the mythical Greek sculptor Pygmalion kissing his statue of Galatea at the very moment she is transformed from marble into living flesh. The most famous of these paintings titled Pygmalion and Galatea
10948-498: The architect Giorgio Vasari , who called it the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy and Company for the Arts of Drawing) as it was divided in two different operative branches. While the company was a kind of corporation that every working artist in Tuscany could join, the academy comprised only the most eminent artists of Cosimo's court, and had the task of overseeing all Florentine artistic activities, including teaching, and safeguarding local cultural traditions. Among
11109-412: The artist's highest goal, with the production of the Italian High Renaissance as the ultimate model. Thus, Italy continued to be an invaluable reference, so much so that a branch was established in Rome in 1666, the French Academy , with Charles Errard as its first director. At the same time, a controversy occurred among the members of the Académie, which would come to dominate artistic attitudes for
11270-456: The artists Gérard de Nerval , Alexandre Dumas, père , Petrus Borel , Alphonse Brot , and Philothée O’Neddy . Le Petit Cénacle soon gained a reputation for extravagance and eccentricity. Gautier began writing poetry as early as 1826, but the majority of his life was spent as a contributor to various journals, mainly La Presse , which also gave him the opportunity for foreign travel and for meeting many influential contacts in high society and
11431-476: The arts, the emergence of a general feeling of resignation appeared, as well as a growing prevalence of individual bourgeois taste against idealistic collective systems. Soon the preferences of this social class, now so influential, penetrated higher education and became worthy objects of representation, changing the hierarchy of genres and proliferating portraits and all the so-called minor genres, such as everyday scenes and still-lifes, which became more pronounced as
11592-425: The attention on the artwork as an allegorical or figurative vehicle was emphasized. It was held that the representations in painting and sculpture should evoke Platonic forms , or ideals, where behind ordinary depictions one would glimpse something abstract, some eternal truth. Hence, Keats' famous musing "Beauty is truth, truth beauty". The paintings were desired to be an "idée", a full and complete idea. Bouguereau
11753-420: The attraction of the idea at the time. The emergence of art academies in the 16th century was due to the need to respond to new social demands. Several states, which were moving towards absolutism , realized that it was necessary to create an art that specifically identified them and served as a symbol of civic unity, and was also capable of symbolically consolidating the status of their rulers. In this process,
11914-499: The autonomy of Aesthetics through the concept of " art for art's sake ", and had emphasized the importance of the artist's self-education, against the massification imposed by civilization and its institutions, seeing the collectivizing structure and impersonal nature of academia as a threat to their desires for creative freedom, individualistic inspiration, and absolute originality. In this vein, art criticism began to take on distinctly sociological colors. Part of this reaction
12075-494: The background. This complex self-portrait has been called "a summation of Gérôme's remarkable career as both painter and sculptor." Gérôme also sculpted a tinted-marble Pygmalion and Galatea (1891) based on his paintings. In this cycle of works, with its exploration of Classical antiquity , creative inspiration, doppelgängers , and female beauty, we see Gérôme "powerfully evoking the continuous interplay between painting and sculpture, reality and artifice, as well as highlighting
12236-422: The basis of their physique, but occasionally for their facial expression in a sequence of exercises known as the academie. Students drew parts of a bust before the entire bust, then parts of the live model before preparing full figures. Only when they had mastered sketching were they permitted to work in oils. They were also taught to draw clearly and correctly before consideration of tonal qualities. In his school,
12397-552: The beginning of a tradition of large-scale mural painting and the steering of the local avant-garde along less iconoclastic lines than the Parisian ones. The influence of the Royal Academy extended across the ocean and strongly determined the foundation and direction of American art from the end of the 18th century until the middle of the 19th century, when the country began to establish its cultural independence. Some of
12558-428: The century progressed. The bourgeoisie's support for academies was a way of demonstrating education and acquiring social prestige, bringing them closer to the cultural and political elites. Finally, Neo-Gothic revivalism, the development of a taste for the picturesque as an autonomous aesthetic criterion, the revival of Hellenistic eclecticism , the progress of medievalist , orientalist and folkloric studies,
