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ACADEMIES OF ART
ACADEMIES OF ART
PAST AND PRESENT

BY NIKOLAUS PEVSNER

New Preface by the Author

DA CAPO PRESS • NEW YORK • 1973

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus, 1902-

Academies of art, past and present.

Reprint of the 1940 ed.

Includes bibliographical references.
1. Art schools. 2. Art — Study and teaching.
1. Title.

N325.P4 1973 707'.! 1 78-87379

ISBN 0-306-71603-8

This Da Capo Press edition of Academies of Art,

Past and Present is an unabridged republication
of the first edition published in Cambridge,
England, in 1940. It is reprinted by special
arrangement with the author.

Copyright © 1973 by Da Capo Press, Inc.

A Subsidiary of Plenum Publishing Corporation
227 West 17th Street, New York, New York 1001 1

All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

 FOREWORD TO THE REPRINT EDITION

Although this book came out originally in 1940, most of the

preparatory work for it was done from about 1930 to 1933. How¬
ever, when I left Germany and settled down in England, there
were plenty of other things to do before I could return to it,
translate it, and place it. The account of the twentieth century
thus covers only its first third. From the point of view of 1969’
that is the worst failing of the book; and this failing is magnified
by the fact that 1933 was a bad moment at which to end. It meant
the inclusion of nothing but one dim sentence on the National
Socialist “ferment'’ (page 286) and an admitted lack of informa¬
tion on Russia (page 292). However, I would not have had time
to bring the book up-to-date myself, and I have tried in vain to
find a young historian of art able and ready to do the job instead
of me.

Nevertheless, I find the book surprisingly unwithered. The

reason deserves some consideration. I wrote in my original preface
that work on the social history of art was badly needed. It still is.
Professor Hauser’s Social History of Art (London, 1951) is not
what I meant, and serious books on individual aspects, such as
I can
this one, are still few and far between. The small number
aum
cite includes the late Professor Wackernagel s Dcr Lebensr
des Kilnstlers in der florentinischen Renaissance (Leipzig, 1938) ;
Professor Haskell’s Patrons and Painters: Italian Art and Society

in the Age of the Baroque (London, 1963) ; Lillian B. Miller’s

Patrons and Patrioti sm: The Encouragement of the Fine Arts in

the United States, iygo-1860 (Chicago, 1966) ; Dr. G. F. Koch’s

The Eco¬
Die Kunstausstellung (Berlin, 1967); G. Reitlinger's^
s Die Kunstpolitik
nomics of Taste (London, 1967) ; H. Brenner’
Professor Slive’s
das Nationalsoiialismes (Hamburg, 1963); O. Bock von
Rembrandt and his Critics (The Hague, 1953);
(Berlin,
Wulfingen’s Rubens in der deutschen Kunstbetrachtung
V
Pi
 FOREWORD

1947) ; M. Warnke’s Kommentare zu Rubens (Berlin, 1965) j and

Professor G. H. Hamilton’s Manet and his critics (New Haven,
1954). So if I pleaded in 1940 for “a history of art . . . not so
much in terms of changing styles as of changing relations between

the artist and the world surrounding him,” I can still do so today,
and for that reason this book is not yet out of date.
It is of course dated in its bibliography, and I cannot even say
for certain what is missing— that is, where in new books and
papers, or in books and papers I had not used in the thirties, the
academic education of artists is discussed. Neglected instances
which have turned up, chosen quite haphazardly, are Gains¬
borough Dupont as late as 1772 being accepted by Gainsborough

as an apprentice “to learn the Art and Mystery of a Painter”

(W. T. Whitley, Gainsborough [London, 1915], 336) ; Lagrenee
writing to d’Angivillers, the Directeur des Batiments, in 1781 —
just like Carstens in 1796 (see page 197) — “On ne commande
point aux talents . . . les arts ont toujours ete et seront toujours

enfants de la liberte” (J. Loquin, La peinture d’histoire en

France de 1747 a 1785 [Paris, 1912], 1 14 ) ; Van Gogh writing to
his brother from Antwerp in 1885-1886 that nude female models
are not used in the academy at all and only as a great exception
privately (The Complete Letters of V. van Gogh [New York,
n.d.], 11, 494) ; and so one could go on forever collecting and
amplifying.
I will take just one particular aspect as an example of what
the bits and pieces collected have yielded. The aspect is dislike

or hatred of academies. 1773 — Goethe: “School and principle

enchain all power of cognition and all effectiveness” (Lon deut-
scher Baukunst, Weimar Edition, XXXVII, 142). 1792 — Goya:
“Let academies be unrestrictive ... by banishing all slavish ser¬
vility, as it is usual in infants’ schools. . . . Mechanical instruction
. . . spoils an art so free and noble as is painting. . . . There are
no rules in painting, and the constraint or obligation for all to
study in the same way ... is a great obstacle for the young. . . .
How scandalizing that nature is less respected than Greek statues.

VI
 FOREWORD

. . . In the end I know no more effective method to promote the

arts . . . than to give prizes to, and to widen protection of, the
artist who is an artist . . . and to allow the genius of the students

who want to learn the arts to develop in full freedom” (letter of

October 14 written as a memorandum on reforms in the Aca¬
demia de S. Fernando in Madrid; published with a long, excellent
commentary by J. Held, Miinchner Jahrbuch der bildenden

Kunst, 3d Ser., XVII, 1966). Ca. 1800 — Rudolph Fuseli, Henry’s

brother, in a letter to Henry about Vienna: “The Court spends
26,000 florins yearly on the Academy, . . . stipends, premiums are

given . . . without having produced any apparent advantage”

(J. Knowles, The Life and Writings of Henry Fusely [London,

1831], I, 227-228). Ca. 1808 — Blake, annotating Reynolds’ Dis¬

courses: “Taste and genius are not teachable.” “When a man
talks of Acquiring Invention & of learning how to produce
Fool.” “After
Original Conception, he must expect to be call’d a
having been a Fool, a Student is to amass a Stock of Ideas, &
knowing himself to be a Fool, he is to assume the Right to put
other Men’s Ideas into his Foolery” (The Complete Writings of
William Blake [Nonesuch Edition, 1957] 474, 4^9j 455)- ^3°
Carlyle: “In defect of Raphaels, and Angelos, and Mozarts, we
have Royal Academies of Painting, Sculpture, Music; whereby
more
the languishing spirit of Art may be strengthened, as by the
generous diet of Public Kitchens (Signs of the Times, Collected
Pugin: “Never
Works: Essays [London, 1869], II, 319)- 1836—
draw¬
was a period, when there were so many lectures, academies,
how little the noble
ing schools, and publications [which] proves
are suited to the
arts of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture
to pioduce
trammels of a system; and nothing has tended more
persons can be
the vile results we see, than the absurd idea that
professions, as
brought up as easily to practice in those exalted
merchandise” (Con¬
to fill the humble station of a trafficker in
of Academy teach¬
trasts, 36). 1853— Ruskin: “The base system
altogethei [and]
ing . . . destroys the greater number of its pupils
(Lectures on Architecture
hinders and paralyzes the greatest”
VII
 FOREWORD

and Painting, Library Edition, XII, 153— 154) . 1859 — F. G.

Stephens: “Has this wealthy and fattening body done its duty
to English art? No. It has always been the patron of mediocrity

and the enemy of genius . . . this great brainless, ruthless body”

(The Athenaeum; quoted in W. Holman Hunt, Praeraphaelitism

[London, 1905], II, 441 ). 1870 — Viollet-le-Duc: “The pupil who

enters the Ecole des Beaux-arts is like the unfortunate man whose
tip of a finger is gripped by the wheels within wheels of a powerful
machine; he must pass through it entirely and he comes out as

a fabricated object of category one, two or three” (Le Centre

gauche [1870] ; quoted in Viollet-le-Duc, catalog of the exhibition
held in Paris in 1965 and published by the Caisse Nationale des

Monuments Historiques, 24). 1886 — Holman Hunt: “There has

been but one principle adopted by the Academy during the
whole of my experience. Over respectable nonentities there is no
fighting. . . . But towards young men with original force . . .
everything is done by the Academy ... to make the struggle an
impossible one. . . . My conclusion is that as at present constituted

the Royal Academy is a perpetual injury to art” (letter to The

Times, August 1 7 ; quoted in W. Crane, An Artist’s Reminiscences
[London, 1907], 292-293). 1888 — Samuel Butler: “The aca¬
demic system goes almost on the principle of offering places for
repentance, and letting people fall soft, by assuming that they
should be taught how to do things before they do them and not
by the doing them. Good economy requires that there should
be little place for repentance, and that when people fall they
should fall hard enough to remember it. We have spent hundreds
of thousands, or more probably of millions, on national art col¬
lections, schools of art, preliminary training and academicism,
without wanting anything in particular, but when the nation
did at last try all it knew to design a sixpence, it failed. The other
coins are all very well in their way, and so are the stamps — the
letters get carried, and the money passes; but both stamps and
coins would have been just as good, and very likely better, if

there had not been an art-school in the country” (The Notebooks,

VIII
 FOREWORD

ed. H. Festing Jones [London, 1913], 135-136). 1890 — William

Morris: “The worst collection of snobs, flunkeys and self-seekers
that the world has yet seen” (The Commonweal, April 12, 1890).
By putting down these quotations, I have intended to show
what kind of material I have accumulated between 1940 and
now, and also that, if incorporated within the text, this material
would not have altered it meaningfully. So all I can do here in
addition is to draw attention to a few books which will be found

useful for “further reading.’' On early academies in general,

F. Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (Lon¬
don, 1949) ; on the seventeenth century in Italy, D. Mahon,
Studies in Seicento Art and Theory (London, 1947) > on the
teaching of the Royal Academy in London, S. Hutchinson in