12719-422: The classical tradition, downplaying the importance of individual creativity, valuing instead collective, aesthetic and ethical concepts. By helping raise the professional status of artists, the academies distanced them from artisans and brought them closer to intellectuals. They also played a crucial role in organizing the art world , controlling cultural ideology , taste, criticism, the art market , as well as
12880-476: The critic should have the ability to describe the art such that the reader might "see" the art through his description. In 1862 he was elected chairman of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (National Society of Fine Arts) with a board which included Eugène Delacroix , Édouard Manet , Gustave Doré and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes . In Gautier's literary criticism , he made a clear distinction between prose and poetry, stating that prose should never be considered
13041-589: The day, we have a good chance of being murdered at night. It is charming. We have witnessed the end of a world, we are witnessing the dawn of a new one, which lacks the picturesque and above all serenity. The day is not far off when, through our customs, our ways of being, our love of the dollar ( auri sacra fames ), we will no longer be French, neither in spirit nor in heart. Horrible to think of! We will be Americans! On 31 December 1903, Gérôme wrote to his student and former assistant Albert Aublet , "I begin to have enough of life. I've seen too much misery and misfortune in
13202-456: The direction of the artistic affairs of the new republic and, after complying with the request of numerous artists dissatisfied with the institution's bureaucracy and system of privileges, dissolved the Parisian academies and all the other royal academies in the countryside. However, the extinction of the old schools was temporary, as a Committee for the Arts was subsequently organized, which led to
13363-402: The emulation of established masters, venerating the classical tradition, and adopted collectively formulated concepts that had not only an aesthetic character, but also an ethical origin and purpose. Young artists spent four years in rigorous training. In France, only students who passed an exam and carried a letter of reference from a noted professor of art were accepted at the academy's school,
13524-415: The equal of poetry. The bulk of Gautier's criticism, however, was journalistic. The majority of Gautier's career was spent writing a weekly column of theatrical criticism. He suggested that the normal five acts of a play could be reduced to three: an exposition , a complication , and a dénouement . Having abandoned the idea that tragedy is the superior genre, Gautier was later willing to accept comedy as
13685-462: The equal of tragedy. Taking it a step further, he suggested that the nature of the theatrical effect should be in favour of creating fantasy rather than portraying reality because realistic theatre was undesirable. The American writer Edwin Denby , considered by some to be the most significant writer about dance in the 20th century, claimed Gautier to be a great dance writer. Through his authorship of
13846-444: The established tradition, and managed to become even more influential, continuing to inspire not only Europe, but also America and other countries colonized by Europeans, throughout the 19th century. Another factor in this academic revival, even in the face of a profoundly changing scenario, was the reiteration of the idea of art as an instrument of political affirmation by nationalist movements in several countries. The 19th century
14007-477: The exhibition La vérité est au musée ("Truth is at the Museum"), which collected numerous drawings, sketches, and variants made by Gérôme, and by other artists, relating to the painting and its theme. The multiple interpretations of the painting's enigmatic meaning prompted one of the museum's curators to say, "C'est notre Joconde à nous." ("This is our Mona Lisa .") By the end of his life, Gérôme felt very much
14168-450: The exhibition and dissemination of art. They wielded significant influence due to their association with state power, often acting as conduits for the dissemination of artistic, political, and social ideals, by deciding what was considered "official art". As a result, they faced criticism and controversy from artists and others on the margins of these academic circles, and their restrictive and universalist regulations are sometimes considered
14329-717: The exponents of French Romanticism, stated: These schools keep their pupils in a state of constant emulation... I note with sadness that, since the establishment of these schools, there has been a great effect: they have given service to thousands of mediocre talents... Painters enter there too young, and therefore the traces of individuality that survive the Academy are imperceptible. One can see, with real chagrin, about ten or twelve compositions every year that are practically identical in execution, because in their quest for perfection, they lose their originality. One way of drawing, one type of color, one arrangement for all systems... Since
14490-507: The field of sculpture, however, the greatest influence came from the Italian academies, especially through the example of Antonio Canova , who was the main figure of European neoclassicism, educated in part at the Venice Academy and in Rome. Italy offered a historical and cultural backdrop of irresistible interest to sculptors, with priceless monuments, ruins and collections, and working conditions were infinitely superior to those of