Walpole Society, XXXVIII, 1960-1962; on Reynolds' Dis¬

courses, F. W. Hilles, The Literary Career of Sir Joshua Reynolds
(Cambridge, 1936) and the new edition of the Discourses by
R. R. Walk (San Marino, California, 1959) ; on the Nazarenes,
K. Andrews, The Nazarenes, (Oxford, 1964) ; on the early Eng¬
lish schools of design, Q. Bell, The Schools of Design (London,
1963) ; on Henry van de Velde, his own Geschichte meines Lebens
(Munich, 1962) and K. H. Huter, Henry van de Velde (Berlin,
1967) ; finally, on the Bauhaus, the monumental Das Bauhaus by
Hans M. Wingler (Bramsche, 1962; 2nd ed. enl., 1968; Eng.
trans., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969). [See Note below.]
Now the Bauhaus was revolutionary in believing, as the Middle
Ages had believed, that all the arts — painting, sculpture, the
crafts — should be directed towards the Bau, towards architecture,
even if architecture was made part of the curriculum only after
Gropius had left, and it is in fact one of the failings of my book
I
to omit architectural training altogether. I knew that when
of
wrote it, and between 1930 and 1940, I collected a good deal

Note: And a propos teaching in Germany in the early twentieth century,

workshop
Adolf Schneck of
I may just as well correct an error pointed out to me by Professor
for the King of
Stuttgart. The first teaching workshops there were established
by Pankok about 1901.
Wiirttemberg by Kruger in 1900, and he was followed

IX
 FOREWORD

material for a history of the architectural profession from the

master masons of the Middle Ages to the partners of an architec¬
tural practice today. No more was published than a long review
of Martin S. Briggs’ The Architect in History (in Kritische Be-
richte iur Kunstgeschichte, 1930-1931, 97-122) and two short
articles on architectural terms in the Middle Ages (in Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, V, 1942, and Speculum,
allow
XVII, 1942). But I still hope that the leisure of old age will
me to knock all this material into some shape.

Easter 1969

x
ACADEMIES OF ART
PAST AND PRESENT
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BENTLEY HOUSE, LONDON

NEW YORK TORONTO BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS

MACMILLAN

TOKYO! MARUZEN COMPANY LTD

All rights reserved

 ACADEMIES
OF ART
PAST AND PRESENT
BY

NIKOLAUS PEVSNER

CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
 To

W.P.

in grateful and faithful

remembrance

of the past
 PREFACE

To explain one or two peculiarities of this book, a few personal

remarks may be justifiable. Preparatory research was begun, and
a first text finished, while I was living and working in Germany.
Consequently there may still remain certain passages in which
references to German affairs are better documented than
references to activities in other countries. But what is more, the
problem in itself would perhaps not have taken its present shape
in England, where academies of art are not the central govern¬
ment art schools as they are on the Continent. However, this
would only have been a matter of form, for the social problem
underlying this book is just as much to the fore in this country as
it is in Germany. I first realized its importance twelve years ago,
when I was on the staff of the Dresden Gallery, and at the same
time writing on art exhibitions for a Dresden newspaper. In
studying the art of the past and meeting the artists of to-day, I
was struck with the contrast between the social position of art
and the artist then and now. Gradually I began to see that a
of
history of art could be conceived not so much in terms
artist and
changing styles as of changing relations between the
the world surrounding him.

The question which cannot fail to alarm any art historian

the artist
looking at contemporary conditions is how and why
has
has become so painfully severed from his public. Why
ng
modern art become so unwelcome, why has it become a laughi
Where are the
stock to some, an object of keen hatred to others?
A doctor must
germs that have caused this perilous disease?
illness that he is
acquaint himself with the pre-history of an acute
he should be con¬
to cure, so the historian may well think that
situation. For
sulted in helping art out of its present dangerous
g at
this task, the historian of art must for a while give up lookin
and give
the development of aesthetic phenomena exclusively,
groups to form the
up summarizing aesthetic realizations into
vii
 PREFACE

phases and epochs of a style, or the regional and national

characteristics of a people. It is only a social history of art that
can help here. Later on, when I was teaching in a German
university, I saw that little had as yet been done to collect data
for such a social history of art. Still later, when I had settled
down in England, it was suggested to me to embark on some
research into the conditions of design and the designer in con¬
temporary British industrial art.1 There again, and still more
when I came into even closer contact with the practical everyday
application of this problem, I was impressed with the immense
importance of certain social aspects for the history and the
future of art.

In writing the present book, I have not set myself the am¬
bitious task of providing that social history of art which is so
badly needed, not in order to replace a formal history of art, but
alongside of it. Had it been my intention to prepare such a
work, the history of taste would have been part of it— the history
of aesthetic theories, of exhibitions, art collections, art dealing.
All this I left out, and concentrated upon one aspect : art educa¬
tion, or rather the artist’s education. And even there, I did not
concern myself with either the Middle Ages, or the whole of the
architect’s education, problems far too complex to be dealt with
by the way.2 Narrow as the aims of my book have thus become,
it still tries to achieve something more than a pure compilation
of facts for the sake of compilation. For — to link up a great issue
with a small undertaking — in this century of ours, this century
of Liberalism declining, and Absolutism returning, of Collec¬
tivism with widely accepted ideologies in the ascendancy and
Individualism with patient unbiased research on the downgrade,
the historian can no longer shut himself off from contemporary
needs. Everywhere he finds himself entangled in topical
questions, or pushed aside into academic seclusion. Is it not one
of the most urgent tasks for twentieth-century historiography to
1 An Enquiry into Industrial Art in England, Cambridge University Press, 1937.
2 A preliminary account of the history of the architectural profession I have given
in Kritische Berichte zur Kunstgeschichte, 1930-31, pp. 97-122.

Vlll
 PREFACE

reconcile scholarship and

direct utility? Too often has the
journalist got hold of the evident demand for books on history
which at the same time are books on problems of the day, and too
often has he provided meretriciousbiographies or monographs
written without any of that conscientious respect for facts that
characterizes genuine historical writing. But it is not by pre¬
tending that the past was exactly as the present, not by using the
slang of 1938 in describing Roman or medieval or Baroque data,
not by picking up a few scattered facts and forging them into a
chain leading straight from some remote point of the past to one
man, one nation, one class in their present stage, that an under¬
standing of topical problems and difficulties can be attained. On
the contrary. Only by throwing into relief the individual oneness
of any given period or style or nation, and the logical coherence
of all its utterances in the most varied fields of human activity, will
the historiographer in the end be able to make his reader discover
what form a certain problem must take at the present moment.
With regard to the special topic with which this book is con¬
cerned, my task was accordingly to provide a straightforward
description of four centuries of artists’ education, linked up with
con¬
certain political, social, and aesthetic data. A few hints at
clusions that can and should be drawn from this develop ment are

left to the last pages, but will gradually become visible to anybody
the
attentively following the history of art academies through
Italian Cinquecento, the siecle de Louis XIV, the time of Goethe
and the Romantic Movement, and the century of Liberalism.
And now, in order to finish so pretentious a foreword to so
tribute
pedestrian a publication, it only remains for me to pay a
g, and to
of gratitude to my mother, Frau Annie Pevsner at Leipzi
ce while this
my wife, who have helped me with untiring patien
Miss
book was in the stages of manuscript and typescript, and to
read and
Helen Munro and Miss Francesca M. Wilson who
to thank the
improved it, before it went to press. I also want
they have
Cambridge University Press for the great care which
taken in setting, correcting and printing this book.
N. P.
IX
 CONTENTS

Chapter I. Introduction page i

The term “academy” in Greece, i — In Italy during the Renaissance, i — In the
Northern Renaissance, 5 — Changes in the meaning of the term in Italy during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; new tasks and new organization of academies, 7—
The first academies of letters (Crusca, Edmund Bolton’s plan, the Academie Frangaise,
the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres), 14 — The first academies of science
(Lincei, Cimento, Royal Society, Academie des Sciences), 18 — Leibniz and Berlin, 21
— Enlightenment and academies, 22.

Chapter II. From Leonardo daVincitotheAccademia

di S. Luca (the Sixteenth Century) page 25

The seven Leonardo engravings, 25 — Leonardo’s theory of art, 30 — The social position
of the artist during the Renaissance, 31 — Michelangelo, 32 — Leonardo on art educa¬
tion, 34 — Lorenzo de’ Medici and Bertoldo’s school, 38 — The Bandinelli academy, 39
— Vasari’s Accademia del Disegno in Florence, 42— Fed. Zuccari’s letter, 51 — The
foundation of the Accademia di S. Luca in Rome, 55 — Its history up to the middle
of the seventeenth century, 61.

Chapter III. Baroque and Rococo (1600-1750) page 67

Struggles between artists and guilds in Italy: Genoa, 67 — Bologna, 68 — Federigo
Borromeo’s academy in Milan, 69— Private Italian art academies of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, 71— The Accademia degli Incamminati, 75 — Karel van
Mander’s academy in Flarlem, 80 — Foundation of the Paris academy, 82 — Colbert, 88
— Organization of the Paris academy, 89 — French theory of art of the seventeenth
century, 93 — The Academie de France in Rome, 99 — History of the Paris academy
up to the middle of the eighteenth century, 1 01— German art academies 1650-1750
(Niirnberg, Augsburg, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna), 115 — England, 124 — The Nether¬
lands, 126 — Differences of approach to the academic system in France and the
Netherlands; different social positions of the artist; different classes of patrons, 131.

Chapter IV. Classic Revival, Mercantilism and Aca¬

demies of Art page 140

Large number of new academies founded between 1750 and 1800, 140 — The Classic
Revival, 143— Winckelmann’s theory of art and that of other contemporary writers,
144 — The artist’s message according to Schiller and the authors of the Classic move¬
ment in Germany, 148 — Neo-Classic writers and artists and the new academies of
art, 150 — Mercantilism and the new academies of art, 152 — Enlightenment and
general education, 159 — New French drawing schools for trades, 162 — Organization
of the new academies, 166 — Differences from the Paris system, 170 — Sulzer on a
the
complete academy of art, 172 — Growing “ academisation , 173 Time-table of
Berlin academy about 1800, 175— The Scole des Sieves Proteges in Paris, 1 77 —
Larger premises of eighteenth-ce ntury academies, 1 79~ The St Petersburg academy,
! 8 1— The Royal Academy in London, 183— The Madrid academy, 187— Summing-
up, 187.
XI
Chapter V. The Nineteenth Century page 190
Sturm und Drang and hatred against academies, 190 — David and Carstens, 193
Criticism of academies by German artists of the Romantic school, 200 — The Nazarenes,
205 — Cornelius, 207 — Conditions at Diisseldorf and Munich at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, 209 — Cornelius’s programme, 213 — Schadow and the introduc¬
tion of Meisterklassen, 215— Paris studios of the early nineteenth century, 215
Spreading of the new system of Meisterklassen : in Germany, 2 1 9 — in other countries,
220 — Academic art of the nineteenth century, 221 — New social position of the artist;
achieved academization of art instruction, 222 — Reactionary attitude of nineteenth-
century academies, 226 — Slow introduction of innovations, 230 — Anti-academic
sayings of nineteenth-century artists, 235 — Summing-up, 240.

Chapter VI. The Revival of Industrial Art, and the

Artist’s Education To-day page 243
Beginning academization of the craftsman’s training, 243 — Mercantilism and the
craftsman’s training, 244 — England: The Parliamentary Commission of 1835, the
Normal School of Design, 246 — The Exhibition of 1851, 248 — Laborde, Semper,
Owen Jones, 249 — South Kensington, 255 — Tuition methods in nineteenth-century
schools of applied art, 257 — William Morris, 259 — The Arts and Crafts Movement,
264 — Germany: Kunsterziehung, reform of schools of applied art and of trade schools,
266 — Workshops in academies of art, 269 — Suggested reforms of art academies, 273 —
Gropius and the Bauhaus, 276 — Amalgamation of art academy and school of arts and
crafts in Berlin, 281 — Present-day situation in France, 287 — in Italy, 289 — in Britain,
290 — Summing-up, 294.

Appendix I. Code of Rules of Vasari’s Accademia del

Disegno, 1563 page 296

Appendix II. Literature on Academies treated in

Chapters IV and V page 305

Index
page 31 1
 25

ILLUSTRATIONS

his
Figs, i and 2. Two engravings by Leonardo da Vinci or one of
pupils. They bear the inscription Academia Leonardi Vin(ci) and
Ach(ademi)a Le(onardi) Vi(nci). facing p. 25
di
Fig. 3. Federigo Zuccari: Self-portrait. Rome, Accademia
S. Luca. 25

From a woodcut in the second edition

Fig. 4. Giorgio Vasari.
of Vasari’s Vite.

in Rome. Engraved by
Fig. 5. Baccio Bandinelli’s “Academy” 39
Agostino Veneziano in 1531.

Fig. 6. Baccio Bandinelli’s “Academy” in Florence, about 1550.

Engraved by Enea Vico.
s that of
Fig. 7. Drawing from life in a Bolognese studio, perhap
Kunst akade mie.
the Carracci, about 1600. Diisseldorf, Staatliche
studio, about 1650.
Fig. 8. Drawing from life in Rembrandts
Weimar, Kupferstich-Kabinett.
n in the eighteenth
Fig. 9. The programme of French art instructio
dated 1 7^3?
century. This engraving by G. N. Cochin the Younger,
with Design in
stands at the beginning of the set of plates dealing 42
from
Diderot’s and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedic. It shows drawing
the centre and on
drawings on the left, drawing from the cast in
in the background
the extreme right, and drawing from the nude
on the right.

my in 1696.
Figs. 10-12. Five of the rooms of the Berlin Acade
collection of the Berlin 124
Drawings by Augustin Terwesten in the
ing to the
Akademie der Kiinste. The subjects taught are, accord
drawing from
Dutch extracts underneath the original drawings,
118 124
anatomy, and perspective.
plaster, drawing from drawings,
Fig. 12 shows the meeting room.

Bust by Antoine Coysevox. London,

Fig. 13. Charles .Lebrun.
Wallace Collection

Fig. 14- J. J. Winckelmann. Painting by A. R. Mengs. Krakow,

Lubomirski Collection.
xm
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 15. Drawing from life in the Hague Academy, about 1750.
By Aert Schouman. Hague, Royal Archives. facing p. 130

Fig. 16. Drawing from life in the Vienna Academy, about 1750.
Painting by M. F. Quadal. Vienna, Akademie der bildenden
Kiinste. 154

Fig. 17. A gathering of members in the life room of the Royal

Academy in London. Mezzotint by R. Earlom after a painting
by J. Zoffany, 1772. 186

Fig. 18. Peter Cornelius. Drawing by Karl Philipp Fohr. Heidel¬

berg, Museum. 208

Fig. 19. Wilhelm von Schadow: Self-portrait. Drawing in the

National Gallery, Berlin. 208

Figs. 20 and 2 1 . The Turin Academy, about 1900. Life room, and
studio of the painter Senatore G. Grosso. 238

Fig. 22. William Morris. From a photograph by Emery Walker. 260

Fig. 23. Walter Gropius. From a photograph of about 1925. 260

Fig. 24. Silversmiths’ Workshop at the London Central School

of Arts and Crafts, opened in 1907. 266

Fig. 25. The Staatliches Bauhaus in Dessau, Walter Gropius’s

Art School, built in 1925/26. 278

Figs. 26 and 27. Two classrooms in the Berlin Vereinigte Staats-

schulen fur freie und angewandte Kunst, about 1930. Top: paints
and their use (Professor Sandkuhl); bottom: bronze founding
(Professor Kluge). Photographs, A. von Perckhammer. 285

Fig. 28. Letter headings of letters received by the author in 1932

from the Berlin, London and Paris academies. 287

xiv
 Chapter I
INTRODUCTION

’AKa8r||Ji£icx or cEKa8f||Ji£ia was the name of a district in the

north-west of Athens in which there were several temples, a

gymnasium and, thanks to the generosity of Kimon, a vast park.

In this park, and on an adjacent estate in later years, Plato con¬
versed with his pupils and taught them his philosophy. As time
went on the people of Athens got used to calling the community of
Plato’s followers Academy too, and the term was gradually applied
to the school of Plato in a wider sense, until Greek historiography
universally distinguished between an old, a middle and a new
academy to describe the development of Platonism.
When during the second third of the fifteenth century a
rebirth of Platonism was brought about by the influence of
Greek scholars who in 1438—39 had come over to Italy in con¬
and
nection with the negotiations for a reunion of the Greek
Roman churches, the term of Academy was revived. Magnus
Ficino
Cosmus, Senatus consultor Patriae pater , Marsilio
tem¬
writes in the foreword to his translation of Plotinus, quo
ce
pore concilium inter graecos atque latinos sub Eugenio pontifi
um,
Florentiae tractabatur, philosophum graecum nomine Gemist
mysteriis
cognomine Plethonem, quasi Platonem alterum, de
ore ferventi
Platonicis disputantem frequenter audivit. E cuius
quan-
sic afflatus est protinus, sic animatus ut inde Achademiam
Medici does
dam alta mente conceperit.” Although Gosimo de
the
not seem to have at once translated this plan into practice,
of the name of
conception of a philosophical circle worthy
humanists be¬
academy must have strongly impressed Italian
as in the fifties the
longing to other groups as well. As early
to the
term of “Chorus Achademiae Florentinae” was applied
nno Rinucc ini and then
circle whose centre was first Alama
was called an
Giovanni Argyropulos. In the sixties what I
PA I
 INTRODUCTION

“Academia Romana” gathered round Pomponio Leto, and in a

letter dating in all probability from before 1471 Cardinal Bes-
sarion and his friends are described as £ ‘ Bessarionaea Academia ” . 1
Far more important and influential, however, than these small
private circles was an association started by Marsilio Ficino in
the seventies and sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent, which
historians, at least from the seventeenth century onwards, used
to call the “Accademia Platonica”. Lorenzo’s grandfather
Cosimo had given a small villa near his own house at Careggi
to Marsilio, who already in his youth had been destined to be¬
come the future apostle of a Neo-Platonic philosophy. In a
letter of 1462 Marsilio called this villa “ Academiam, quam nobis
in agro caragio parasti”. If it appears at first surprising to find
here the term academy applied to a philosopher’s country-
house, it should be remembered that Cicero according to Pliny
spoke of his villa near Puteoli as his academy. It was no doubt
also of Cicero that Poggio Bracciolini thought in 1427, when —
the first time, as far as I am aware that our term appears in

modern times — he called his cottage ‘‘academiam meam Val-

darninam”. So this seems to have been an accepted connotation
of the word academy amongst Quattrocento humanists, and it is
a curious though noteworthy outcome of this that Ficino (and

also incidentally Caxton) located Plato’s school in a small

country-house.2

1 Of the earliest academies a full account is given in A. della Torre, Storia dell ' Acca¬
demia Platonica di Firenze, Florence, 1902 and a short survey in L. Olschki, Geschichte der
neusprachlichen wissenschaftlichen Liter atur, vol. 1, Heidelberg, 1919, p. 245 seqq. (On
p. 255 incidentally the date of 1441 must be an error. Marsilio Ficino was born only
in 1433.) The more recent Storia delle Accademie d’ Italia by Michele Maylender
(Bologna, 1926-30) is extremely useful for the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but neither complete nor reliable for the Quattrocento. On Pomponio Leto
cf. V. Zabughin (3 vols., Rome and Grottaferrata, 1909-12), A. della Torre, Paolo
Marsi da Pescia (Rocca S. Casciano, 1903, pp. 227 seqq., 253 seqq.) and a paper by
L. Keller (Monatshefle der Comenius-Gesellschaft, vol. 8, 1899). On Bessarion, L. Miihler
(Paderborn, 1923-7). On the Chorus Acad. Florent., Della Torre (Storia , l.c. pp. 320-425).
2 Accademia Platonica: Della Torre, l.c. pp. 20 seqq. Ficino' s letter: Della Torre,
l.c. p. 538. Cicero-Plinius : Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, vol. 1, p. 246, 11. 6—8. Poggio' s
letter: E. Walser, Poggius Florentinus, Leipzig and Berlin, 1914, p. 147. Ficino on Plato