14651-560: The final stage because his figure drawing was inadequate. His painting The Cock Fight (1846) is an academic exercise depicting a nude young man and a very thinly draped young woman with two fighting cocks , with the Bay of Naples in the background. He sent this painting to the Paris Salon of 1847, where it gained him a third-class medal. This work was seen as the epitome of the Neo-Grec movement that had formed out of Gleyre's studio (including Henri-Pierre Picou and Jean-Louis Hamon ), and
14812-501: The first half of the 19th century, the Royal Academy already exercised direct or indirect control over a vast network of galleries, museums, exhibitions and other artistic societies, and over a complex of administrative agencies that included the Crown , parliament and other state departments, which found their cultural expression through their relations with the academic institution. The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition gained momentum at
14973-411: The floor sloped so that students had the fullest view of the model from the rear of the room. Students sat around any model in order of seniority, with the more senior students towards the rear so that they could draw the full figure, while the more junior members sat towards the front and concentrated on the bust or other part of the anatomy. According to John Milner, who studied with Gérôme, his atelier
15134-528: The founders of the Hudson River School , an aesthetic movement that began a great painting tradition, lasting for three generations, with a remarkable unity of principles, and which presented the national landscape in an epic, idealistic and sometimes fanciful light. Its members included Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church , the most celebrated landscape painters of their generation. In
15295-545: The founding in 1795 of a new institution, the Institut de France , which included an artistic section and was responsible for reorganizing the national arts system. The challenges to academicism in France, however, were more nominal than real. Art courses returned to operating in broadly the same way as before, the hierarchy of genres was resurrected, the awards and salons were maintained, the branch in Rome remained active, and
15456-560: The founding members were Michelangelo , Bartolomeo Ammannati , Agnolo Bronzino and Francesco da Sangallo . In this institution, students learned the "arti del disegno" (a term coined by Vasari) and heard lectures on anatomy and geometry . The Accademia's fame spread quickly, to the point that, within just five months of its founding, important Venetian artists such as Titian , Salviati , Tintoretto and Palladio applied for admission, and in 1567, King Philip II of Spain consulted it about plans for El Escorial . Another academy,
15617-400: The fragmentation and weakening of ideals began to become visible and irreversible. With the cooling of the libertarian ardor of the first Romantics, with the final failure of Napoleon's imperialist project, and with the popularization of an eclectic style that blended Romanticism and Neoclassicism, adapting them to the purposes of the bourgeoisie , which became one of the greatest sponsors of
15778-475: The growing participation of women in art production, the valorisation of handicrafts and applied arts , opened up other fronts of appreciation for the visual arts, finding other truths worthy of appreciation that had previously been neglected and relegated to the margins of official culture. As a result of this great cultural transformation, the academic educational model, in order to survive, had to incorporate some of these innovations, but it broadly maintained
15939-959: The growth of the urban nobility. A series of other important academies were formed across the continent, inspired by the success of the French Académie: the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nuremberg (1662), the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (1696), the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna (1698), the Royal Drawing Academy in Stockholm (1735), the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid (1752),
16100-424: The ideas, in practice, authoritarianism , which was one of the reasons given for the extinction of the royal academies, continued to be practiced in the republican administration. Another attack on the academic model came from the early Romantics , at the turn of 18th to 19th centuries, who preached a practice centered on individual originality and independence. Around 1816, the painter Théodore Géricault , one of
16261-400: The influence of the French Académie, several of them were educated there, and their production populated most public spaces and the facades of major American buildings, with works of strong civic and great formalism that became icons of local culture, such as the statue of Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French and the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw by Augustus Saint-Gaudens . In 1875,
16422-453: The inherently theatrical nature of the artist's studio." Beginning in the mid-1890s, in the last decade of his life, Gérôme made at least four paintings personifying Truth as a nude woman, either thrown into, at the bottom of, or emerging from a well. The imagery was inspired by an aphorism of the philosopher Democritus , "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well." Truth Coming Out of Her Well, Armed with Her Whip to Chastise Mankind
16583-415: The innovations of different traditions of art from the past. The art world also grew to give increasing focus on allegory in art. Theories of the importance of both line and color asserted that through these elements an artist exerts control over the medium to create psychological effects, in which themes, emotions, and ideas can be represented. As artists attempted to synthesize these theories in practice,
16744-414: The intellectual versed in the liberal arts , since art itself began to be seen not only as a technical task, as it had been for centuries, but mainly as a way of acquiring and transmitting knowledge. In this new context, painting and sculpture began to be seen as theorizable, just as other arts such as literature and especially poetry were already. However, if on the one hand the artists did rise socially, on
16905-474: The journal L'Éclair : The Institut de France cannot remain still before such a scandal...How can the government dare welcome such a collection of inanities into a museum? Why, have you seen the collection? The state, the ward of such junk!... What lessons are our young artists going to receive from now on? They'll all start to do Impressionism! Ah! these people believe they are painting nature, nature so admirable in all its manifestations! What pretension! Nature
17066-565: The leading local artists studied in London under the guidance of the Royal Academy and others, who settled in England, continued to exert influence in their home country through regular submissions of works of art. This was the case with John Singleton Copley , the dominant influence in his country until the beginning of the 19th century, and also with Benjamin West , who became one of the leaders of
17227-551: The literary world. His prestige was confirmed by his role as director of Revue de Paris from 1851 to 1856. During this time, Gautier left La Presse and became a journalist for Le Moniteur universel , finding the burden of regular journalism quite unbearable and "humiliating". Nevertheless, Gautier acquired the editorship of the influential review L’Artiste in 1856. It is in this review that Gautier publicized Art for art's sake doctrines through many editorials. The 1860s were years of assured literary fame for Gautier. Although he
17388-418: The lives of others. I still see it every day, and I'm getting eager to escape this theatre." He was to live just ten more days. On 10 January 1904, "the maid found him dead in the little room next to his atelier, slumped in front of a portrait of Rembrandt and at the foot of his own painting Truth "—but the source for this anecdote, the biographer Moreau-Vauthier, does not specify which painting of Truth . He
17549-523: The main executive arm of a program to glorify the king's absolutist monarchy , definitively establishing the school's association with the State and thereby vesting it with enormous directive power over the entire national art system, which contributed to making France the new European cultural center, displacing the hitherto Italian supremacy. But while for the Italian Renaissance, art was also
17710-636: The majority of his career as a journalist at La Presse and later at Le Moniteur universel . He saw journalistic criticism as a means to a middle-class standard of living. The income was adequate and he had ample opportunities to travel. Gautier began contributing art criticism to obscure journals as early as 1831. It was not until 1836 that he experienced a jump in his career when he was hired by Émile de Girardin as an art and theatre columnist for La Presse . During his time at La Presse , however, Gautier also contributed nearly 70 articles to Le Figaro . After leaving La Presse to work for Le Moniteur universel ,
17871-479: The middle of the 19th century, the Royal Academy had already lost control over British artistic production, faced with the multiplication of independent creators and associations, but continued, facing internal tensions, to try to preserve it. Around 1860, it was again stabilized through new strategies of monopolizing power, incorporating new trends into its orbit, such as promoting the previously ignored technique of watercolor , which had become vastly popular, accepting
18032-486: The more generalist French system, based on the assumption that such more individualized treatment could provide a stronger and deeper education. This method was first instituted at the Dusseldorf Academy and progressed slowly, but over the course of the 19th century, it became common to all German academies, and was also imitated in other northern European countries. Interesting results of the masterclasses were
18193-413: The movement and the contemporary public and critics most valued large history paintings showing moments from narratives that were very often taken from ancient or exotic areas of history and mythology , though less often the traditional religious narratives . Orientalist art was a major branch, with many specialist painters , as were scenes from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages . Academic art