(“suburbanum praediolum quam Academiam nominabant”) : Della Torre, l.c.

p. 639. Caxton: Academy as “Plato’s mansion and dwellynge” in The Chesse, p. 86.
2
 INTRODUCTION

Just as in Greece the term academy had been widened from a

place to a group of philosophers and then a philosophical

system, Marsilio’s friends soon became “Academici” and

Marsilio “Academiae Princeps”. It would, however, be wrong
to assume that this academy was in any way organized — a
scientific body holding meetings and issuing reports. On the
contrary, just the free, informal manner of these gatherings, the
new sociable mode of discussing and researching must have
appeared so fascinating, and so happily opposed to the scholastic
pedantry of the universities. This meaning was evidently pre¬
dominant in all those small circles of Italian humanists in which
during the short years of High Renaissance the new term was
suddenly taken up. Apart from the groups round Pomponio
Leto and Bessarion mentioned above, there was an academy at
Naples originated by King Alfonso and Panormita, and after
Panormita’s death in 1471 led by Giovanni Pontano. The word
was also occasionally used for the learned friends of Alberto Pio
da Carpi, of Niccolo Priuli at Murano, of Trissino the poet at his
villa near Vicenza, of the condottiere Bartolommeo Liviano at
Pordenone, of Isabella d’Este at Mantova, and of Veronica
Gambara the duchess of Coreggio. NeocKaSripsia was the name
of a society founded by Aldus Manutius, in which he and his
friends practised the Greek language, read Greek authors, cor¬
rected Greek editions which Aldus was going to publish and
called each other rather pompously cpuAps dvayvcoaTiSos, cpuAps
@£pcrrr£UTi6os, 5i5acn<aA15os etc. Aldus tried to obtain a special
Imperial or Papal charter for his society, such as the academy
of Pomponio Leto had been granted by Frederick III, but did
not succeed. This charter would have enabled it to confer
academic degrees, but as it was this rather more ambitious
institution also remained private and unofficial.1

1 Ficino’s Academy : Della Torre, l.c. pp. 659, 664, 667, 724, 725> 72E 735> 74°-
pp. 327-37- In
Naples: Della Torre, l.c. pp. 151 seqq. and Maylender, l.c. v ol. 4,
Academiam excitavit .
Pontano’s dialogue Antonius it is said that Panormita “ Neapoli Keller, l.c., interprets
The more usual name of the society was Porticus Antoniana.
I think. Niccolo Priuli
this as referring to catacombs, without sufficient foundation
edition of Lucretius ol
(“felicissima tua Murani Academia”): dedication to an 1-2

3
 INTRODUCTION

Although generally applied to this new form of cultured social

intercourse, the term academy seems to have become so fashion¬
able among scholars and amateurs in Italy about 1500 that it
also occurs in a number of other kindred meanings such as
Platonic philosophy, sceptic philosophy of a Ciceronian brand,
semi-secret astrological societies, and even as genuine (not
scholastic) Aristotelian philosophy. Space does not allow us
to discuss these cases in detail.1

1495. Alberto Pio (“in doctissimam tuam Academiam admittere”): dedication to

a Lucretius of 1500 edited by Aldus. Cf. A. Firmin-Didot, Aide Manuce, Paris,
1875, p. 145. Trissino : Maylender, l.c. vol. 5, p. 352. Liviano : vol. 4, p. 7. Isabella:
vol. 5, p. 90. Caterina Gambara: vol. 2, p. 94.
1 A preliminary note may, however, be considered justifiable, containing all those
exceptional uses of the term academy which I have come across in studying Italian
Quattrocento documents and sources. They will serve, I hope, to prevent the reader
from taking every early Italian academy for something similar to those discussed in
the text.

(1) For academy, meaning a philosopher’s cottage, cf. above.

(2) Platonic philosophy : Lorenzo de’ Medici is longing for Ficino’s friendship “ Aca-
demiae amor incensus” (Valori, quoted from Della Torre, l.c. p. 583) • “Academiae
fontes accedens” is what Corsi says of Ficino (G. Saitta, La Filosofia di Marsilio Ficino,
Messina, 1923, p. 2). “Academiam sum ingressus” Ficino himself calls his discovery
of Platonism (Della Torre, l.c. p. 463). “Academiae tutor” is a promotor of Platonic
studies, according to a letter of 1465 (Della Torre, l.c. p. 565). Ficino praises Bessarion
as “Academiae lumen” because of his defence of Plato (Mars. Fic. Opera, l.c. p. 602,
letter of 1462), and conversely Ficino is praised by Alberti in Landino’s Disputationes
Camaldulenses (about 1480, Della Torre, l.c. p. 578) as “eorum enygmatum, quae ex
academiae oraculo solvenda sunt . . . verissimum interpretem”. Pico della Mirandola,
to quote one more instance, describes his conversion to Plato’s philosophy as a transi¬
tion “ab Aristotile in Academiam” (quoted from E. Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in
der Philosophic der Renaissance, Leipzig and Berlin, 1927, p. 3)-
(3) Academici = sceptic philosophers of the Ciceronian school: Poggio, Letter to
Lodovico Cattaneo (Walser, l.c. p. 436), also Coluccio Salutati (Epistolario di Coluccio
Salutati, ed. F. Novati, vol. 4, Rome, 191 1, p. 144, and A. von Martin, Coluccio Salutati,
Leipzig and Berlin, 1916, pp. 51 seq., 57). This seems the only meaning of the word
known to Salutati which shows up from an unusual angle the transitional position of
Salutati between Trecento and Renaissance.

(4) Place in which philosophical tuition was imparted in Athens, either in the
spirit of Plato or of Aristotle: In a letter, Donato Accaiuoli (Della Torre, l.c. p. 469)
calls some young Florentine scholars “ita Aristotelicis Platonicisque disciplinis in¬
struct^ ut in Academia educati videantur”. It is worth noting* that here no distinc¬
tion is made between Lyceum and Academy, between Aristotle’s and Plato’s philo¬
sophies. This will appear less surprising once one has realized that Aristotle was
interpreted by Renaissance philosophers in just as new and revolutionary a spirit as
Plato. Hence the adoption of “academy”, the fashionable term, to groups reading
Aristotle according to the methods of the Humanists. Argyropulos’s Chorus Academiae
was in fact Neo-Aristotelian throughout as opposed to Ficino’s Platonism. Even

4
 INTRODUCTION

When the term began to penetrate into the North

academy
the process was quite similar. The first instance which I have
been able to trace refers again to the solitary villa of a scholar.
Sigismund Gossembrot, a minor German humanist, occasionally
mentions his “habitatio academica” near Augsburg. The
earliest German academies in the Italian sense were the two
Sodalitates founded on the initiative of Conrad Celtis late in the
fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the
Sodalitas Literaria Rhenana and the Sodalitas Literaria Danubi-
ana, although they were, it seems, never called academies. The
name, however, was applied, and this time obviously in imitation
of Aldus’s society, to the small circle of readers connected with
the publishing house of Anshelm at Hagenau in Alsace to which
e.g. Melanchthon belonged.1
Ficino himself has once written of the new interpreters of Aristotle as of “Academia
peripatetica ” (Della Torre, l.c. p. 645).

this letter with the Porticus

(Della Torre, l.c. p. 464; Gothein is wrong in connecting
l.c. p. 467). Corsi
Antoniana), and the passage in Corsi’s Life of Ficino (Della Torre,
mentions that Cosimo de’ Medici had frequently heard Pl ethon “pro Academicis
disserentem ”. _ .
e only. 1 his may
(6) A few more uses can be added which are evidently derivativ
such as the followin g: Valori in his Life of
apply to No. (5) also; it is sure in a case
to go to certain enlighte ned conversa¬
Lorenzo the Magnificent writes that Lorenzo liked
ry of S. Gallo “veluti in Christia nae fidei Academ iam (Della
tions at the monaste
the disputations of Savonarola s
Torre, l.c. p. 740) . In a similar way, Pietro Crinito calls
l.c. p. 766).
friends and followers at S. Marco “Academia Marciana” (Della Torre,
word seems to be used in a
In a satirical sense, ridiculing the fashionable term, the
to remember Pulci to “ Madonna
letter addressed by Pulci to Lorenzo. Lorenzo is asked et Giovanfrancesco et
Bianca, e ’1 nostro Guglielmo et la Quaracchina sola, e Dionigi
mean anything but the
Braccio nostro, et tutta la tua Accademia”. This can hardly
Ficino makes it impossible to con¬
whole of your gang”; for Pulci’s animosity against
nect it with the Accademia Platonica. 4 __ , , .. , ,
papers which L. Keller has publish ed
(7) Astrological Societies: cf. the numerous
-Gesells chaft, and also G. F. Hartlau b, Giorgion e s
on these in the Monatshefte der Comenius
fi Kunstwiss. vol. 48, 1927. In some
Geheimnis, Munich, 1925, pp. 16-38, and Repert.
argume nts convinc e me. The most probable example ot a
cases I cannot say that their
h century appears to have been
combined academy and secret society in the fifteent
the catacombs (Pomp. Pont. Max.,
Pomponio Leto’s circle. The inscriptions of 1475 in
Romana e, etc.) can otherwise hardly be explained.
Pantagathos Sacerdos Achademiae
nd Geschichtsschreibung in Deutschland
1 Gossembrot: P. Joachimsen, Geschichtsauffassungu
I9IO> P- 37- C^; Th<;rc °oes
unter dem Einfiuss des Humanismus, Leipzig and Berlin,
phy of Celtis. Cf. Vita in Celtis Libri Odarum Qpattuor,
( not appear to be a modern biogra
5 on des
Academy = Un
irUT and also) ivW. ty or , StOlmiltz
ersiSaliger er Schulprogramm 1876; G. Bauch, Die Recepti
udium Genera 11, 1883, (-Aus
le : letter His ift,
Humanismus in Wien, Breslau, 1903; F. von Bezold, MartZeitschr
of tor. orelli to Pano
rmita
5
 INTRODUCTION