18354-484: The national democratic impulse, transcending regionalisms and social differences, refine the taste of capitalists and contribute to elevating society and improving its culture. Academic art not only held influence in Western Europe and the United States, but also extended its influence to other countries. The artistic environment of Greece, for instance, was dominated by techniques from Western academies from
18515-446: The next step, and every successive one, students presented drawings for evaluation. If approved, they would then draw from plaster casts of famous classical sculptures. Only after acquiring these skills were artists permitted entrance to classes in which a live model posed. Painting was not taught at the École des Beaux-Arts until after 1863. To learn to paint with a brush, the student first had to demonstrate proficiency in drawing, which
18676-538: The novelists Théophile Gautier and Ivan Turgenev . In 1854, he completed another important commission, decorating the Chapel of St. Jerome in the church of St. Séverin in Paris. His Last Communion of St. Jerome in this chapel reflects the influence of the school of Ingres on his religious works. To the Universal Exhibition of 1855 he contributed Pifferaro , Shepherd , and The Age of Augustus,
18837-644: The official newspaper of the Second Empire , Gautier wrote both to inform the public and to influence its choices. His role at the newspaper was equivalent to the modern book or theatre reviewer. He also reviewed music, without technical terminology but with intelligence and insight, for instance into the work of his friend Berlioz, who set six of his poems (c. 1840) as Les Nuits d'été . Later in life, he wrote extensive monographs on Gérard de Nerval , Balzac and Baudelaire , some of whom were also his friends. His essay on 15th-century French poet François Villon
18998-573: The onset of the Poussiniste-Rubeniste debate, many artists worked between the two styles. In the 19th century, in the revived form of the debate, the attention and the aims of the art world became to synthesize the line of Neoclassicism with the color of Romanticism. One artist after another was claimed by critics to have achieved the synthesis, among them Théodore Chassériau , Ary Scheffer , Francesco Hayez , Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps , and Thomas Couture . William-Adolphe Bouguereau ,
19159-430: The other they lost the security of market insertion that the guild system provided, having to live in the uncertain expectation of individual protection by some patron . If Italy was to be credited with founding this new type of institution, France was responsible for taking the model to a first stage of great order and stability. The country's first attempts to establish academies like the Italian ones also took place in
19320-468: The outskirts of Paris. Deciding to experiment with his own independence and freedom, Gautier chose to stay with friends in the Doyenné district of Paris. Towards the end of 1830, Gautier began to frequent meetings of Le Petit Cénacle (The Little Upper Room), a group of artists who met in the studio of Jehan Du Seigneur . The group was a more irresponsible version of Hugo's Cénacle . Among its members were
19481-400: The painter Charles Peale and the sculptor William Rush , along with other artists and traders. Its progress was slow, and its peak was only reached at the end of the 19th century, when it began to receive significant financial support, opened a gallery and formed its own collection, becoming an anti-modernist bastion. The most decisive step toward the formation of an American academic culture
19642-478: The paintings Michelangelo (also called In his Studio ) and A Portrait of a Lady . In 1851, he decorated a vase later offered by Emperor Napoleon III of France to Prince Albert , now part of the Royal Collection at St. James's Palace , London. He exhibited Greek Interior , Souvenir d'Italie , Bacchus and Love, Drunk in 1851; Paestum in 1852; and An Idyll in 1853. In 1852, Gérôme received
19803-455: The profound and irreversible influence of photography: La photographie est un art. La photographie force les artistes à se dépouiller de la vieille routine et à oublier les vieilles formules. Elle nous a ouvert les yeux et forcé à regarder ce qu'auparavant nous n'avions jamais vu, service considérable et inappréciable qu'elle a rendu à l'Art. C'est grâce à elle que la vérité est enfin sortie de son puits. Elle n'y rentrera plus. Photography
19964-530: The reign of academic art, the paintings of the Rococo era, previously held in low favor, were revived to popularity, and themes often used in Rococo art such as Eros and Psyche were popular again. The academic art world also admired Raphael, for the idealism of his work, in fact preferring him over Michelangelo. In England, the influence of the Royal Academy grew as its association with the State consolidated. In
20125-435: The rest of the century. This "battle of styles" was a conflict over whether Peter Paul Rubens or Nicolas Poussin was a suitable model to follow. Followers of Poussin, called "poussinistes", argued that line (disegno) should dominate art, because of its appeal to the intellect, while followers of Rubens, called "rubenistes", argued that color (colore) should be the dominant feature, because of its appeal to emotion. The debate