When this stage was reached, an etymological development

set in which was alien both to the common use of the Italian
Quattrocento and, as will be shown presently, the Italian
Cinquecento. With the re-modelling of the medieval Studia
Generalia or Universitates Studiorum which was the work of
the Humanists, the fashionable word, so pleasantly reminiscent
both of Antiquity and Renaissance, became a synonym for

university; while in vernacular “university” survived and still

survives now, academy was adopted as its Latin translation
and the identity of the two terms remains valid in some places

up to the present day.1

Mittelalter und Renaissance, Munich and Leipzig, 1918, pp. 82 seqq.) ; J. von
Aschbach, Geschichte der Wiener Universitat, n, Wien, 1877, p. 73 seq.; K. Grossmann,
Jb. f. Landes geschichte v. Niederosterreich, N.F. xxn, 1929, pp. 309 seqq. Academia
Anshelmiana: Joachimsen, l.c. p. 1 70 and G. Ellinger, Melanchthon, Berlin, 1902, p. 62 seq.
1 The earliest cases occur outside Germany, two in Italy and one in France:
(1) Letter of Martorelli to Panormita (Della Torre, l.c. p. 464) evidently referring to the
Naples university and not the Porticus Antoniana as Gothein thought. (2) Corsi’s Vita
di Ficino, where it is said that Cosimo de’ Medici often heard Gemistos Plethon “pro
Academicis disserentem” (Della Torre, l.c. p. 467). (3) Letter of Gaguin to Ficino,
1469, in which Gaguin alludes to the Sorbonne as “Nostra Academia Parisiensi”
(P. Mestwerdt, Die Anfange des Erasmus, Leipzig, 1917, p. 165). In the autobiography
which Erasmus added to his famous Colloquia, he speaks of a university as academia,
referring to the time about 1485 (ed. Elzeviriana, Louvain, 1636, p. 4 of the Vita
Erasmi Erasmo autore). As for the sixteenth century innumerable instances can be
quoted. A haphazard selection from the records of German universities may suffice:
Leipzig: since 1520 in the Matrikeln (F. Zarncke, in Abhandlung der philosophisch-histor .
Kl. d. Konigl. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, n, 1857, pp. 509 seqq.). Tubingen:
Matrikel von 1540, 1541, etc. (cf. Urkunden zur Geschichte der Universitat, Tubingen,
1877, pp. 677, 683 seqq.). Konigsberg: 1544, 1545, 1599, etc. (cf. D. H. Arnoldt, Mit
Urkunden versehene Historie der Konigsberger Universitat, 1, Konigsberg, 1 746, Beylage 23,
30, 32 seqq. Wittenberg: 1545, 1571, etc. (cf. Friedensburg, Geschichte der Universit.
Wittenberg, Halle, 1917, pp. 187, 272 seqq.), Ingolstadt: 1549, 1556, etc. (cf. C. Prantl,
Geschichte d. Ludwig- Maximilian Univ. in Ingolstadt, 11, Munchen, 1872, pp. 187, 213
seqq.). Heidelberg: 1557, 1559, 1561, etc. (cf. G. Toepke, Matrikel der Universitat
Heidelberg, Heidelberg, 1884-93, pp. 13, 19, 27). As to England, two seventeenth-
century book-titles may be added: John Webster’s indictment and Seth Ward’s
defence of universities, called Examen of Academies (1654) and Vindiciae Acade-
miarum (1654). It is interesting that Rabelais had quite a clear notion of the

fashionable character of the word. In his Gargantua, 11, 6, it ik only in the student’s
stilted expectorations that the Sorbonne is called “Academie”. Rabelais was
himself aware of the original meaning of “academy”. In Gargantua, m, 32, he
used it correctly as opposed to peripatetic or Aristotelian. Since the grammar-
school was in the sixteenth century not yet distinctly separated from the university,
“academy” was sometimes also applied to schools of some superior qualification.
F. Paulsen, Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, vol. 1, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1896, p. 288;

6
 INTRODUCTION

While thus a separate and mainly independent development

of the word took place in the North, the meaning of “academy”

had also significantly changed in Italy; and once more it will be
useful to follow this change in some detail, not only because of its
significance in connection with the chief problems of this book,
but also because such etymological changes always reflect
profounder changes of mentality. The Italian academies of
about 1500 had expressed the free and bold spirit of the High
Renaissance, its enthusiasm for Antiquity, and its wide interests.
As soon as the Renaissance broke down, and was superseded by
Mannerism in art and by all the tendencies leading up to the
Counter-Reformation in general history, academies ceased to be
as informal and loose as they had been.1 In trying to analyse the
transformations as they occurred, one is faced with the difficulty
of a sudden growth in the numbers of new academies. After the
beginning of the second third of the Cinquecento an ever-
increasing quantity of academies can be found all over Italy;
M. Joannis Jarkii Specimen Historiae Academiarum Eruditarum
Italiae, published at Leipzig in 1729, enumerates over 500 — of
Melanchthon, Elogium for Questenberg, 1554 (K. Borinski, Der Streit um die Renaissance in
Sitzungsberichte der Bayrischen Ak. d. Wissensch., 1919, p. 60); Leibniz, Nova Methodus
Docendi Discendique (ed. Klopp, vol. 1, 1864, p. 4) and most explicitly Lorenz Beyer-
linck, Magnum Theatrum Vitae humanae , Koln, 1631, p. 31 : “Academia nostro tempore
usurpatur pro urbis parte, in qua celebrantur studiorum gymnasia: ut Academia
Parisiensis, quae vulgo Universitas dicitur. Academia quoque dici potest quaelibet
litterarum schola insignior atque superior” (the quotation is from Della Torre, l.c.
p. 108). Milton in his treatise On Education calls academy his new school-type which is
to replace both grammar-schools and universities (D. Masson, The Life of J. Milton,
and university
vol. 3, London, 1873, p. 239). For the differentiation between academy
in Latin and in vernacular cf. Encyclopedic, vol. 1, i~]\ “Quelques auteurs confondent
chose en latin, e’en sont
Academie avec Universite; mais quoique ce soit la meme
deux bien differentes en Francois.”
1 The conception of Mannerism as a genuine, universal and clearly definable style
into
following Renaissance and preceding Baroque has as yet not really penetrated
an academic
England. It was first developed in Germany, where the history of art as
Dvorak and
subject has so much more tradition and weight than in this country.
to be recorded. As I cannot here say more of a style
Pinder are the two names chiefly
Tintoretto, Greco,
represented by men such as Bronzino, Vasari, Parmigianino,
I wish to refer to two other
Bruegel, Cellini, Goujon, to mention just a few names,
Die italienische Malerei
places where I have tried to put the case of Mannerism:
of Burger
vom Ende der Renaissance bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, a volume
Handbuch der Kunstwissen schaft, and Gegenrefo rmation und
and Brinckmann’s
Manierismus”, a paper published in Repert.f. Kunstwiss. vol. 46, 1925.

7
 INTRODUCTION

which 70 are at Bologna, 56 in Rome, 43 in Venice — and the

five volumes of M. Maylender’s recent Storia delle Accademie
d' Italia reveal the existence of more than 2200 of them between
the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. In the great centres
dozens can be enumerated, and even places of the size and
importance of Forlimpopoli or Castrovillari did not lack them.
To explain this it is necessary to realize that since 1 540 societies
and associations of many different kinds liked to adorn them¬
selves with the high-sounding title of academies. While, as was
shown, one is fairly safe in interpreting an academy of the
Quattrocento as an informal gathering of humanists, it would be
rash to assume any such unity of meaning for later Cinquecento
or Seicento academies. Maylender does not try to give a
systematic synopsis of the innumerable academies which he dis¬
cusses in alphabetical order. An attempt at an arrangement
according to purpose may not be out of place in our connection.
The most direct outcome of the Renaissance academy were

circles meeting to cultivate the “amene lettere”, “per fuggir

l’ozio”, as was in one case explicitly added. Queen Christina of
Sweden in founding an academy in Rome in 1656 said that her

plan was “di coltivare con ogni studio e applicatione e bella

morale le vere condizioni, le quali insegnano a parlare, a scrivere

et all’ oprar degnamente e nobilmente”. A good style in writing

and speaking and a philosophical attitude in life — that is then
what the “amene lettere” seem to signify. One tried to achieve
this by composing, reciting, and criticizing poetry, by writing
and reading addresses on general subjects of ethics and rhetorics,
and sometimes also by discussing and interpreting some of the
gems of old Italian literature such as Petrarch’s Sonnets or selected
passages from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Acting was another
activity, and it is well known that the Teatro Olimpico was
built by Palladio to be the stage for a private academy. The
plays to be acted were either popular works of the past, or
renowned contemporary works, or else recent products of
members. Occasionally it was preferred to improvise comedies.
The next task to be mentioned is the performing of music, either
8
 INTRODUCTION

as one of many activities or as the sole aim of an academy. At

first it was a matter of chamber-music and singing, later on
oratorios and operas were also studied, and it is a fact familiar
to everybody conversant with eighteenth-century music and
musicians, that academy was then the most usual term for

concert. But the “arti cavalleresche”, fencing, riding, dancing,

were also accepted in academies and in some cases became so

predominant, that societies were called “accademie d’ armi”.1

This is a large variety of aims, and yet we have so far dealt
only with those types which still keep some relation to what the
original academies of the Renaissance stood for. There are,
however, many more which were founded with a view to
i Amene Lettere: Maylender, l.c. vol. 4, pp. 426, 450; vol. 5, pp. 256 seqq. “Ac-
cademia non e altro ”, said Fr. Lovedano in his Bizzarerie Achademiche, “ che un’ unione
di virtuosi per ingannar il tempo e per indagare fra le virtu la felicita” (quoted from
K. Th. von Heigel, Ober den Bedeutungswandel der Worte Akademie und Akademisch,
Munchen, 191 1 ). Queen Christina: Maylender, l.c. vol. 4, p. 401. Addresses and papers:
their subjects are sometimes painfully reminiscent of school essays: Should one
accept or decline presents? (Maylender, l.c. vol. 3, p. 263). What is more desirable, a
long or a short life? Should one prefer to be envied or pitied? (Maylender, l.c. vol. 3,
p. 371). Petrarch and Dante: Maylender, l.c. vol. 1, p. 475 ar>d vol. 3, p. 5. Teatro
Olimpico: Palladio has built another academy theatre, in 1565, for the Accademia degli

Accesi at Venice (Maylender, l.c. vol. 1, pp. 45, 493). Acting of plays: Sophocles’s
Oedipos (Olimpici Vicenza), Del Monte’s Antigone (Accesi Venice). It has been sug¬
gested that the theatrical performances of the Italian academies took the place of the
mysteries acted by medieval companies. In two cases it can actually be shown how
old-established companies tried to keep their former business by carrying on under
the name of academies: in 1559 the Compania dei Bernardini at Florence became the
Accademia dei Costanti (Maylender, l.c. vol. 2, p. 1 10), and in the seventeenth century
the Compagnia dell’ Evangelista changed its name to Accademia degli Aquilotti
Accademia dei
(Maylender, l.c. vol. 1, p. 231). Improvising comedies: Salvatore Rosa’s
Percossi at Florence. Musical academies: Filarmonici Verona (1543) with humanistic
and musical tasks; purely musical: Moderati Verona (1543), Filomeli Siena (about
Timidi Mantua,
1588), Morte Ferrara (1592). Oratorios and operas: Elevati Florence,
Zelanti Acireale. The Unisoni of Perugia erected a special building for the perform¬
ance of Sacri Drammi at the beginning of the seventeenth century (Maylender, l.c.
academies; the foundation
vol. 5, p. 394). Operatic companies could also be called
instrument of the French Academie Royale de Musique (cf. p. 17) says: Les Italiens
dans lesquelles il se fait des representations en musique,
ont etably divers Academies,
Paris,
qu’on nomme opera” (L. Travenol, Histoire du Theatre de l' Opera en France,
(1564),
!753). Arti Cavalleresche: alongside of literary activities, e.g. Unanimi Salo
Delii Padua
Filotomi Verona (1565), Cavalieri Palermo (1567), Oplosoliti, Orditi,
complete enumeration of esercizi cavallereschi is recorded
(about 1600). An especially
in connection with the Remoti at Faenza (about 1673): fencing, dancing, singing,
instrumental music, rhetoric, theatrical acting, elementary geometry, geography,
architecture.

9
 INTRODUCTION

activities entirely different from any pursued before 1530.

Pageants with ovations to the ladies of the town may be their
task, or solemnly organized feasting according to precisely
formulated rules, or card-games, or shooting.1 On the other
hand lecturing could become the main object of academies, and
they could develop into scientific societies. Thus there were
special academies for philological research into Italian as well as
Latin and Greek, for research into dogmatic and historical
problems of divinity, or into archaeology, law, medicine, natural
history.2 It was only one step from lecturing and debating

1 Pageants: most of the artisans’ academies at Siena: Rozzi, Insipidi, Intronati,

Sborrati, Smarriti, etc., Floridi Prato. Feasting: Allegri Florence (1571), Bettola
Ancona (1651), Arsura Florenz (1682), etc. Card-games: Hombresi Carmagnola 1788
(the name is derived from the game of L’Hombre) . Shooting: Piacevoli and Piattelli
Florence, late sixteenth century.
2 Italian: above all of course the Umidi, Fiorentina and Crusca in Florence, which

will be discussed on p. 14. A remarkable combination was the Accademia dell’ Ora-
colo in Rome (second half of the seventeenth century), in which a question was put
to a member masquerading as the oracle. He answered by saying any word that first
crossed his mind and which was to be in no relation with the question; two other

members had then to get up and establish in a correct disputation a reasonable con¬
nection between question and reply, and two “censors” had to criticize their style and
arguments (Maylender, l.c. vol. 4, p. 138). Latin and Greek: the Grillenzoni at Modena
(about 1530) and the Accesi at Palermo (1568) seem still very similar to Aldus’s
academy. The beginning of the Neo-Classic movement is marked by some early
eighteenth-century academies such as Scipione Maffei’s Latinofili at Verona (1705).
Divinity: Notti Vaticane, founded about 1560 by St Charles Borromeo as a Counter-
Reformation substitute for the usual literary and worldly academies of his time;
Abbatiana Cremona (1588), Ermatenaici Milan (early seventeenth century), the
three Vatican Academies of Benedict XIV (Concili, Liturgia, Storia Ecclesiastica,
about 1740), and many debating societies in monasteries and seminaries (Maylender,
l.c. vol. 2, pp. 219, 220, 275, 429, 451 seqq.). Archaeology: the first academy of this
kind was, it appears, the Accademia della Virtu in Rome (about 1 538) founded to study
Vitruvius though also not averse to social pleasures (Maylender, l.c. vol. 5, p. 478).
There are then the Agevoli Tivoli (early seventeenth century), with similar aims, but
it remained for the Neo-Classic movement of the eighteenth century to make archaeo¬
logical societies popular. The most influential academy of this kind was the Erco-
lanense of Charles III, King of Naples, which was editing the excavations of Hercu¬
laneum. Others are the Etrusca at Cortona (1727) and the Romana opened by
Benedict XIV (1740). Law: Sizienti Bologna (about 1550-60), Olimpici Ferrara
(about 1562), Mercuriali Ferrara (1574), Operosi Ferrara (about 1575), Papiniana
Turin (1573), Inquieti Pavia (1605), etc. Some of them included a certain post¬
university training. Medicine: Altomarcana Naples (about 1550), meeting in the
house of a doctor, Medica Pavia (about 1563), consisting of students under a pro¬
fessor, Istrofisici and Notomia Palermo (first half of the seventeenth century), public
institutions with governmental subsidies. Maylender also mentions (vol. 1, p. 308)

10
 INTRODUCTION

academies of this kind, where all members took part in discussions

and were potential lecturers, to institutions of a university
character with competent lecturers and with listeners attending
to obtain a systematic introduction into a subject. Here, in a
roundabout way, the Italian academy seems to meet what by
then had become the most usual type of “academy” in the
North. One essential difference, however, remains. In Italy it
was either not the whole university or school that was honoured
by the new name, but only part of it (for instance a debating
club such as the colleges of the Jesuits cultivated), or else an old
academy grew into a more or less complete university and
received the privilege of conferring degrees. While in the North
existing universities were reformed and then called academies, in
Italy the academy was developed until it could in some cases
replace a university. The most extreme case is that of the
Accademia Fiorentina (cf. below) whose Consul in 1541 was
invested with the privileges, revenues and authority of the rector
of the old Florentine university. Once the term academy had
been adopted by schools it is understandable that it was also
applied to private education arranged by young noblemen
among themselves, or by a prince for his son or by anxious
parents for their children whom they wanted to keep away from
the “molti pericoli, che s’ incontrano nel mandar i ffgliuoli alle
scuole”.1
This survey probably covers the range of activities practised
by Italian academies. The sudden rise of so many types remains
surprising; for the various purposes did not develop gradually

an academy of apothecaries with lectures on new drugs. Science: Animosi Cremona

(1560), Animosi Bologna (1552). The Immobili at Florence (1550) propounded anti-
copernican views, the academies of Parrasio and Telesio at Cosenza and of Porta at
Naples (1560) were more progressive and will be mentioned later (p. 18).
1 The use of “academy” for a grammar-school is rare in Italy. The only case which
I have come across is the Accademia degli Ardenti at Bologna (1565), a school
founded by the Confraternity of the Somasca in order to provide teaching in writing,
grammar, rhetoric, classics, dancing and fencing. Academies growing into a uni¬
versity: Apatisti Florence (1631); conferring degrees: Esquilina Rome (1478). The
latter was the old academy of Pomponio Leto reopened under a new name after
its suppression. Private teaching in its various forms: Incamminati Conegliano
(1587), Ferdinandea Florence (1603), Vigilanti Murano (1602).