20286-450: The scenario of the ballet Giselle , one of the foundation works of the dance repertoire, his influence remains as great among choreographers and dancers as among critics and devotees of ballet. In 2011, Pacific Northwest Ballet presented a reconstruction of the work as close to its narrative and choreographic sources as possible, based on archival materials dating back to 1842, the year after its premiere. In many of Gautier's works,
20447-419: The spot were for him: "Even when worn out after long marches under the bright sun, as soon as our camping spot was reached I got down to work with concentration. But Oh! How many things were left behind of which I carried only the memory away! And I prefer three touches of color on a piece of canvas to the most vivid memory, but one had to continue on with some regret." Gérôme's reputation was greatly enhanced at
20608-536: The start of many Orientalist paintings depicting Arab religious practice, genre scenes and North African landscapes. Among these are paintings in which the Oriental setting is combined with depictions of female nudity. The Slave Market , The Large Pool of Bursa , Pool in a Harem , and similar subjects were works of imagination in which Gérôme combined accurately observed Middle Eastern architectural details with idealized nudes painted in his Paris studio. (In 2019,
20769-469: The style is often called " eclecticism ", " art pompier " (pejoratively), and sometimes linked with " historicism " and " syncretism ". By World War I , it had fallen from favor almost completely with critics and buyers, before regaining some appreciation since the end of the 20th century. The first academy of art was founded in Florence by Cosimo I de' Medici , on 13 January 1563, under the influence of
20930-428: The subject is less important than the pleasure of telling the story. He favoured a provocative yet refined style. This list links each year of publication with its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article, for poetry, or "[year] in literature" article for other works): Gautier did not consider himself to be a dramatist but more of a poet and storyteller. His plays were limited because of the time in which he lived; during
21091-414: The subjects selected by the painter, and inspired bitter attacks by Paul de Saint-Victor and Maxime Du Camp . Also at the 1861 Salon he exhibited Egyptian Chopping Straw and Rembrandt Biting an Etching , two very minutely finished works. In 1863, he married Marie Goupil (1842–1912), the daughter of the international art dealer Adolphe Goupil . They had four daughters and one son. His oldest daughter
21252-430: The synthesis included William-Adolphe Bouguereau , Thomas Couture , and Hans Makart among many others. In sculpture, academic art is characterized by a tendency towards monumentality, as in the works of Auguste Bartholdi and Daniel Chester French . The academies were established to replace medieval artists' guilds and aimed to systematize the teaching of art. They emphasized the emulation of established masters and
21413-463: The theories of the German philosopher Hegel , who held that history was a dialectic of competing ideas, which eventually resolved in synthesis. Napoleon was the " swan song " of the concept of art as a vehicle of moral values and a mirror of virtue . He actively patronized and employed artists to portray his personal glory, that of his Empire and of his political and military conquests. After him,
21574-460: The time and has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. As the century progressed, challenges to this primacy began to emerge, demanding that its relations with the government be clarified, and the institution began to pay more attention to market aspects in a society that was becoming more heterogeneous and cultivating multiple aesthetic tendencies. Subsidiary schools were also opened in various cities to meet regional demands. By
21735-706: The tradition founded by masters such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci . Paul Delaroche is a typifying example of French history painting and Benjamin West of the British-American vogue for painting scenes from recent history. Paintings by Hans Makart are often larger than life historical dramas, and he combined this with a historicism in decoration to dominate the style of 19th-century Vienna culture. Portraits included large-format depictions of people, suitable for their public glorification, but also smaller pieces for private use. Everyday scenes, also known as genre scenes, portrayed common life in
21896-405: The turned thumb to signal life or death for a fallen gladiator was repeated in a multitude of movies, from the silent era up to and including the 2000 Oscar-winner Gladiator . Gérôme returned successfully to the Salon in 1873 with his painting L' Eminence Grise ( Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ), a colorful depiction of the main stair hall of the palace of Cardinal Richelieu , popularly known as
22057-414: The two became lifelong friends. It is through Nerval that Gautier was introduced to Victor Hugo , by then already a leading dramatist. Hugo became a major influence on Gautier. It was at the legendary premiere of Hugo's Hernani that Gautier is remembered for wearing his anachronistic red doublet . In the aftermath of the 1830 Revolution , Gautier's family experienced hardship and was forced to move to