I I
 INTRODUCTION

out of each other; but academies serving almost any of the tasks
enumerated were started during the thirty-five years between
1530 and 1565.1 This variety is one of the two chief differences
of the academies of the Cinquecento as against those flourishing
during the Renaissance. In harmony with the predominant
character of High Renaissance culture and art, unity in spite of
variety marks all the academies of about 15°°? as it marks the
works of Leonardo, Raphael or Giorgione. A live interest in
many different subjects appears unified by their informal and
sociable treatment. As soon as Mannerism had defeated and
annihilated Renaissance, that great harmony was torn asunder,
and one of the most formidable schisms in European civilization
broke out. Protestant churches abandoned the old creed, which,
in its turn, was rejuvenated restored to its old militant
and
energy by the Counter-Reformation. Never since has the soul
of the West been so self-tormented, so cruelly rent and severed
as during the decades of the religious wars, of St Ignatius and
St Theresa. Bronzino’s portraits as well as the figures in Tinto¬
retto’s religious paintings, Parmigianino’s distorted madonnas,
Bruegel’s petrified peasants, express the spasm of this age, and
it is an extremely telling fact that now the painting of special
subjects — landscapes, still-lifes, genre-pictures, etc. — broke away
from the main body of European art and developed into a life
of its own. Diirer had painted religious subjects and portraits
mainly, but also landscapes and still-lifes in water-colour. Now
Beukelaer specialized in still-life, Bruegel in folk-life, Momper
in wild mountains, etc.

Equally evident is the connection between the second dis¬

tinguishing feature of the new academies and another of the chief
characteristics of Mannerism. Renaissance academies were

entirely unorganized, the academies of Mannerism were pro-

*

1 Literary academies: Rozzi Siena (1531); Theatrical academies: Olimpici

Vicenza (1555); Musical academies: Filarmonici and Moderati Verona; Fencing
academies: Unanimi Salo (1564) ; Italian language: Umidi Florence (1540) ; Classics:
Aldina; Divinity: Notti Vaticane (about 1560); Law: Sizienti Bologna (1550-60);
Medicine: Altomarcana Naples (about 1550); Science: Immobili Florence (1550)
and Segreti Naples (1560); Education: Ardenti Bologna (1555).
12
 INTRODUCTION

vided with elaborate and mostly very schematic rules.1 The first
fixed rules of an academy which are recorded are those of the
Rozzi at Siena dating from 1531. The earliest case at Bologna is
the Floridi of 1537, at Florence the Umidi of 1540, at Rome the
Sdegnati of 1541. These dates correspond exactly to early
Mannerism in painting. One usually finds precise laws on the
election of functionaries, a principe, several censori, and perhaps
a bidello, and furthermore on form, frequency, duration of
meetings and on the correct behaviour of members in the
academy. Device and motto are chosen, the name of the
society explained, and academic nick-names assigned to the
academicians. Names of academies and members were often¬
times very odd. Not only are there many Accademie degli
Accesi, Agitati, Animosi, Ardenti, Concordi, Costanti, Desiosi,
Eccitati, Elevati, Infiammati, Occulti, Oscuri, Rinovati, but we
also find Addormentati, Incolti, Immaturi, Ipocondriaci, Nau-
fraganti, Percossi, Sonnacchiosi. Accordingly, members are not
only called II Costante, L’lncerto, but also II Vizioso, II Pauroso,
and if a man belonged to more than one academy, as was
frequently the case,2 he used to add all his academic nick-names
to his name on the title-pages of his publications. These high-
sounding, pompous names remained of course a favourite
feature of baroque academies and went out of fashion only late
in the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth centuries, when
the Neo-Classic movement began to gather strength. They were
then gradually replaced by names such as Accademia Letteraria,
delle Scienze, Economico-Letteraria, di Storia Ecclesiastica, etc.
It has been said before that it is not an easy task to single out the
main currents of evolution from the wide stream of Italian
academic life in the sixteenth century. Which of the many

1 For the importance of the criteria of schism 13 and schematism for the art of
Mannerism it is again necessary to refer to German literature on art. Wilhelm Pinder,
the greatest of living German art historians, has clearly brought them out in Das
“ Die Wissenschaft
Problem der Generation, Berlin, 1926, pp. 55 seqq., and again in
aus Scheidewe ge ”, Festschrift Ludwig Klages zum 60. Geburtstag, Leipzig, 1932.
vol. 5, p. 245, mentions one De Angelis at Lecce who was a member
2 Maylender, l.c.
of seven academies.
 INTRODUCTION

activities and tendencies described proved of constructive value

in preparing and forming the future character of Academies?
For our modern notion of an academy is, as we have seen, by
no means identical with that of the Cinquecento. In mentioning
an academy to-day, one usually refers to a royal or governmental
institution for the promotion of science or of art or to a public
college of art. The history of academies of art will form the
contents of the following five chapters. An outline of the history
of scientific academies up to the eighteenth century must be given
in this introductory chapter, because without it many features
characteristic of art academies at various moments cannot be
fully understood.
Two main currents are to be distinguished. One follows the
development of those academies which devoted themselves to
problems of language and philology, the other concerns academies
of science in a narrower sense, i.e. academies interested in
physics, chemistry, natural history, etc.
The origins of the philological academy are at Florence. Once
more the initiative was private. But no more than three months
had the small and informal Accademia degli Umidi (founded in

1540) existed, when Cosimo de’ Medici, first duke of Tuscany,

interfered and made himself — not to the satisfaction of all
members — its protector. It was at once renamed and continued
under the simpler yet more ambitious title of Accademia
Fiorentina.1 In addition to the previous tasks of the academy it
was now explicitly stated that it should cultivate the Italian as

opposed to the Latin language. This was to be done “inter-

pretando, componendo, e da ogni altra lingua ogni bella scienza

in questa nostra riducendo”. There were both private and public

meetings, first in the old Palazzo Medici, later in the Palazzo
Vecchio, when this had become the palace of the Medici. From
14
1553 courses on Dante and Petrarch were given by two paid
lecturers, Giambattista Gelli and Benedetto Varchi. It has been
mentioned on p. 11 that the consul of the academy had been made

rector of the university. The conception of regulating one’s

1 Cf. Olschki, l.c. vol. 2, pp. 1 7 1 seqq.
 INTRODUCTION

language, and of forcing it into tabulated schemes, must have

strongly appealed to the age of Mannerism. In 1569 another
academy was opened with a programme very similar to that of
the Fiorentina: the Alterati, meeting in the Palazzo Strozzi; in
1587 a third, the Desiosi, meeting in the house of Agostino Del
Nero; and in 1582 the Accademia della Crusca appears, the most
important institution of all. Its founders were five members of
the Fiorentina who had seceded from the official body because of
its solemnity and pedantry. They did not elect a principe, did
not call their association an academy and decided to do without
fixed rules, except for the one that only the hilarious element in
literature was to be cultivated. Grazzini — known to posterity
under his nick-name II Lasca, which the Umidi had given to
him — was the chief promoter of the new society. Grazzini, how¬
ever, died in 1584, and after that the association seemed no longer
strong enough in the defence of Renaissance freedom. It ac¬
cepted the spirit of the age and set itself tasks almost identical
with those of the Fiorentina. In 1591 it was resolved to codify
the Italian language, and in 1612 the Dictionary of the Crusca
was published.
Immediately after this feat had been achieved, the Crusca
began to find an echo abroad. In 1617 Edmund Bolton sub¬

mitted to James I his plan for the foundation of an “ Academy

Royal or College and Senate of Honor”, a queer amalgamation
of discrepant Cinquecento and medieval ideas. The society was
to meet at Windsor Castle and to have forty-eight members
in three classes, Tutelaries (i.e. the Knights of the Garter),
Auxiliaries and Essentials. The Essentials should be responsible

for research work, and among the tasks enumerated was “that
good books might sincerely be turned out of foreign tongues into
ours”.1 Owing to James I’s death Bolton’s plan did not material¬
ize. However, in the same year 1617 15Prince Ludwig of Anhalt,

“academy”
1 J. Hunter, Archeologia, vol. 32, 1846. Generally speaking, the word ns
signified in England during the seventeenth century sociable private associatio
combinin g education and entertain ment. This is obviously what Shakespea re means

” Ben
(Love's Labour's Lost, 1, 1, 13) in saying: “Our court shall be a little Academe.
as it was called by the first translator of Jonson’s Latin
Jonson’s Tavern Academy,
 INTRODUCTION

who since 1600 had been a member of the Crusca, founded the
Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft at Weimar for the promotion of the
German language, a society which is now better known under its
later name of Palmenorden.1 In spite of its interesting connec¬
tion with German seventeenth-century poetry, it remained a
small and rather remote society.
The decisive development of the Florentine programme oc¬
curred not in Germany nor in England but in France, and the
most important step was taken at the very moment when France
took the lead in most fields of European civilization and began
to outflank Italy in literature as well as in architecture and
painting. Richelieu must be regarded as the initiator of the
Academie Frangaise. In 1635 he induced the government to take
over a private literary circle in order to form a centre for the
cultivation and rational development of the French language.
This idea was obviously derived from Florence, but while it
there constituted only part of a wider programme, it was now
made the principal not to say the only purpose of the academy.
In the decree of foundation of the Academie Frangaise the

following rule is laid down: “La principale fonction de 1’Aca¬

demie sera de travailler avec tout le soin et toute la diligence

mottoes put up in the tavern, was mainly social, Sir Balthasar Gerbier’s, the political
agent’s Academy of 1649, was primarily educational. His addresses given to the
academy on various subjects were even printed (cf. M. G. de Boer, Oud Holland, vol. 21,
1903 and D.N.B. vol. 21, p. 228). A much more serious and comprehensive enter¬
prise was conceived in 1570 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh’s step-brother, an
unswerving navigator who founded the first British colony on American soil. His
project, which he submitted to Queen Elizabeth, was the first noteworthy academy
planned in this country. It was to deal with “chivalry, policy and philosophy” and
to include courses or lectures on Latin and Greek grammar, Hebrew, Logic, Rhetoric,
Moral Philosophy, Policy, Mathematics, etc., Artillery, Physics, Surgery, Civil
Law, Divinity, Lrench, Italian, Spanish, High Dutch, Lencing, Dancing and Music
(cf. L. J. Lurnivall, Early English Text Society, 1869). Although this plan was never
adopted nor even published, it seems to have influenced the “Museum Minervae”
of 1636, Charles I’s academy, the rules of which exist in print. Only members of the
nobility could join the “Museum”. Science, languages, mathematics, fortification,
architecture, archaeology, medal-stamping and sculpture were the subjects to be dis¬
cussed (cf. H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 1762, vol. 2, p. 62).
1 V. M. O. Denk, Fiirst Ludwig zu Anhalt-Kothen und der erste deutsche Sprachverein,
Marburg, 1917, and also L. Keller’s interesting though not convincing book on
Comenius und die Akademien, 1895.