22218-402: The various emotions was codified in detail by academicism and the artistic genres themselves were subjected to a scale of prestige. Because history and mythology were considered plays or dialectics of ideas, a fertile ground for important allegory, using themes from these subjects was regarded as the most serious form of painting. This hierarchy of genres, originally created in the 17th century,
22379-483: The works. During the last decades of his career, as his own work fell out of fashion, Gérôme was harshly critical of Impressionism . In 1894, he caused a scandal over his opposition to the Caillebotte bequest to the state which eventually became the foundation of the Musée d'Orsay collection. He organized a public demonstration in his atelier and gave interviews to reporters, including these comments published in
22540-413: The world of the arts. Throughout his life, Gautier was well-travelled, taking trips to Spain, Italy, Russia, Egypt and Algeria . Gautier's many travels inspired many of his writings including Voyage en Espagne (1843), Trésors d’Art de la Russie (1858), and Voyage en Russie (1867). Gautier's travel literature is considered by many as being some of the best from the nineteenth century; often written in
22701-571: Was "flamboyant…defying conventionality by his flowing hair and far-famed scarlet waistcoat." In his youth, according to Edgar Saltus , Gautier was dashing, athletic, amorous, and mercurial: He was tall and robust; his hair was a wayward flood; his eyes were blue and victorious. He was the image of Young France. His strength was proverbial; he outdid Dante; he swam from Marseilles to the Chateau d’If, and then swam back. [...] women fell in love with him at once. From an affair with Eugénie Fort, he had
22862-454: Was 79. Academic painting Academic art , academicism , or academism , is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art . This method extended its influence throughout the Western world over several centuries, from its origins in Italy in the mid-16th century, until its dissipation in the early 20th century. It reached its apogee in
23023-645: Was Jean-Pierre Gautier, a fairly cultured minor government official, and his mother was Antoinette-Adelaïde Cocard. The family moved to Paris in 1814, taking up residence in the ancient Marais district. Gautier's education commenced at the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris, which he attended for three months before being brought home due to illness. Although he completed the remainder of his education at Collège Charlemagne , Gautier's most significant instruction, including in Latin , came from his father. While at school, Gautier befriended Gérard de Nerval and
23184-519: Was Jeanne (1863-1944) and she was followed by Suzanne (1867-1941; married to Aimé Morot ), Blanche (1868-1918) and Madeleine (1875-1905). Upon his marriage he moved to a house in the Rue de Bruxelles, close to the Folies Bergère . He expanded it into a grand house with stables with a sculpture studio below and a painting studio on the top floor. Gérôme was appointed as one of the three professors at
23345-507: Was a large bronze statue of a gladiator holding his foot on his victim, based on his painting Pollice Verso (1872) and shown to the public at the Universal Exhibition of 1878 . The same year he exhibited a marble statue at the Salon of 1878, based on his early painting Anacreon, Bacchus and Eros (1848). Aware of contemporary experiments of tinting marble (such as by those by John Gibson ), he produced Dancer with Three Masks combining movement with color, first exhibited in 1902 and now in
23506-556: Was called "the power behind the throne," which became the known definition of his title. From approximately 1876 to 1890, Gérôme frequently worked with model Emma Dupont , who posed for several of his works, including Nude (Emma Dupont) (1876), The End of the Sitting (1886), Omphale (1887), Working in Marble, or The Artist Sculpting Tanagra (1890), and Tanagra (1890). In his thirties, Gérôme took up sculpture. His first work
23667-518: Was championed by the influential French critic Théophile Gautier , whose review made Gérôme famous and effectively launched his career. Gérôme abandoned his dream of winning the Prix de Rome and took advantage of his sudden success. His paintings The Virgin, the Infant Jesus and Saint John and Anacreon, Bacchus and Eros took a second-class medal at the Paris Salon in 1848. In 1849, he produced
23828-452: Was considered the foundation of academic painting. Only then could the pupil join the studio of an academician and learn how to paint. Throughout the entire process, competitions with a predetermined subject and a specific allotted period of time measured each student's progress. The most famous art competition for students was the Prix de Rome , whose winner was awarded a fellowship to study at
23989-485: Was due to the activity of the Nazarenes , a group of painters who sought a return to a Renaissance style and medieval practices in a spirit of austerity and fraternity. Under their influence, masterclasses were introduced—paradoxically within the academies themselves—which sought to group promising students around a master, who was responsible for their instruction, but with much more concentrated attention and care than in
24150-657: Was elected, on his fifth attempt, a member of the Institut de France in 1865. Already a knight in the Légion d'honneur , he was promoted to an officer in 1867. In 1869, he was elected an honorary member of the British Royal Academy . The King of Prussia, Wilhelm I , awarded him the Grand Order of the Red Eagle , Third Class. His influence became extensive and he was a regular guest of Empress Eugénie at
24311-409: Was essentially assured a successful professional career. Th%C3%A9ophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( US : / ɡ oʊ ˈ t j eɪ / goh- TYAY , French: [pjɛʁ ʒyl teɔfil ɡotje] ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet , dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic . While an ardent defender of Romanticism , Gautier's work
24472-540: Was exhibited in the Salon du Champ de Mars of 1896. It has been assumed that the painting was a comment on the Dreyfus affair , but art historian Bernard Tillier argues that Gérôme's images of Truth and the well were part of his ongoing diatribe against Impressionism . Gérôme himself invoked the metaphor of Truth and the well in a preface he wrote for Émile Bayard 's Le Nu Esthétique , published in 1902, to characterize
24633-448: Was highly valued, where history painting (also known as the "grande genre")—classical, religious, mythological, literary, and allegorical subjects—was placed at the top, followed by "minor genres"— portraiture , genre painting , landscapes , and still-lifes . The historical genre, the most appreciated, included works that conveyed themes of an inspirational and ennobling nature, essentially with an ethical background, consistent with
24794-400: Was key to the revival of attention to his work. Gautier was the first critic to recognize the work of Paul Verlaine , coining the term poète maudit (outcast poet) to characterize his outsider poetics. Baudelaire dedicated his collected poems, Les Fleurs du mal to him. Gautier started as a painter and later turned to art criticism. He was strongly committed to Denis Diderot 's idea that
24955-407: Was not really the product of sight. The trend in art was also towards greater idealism , which is contrary to realism , in that the figures depicted were made simpler and more abstract—idealized—in order to be able to represent the ideals they stood in for. This would involve both generalizing forms seen in nature, and subordinating them to the unity and theme of the artwork. The representation of
25116-575: Was rejected by the French Academy three times (1867, 1868, 1869), Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve , the most influential critic of the day, set the seal of approval on the poet by devoting no less than three major articles in 1863 to reviews of Gautier's entire published works. In 1865, Gautier was admitted into the prestigious salon of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte , cousin of Napoleon III and niece to Bonaparte . The Princess offered Gautier
25277-477: Was revived in the early 19th century, under the movements of Neoclassicism typified by the art of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres , and Romanticism typified by the artwork of Eugène Delacroix . Debates also occurred over whether it was better to learn art by looking at nature, or at the artistic masters of the past. At the end of Louis XIV's reign, the academic style and teachings strongly associated with his monarchy began to spread throughout Europe, accompanying
25438-499: Was sent to Paris at the age of 16 where he studied under Paul Delaroche , whom he later accompanied to Italy in 1843. He visited Florence , Rome, the Vatican and Pompeii . On his return to Paris in 1844, like many students of Delaroche, he joined the atelier of Charles Gleyre and studied there for a brief time. He then attended the École des Beaux-Arts . In 1846 he tried to enter the prestigious Prix de Rome , but failed in
25599-651: Was taken when the National Academy of Design was founded in 1826 by Samuel F. B. Morse , Asher B. Durand , Thomas Cole , and other artists dissatisfied with the orientation of the Pennsylvania Academy. It soon became the most respected artistic institution in the country. Its method followed the traditional academic model, focusing on drawing from classical and live models, in addition to offering lectures on anatomy, perspective, history and mythology, among other subjects. Cole and Durand were also
25760-487: Was the heyday of the academies, in the sense that their output became extremely well accepted among a much wider—but often less cultured and less demanding—public, giving academic art a popularity as great as that enjoyed today by cinema , and with an equally popular theme, covering everything from traditional historical subjects to comic vignettes, from sweet and sentimental portraits to medievalist or picturesque scenes from exotic Eastern countries, something unthinkable during
25921-455: Was the most "riotous" and "lewd" of all the studios at Beaux-Arts. Students were treated to bizarre initiation rites which included slashing each other's canvases, throwing students down stairs, out of windows, and onto upturned stools, staging fencing matches on the model's dais, in the nude and with paintbrushes loaded with paint. Gérôme attended every Wednesday and Saturday, demanding punctilious attendance to his instructions. His reputation as
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