l6
 INTRODUCTION

possible, a dormer des regies certaines a notre langue, a la rendre

pure, eloquente et capable de traiter les arts et les sciences.” To
fulfil this task, a dictionary, a grammar, and compendia of
rhetorics and of poetics were planned. In the first three hundred
years, the dictionary alone was completed. It first appeared in
1694 and again in 1718, 1740, 1762, 1792. The grammar did not
come out until 1932.1 No more characteristic illustration of the
French spirit, the spirit of absolutism, and the spirit of the time
of Corneille and Poussin, could be imagined than this academy
passionately pursuing reason, system and order in language.
What had been conceived in absolutist Florence during the age
of Mannerism was achieved in absolutist France during the age
of Descartes and Richelieu.
It is wholly understandable that the same nation and the same
period were responsible for transferring the idea of royal
academies into other fields. Colbert became the chief pioneer of
a comprehensive academic system. The Academie de Danse
opened by Louis XIV in 1661, when he was twenty-three years old
and had just started to rule France independently, remained out¬
side the main tendency of development, although it is significant
enough that its purpose was to debate once a month on measures
for improving the conditions and standards of the art of dancing.
Of equally marginal importance in our connection is the Academie
de Musique founded in 1669, which was actually only a Royal
operatic company. But we return to the main road along which

academies were developing in passing on to Colbert’s two favourite

enterprises, the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres started
in 1663 and the Academie des Sciences started in 1666.
The Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 2 was first only a
1 P. Pellisson and d’Olivet, Histoire de V Academie Frangaise, Paris, 1 743 ; P. Mesnard,
Histoire de V Academie Frangaise, Paris, 1857; F. Masson, Id Academie Frangaise, Paris, s.d.
The name of academy seems to have appeared in France for the first time in connec¬
tion with a society founded in 1570 by Jean Antoine de Baif. Its aim was propaganda
for a type of poetry based on musical accompaniment as usual in Antiquity. Later on
Henry III became its protector and its name was changed to Academie du Palais.
About 1584 it must have ceased to operate. Cf. M. Ange-Chiquet, La vie, les idees et
V oeuvre de J. A. de Baif, Paris, 1909.
2 L.-F. A. Maury, L’Ancienne Academie des Inscr. et B.-L., Paris, 1864, p. 28.
2
pa 17
 INTRODUCTION

sub-committee of the AcademieFranchise set up to study in¬

scriptions, medals, devices, etc. — a typically Baroque task.
Gradually questions of archaeology and history were taken up,
and as early as 1701, in the first printed rules, its purpose was
defined as research into the “medailles, medaillons, pierres et
autres raretes antiques et modernes du Cabinet de sa Majeste

and the “antiquites et monumens de la France”. This is no

doubt one of the principal sources of the philological and
historical sections of most of the contemporary national or royal
academies, their other source being the work of the Bollandists
and the monks of St Maur.

Correspondingly, one of the two sources of the mathematical

ie
and physical classes in modern academies is the Paris Academ
des Sciences. The pre-history of this institution also leads us back
to Italy. Once more private circles started what governments
later developed. During the second third of the Cinquecento an
informal society of philosophers gathered round Parrasio and
Telesio at Cosenza in Southern Italy, and in 1560 the Accademia
dei Segreti was established at Naples by Giovanni Battista Porta
for the purpose of research into astronomy and experimental
physics. The members called themselves Segreti, because they
knew that their unprejudiced studies might be endangered by
publicity, and in fact their meetings were soon prohibited, as
contrary to the new Tridentine spirit. When Mannerism had
come to an end, the militant period of the Counter-Reforma¬
tion was over, and Baroque set in, rediscovering the attractions
of this world, chances for scientific research improved.1 As early
as 1603 the Accademia dei Lincei was founded in Rome, again for
the purpose of investigating problems of science and astronomy.
Its foundation-members were four young amateurs, its head a
Marchese Cesi. Their first meetings were also held secretly, and
when they were discovered, opposition led to the dissolution of
the club after a few months. However, they reunited in 1609,

1 I have discussed the meaning of this change in detail in my volume of the Hand-
buch der Kunstwissenschaft, and also in a paper published in Repertorium fur Kunstwissen-
schaft, vol. 49, 1928.
l8
 INTRODUCTION

and now under more favourable auspices. In 1610 Porta, the

veteran of experimental science, joined, and in 1 6 1 1 Galileo.
Their next publications were printed by the Lincei, and Cesi was
even able to deliver official lectures at the Collegio Romano.
But when in 1 6 1 6 Clerical resistance against Galileo began to act,
the pendulum swung back once more: Cesi left Rome; Urban
VIII, worldly though he was, did not protect the academy; the
prosecution which
silenced Galileo and stopped all progressive
Italian research for decades, compromised the Lincei, and they
collapsed, not to reopen until 1745 at Rimini and 1801 in Rome.
As long as new ideas are the property of only a few, they will
hardly tend to crystallize into fixed forms ; and only when a fairly
wide public has grasped them and takes part in them, can they
be accepted as an academic programme. Thus the heyday
of scientific academies began about 1650, when the defeat of
clerical opposition to experimental science had become uni¬
versal. In Italy this moment was indicated by the foundation of
the Neapolitan Accademia degli Investiganti (1650) and the more
important Florentine Accademia del Cimento (1657). Experi¬
mental physics and astronomy were the tasks set for the Cimento
by its initiators, the future Cardinal Leopold William of Medici
and his brother the Grand-Duke of Tuscany. No elaborate rules
nor any nick-names of members were thought out, which shows
that a new era — that of the Enlightenment — was now dawning.
The first Saggi of the academy were published in 1666 and made a
great impression. In spite of their promising beginnings, however,
internal quarrels, the secession of important members, and above
all of Prince Leopold, had stopped the activity of the academy
already in 1 667. There were soon several other similar academies
in Italian towns, but they all remained small and of only local con¬
sequence. If we want to keep in the main current of development,
as we have done in the case of the language-academies,
19 we must
now once more leave Italy and pass over to countries of the

West. Italy’s leading part in European civilization was at an end.1

1 G. Mauguin, Etude sur l'Evolution intellectuelle de FItalie, 1657-1750, Paris, s.d. The
following Italian academies were, according to Maylender, l.c., under the influence of
2-2
 INTRODUCTION

rimental science,
In establishing a Royal Academy for expe
Bacon was a most
the country of Roger Bacon and Francis
Charles II turned a
significant fact — ahead of France. In 1662
h had been meeting
private society of scholars and amateurs whic
Royal Society for im¬
since 1645 in London and Oxford, into a
citly stated that the
proving Natural Knowledge.1 It was expli
cis studiis, prae-
society would concern itself with “ philosophi
”. The king was a
sertim iis, quae solidis experimentis conantur representatives of
member of the institution, and so were suitable
the Membres
the British nobility — a derivation probably from
ary here to
Honoraires of the Academie Fran$aise. It is unnecess

go into the first century of the Royal Socie ty’s activity, or to

enumerate its early disti nguis hed memb ers, such men as Newton,
, although it
Halley, Wren. Its influence on Europe was great
cademy, the
had to share celebrity with its French sister-a
er in 1666.
Academie des Sciences , which was granted a royal chart
private
Here again official recognition followed a period of
Descartes, Pascal,
activity, going back to 1640 or an earlier date.
rt’s attention
Gassendi belonged to this private circle, and Colbeeui architect.
was drawn to it by Perra ult, the schol ar and amat
Aleicantilist
Colbert, realizing the potential help which his
research work, saw to it
plans could reap from the academy’s purc
that funds were made available for the hasing of instruments

for members’
and ingredients for experimenting, and also
salaries. At first no rules were drawn up, and it was only in
ation in the
1699, when the academy was given accommod
It remained
Louvre, that a proper Reglement was introduced.
ing
in operation until the French Revolution dissolved all exist
tic institu¬
academies as privileged and therefore anti-democra
tions. However, for reasons deeply connected with the national

Fisico-Naturale
the Cimento: Simposiaci Rome (1662), Traccia Bologna (1666),
(ca . 1677) and Filosofico-Matematica Rome (1677-98 ), Spioni at Lecce, (1683),
dell’ Istituto
Brescia (1686), Fisiocritici Siena (1690) and the public Societa
Filesotici (1714).
Bologna
and also in a more
1 Th. Thompson, History of the Royal Society, London, 1812,
in the Seventeenth Century,
general way, M. Ornstein, The Role of Scientific Societies
Chicago, 1928.
2 L.-F. A. Maury, L’Ancienne Academie des Sciences, Paris, 1864, p. 10.

20
 INTRODUCTION

character of the French, even the government of Robespierre

seems to have felt the need of some academic system, and the
Institut National, demonstratively republican as it appeared to
be, was in reality all but a re-establishment of the old academies
under a new name. Their old name was restored to them by
Louis XVIII in 1815, and they are still to-day a formidable
power in French public life.
At the same time as in France and England a movement for
the establishment of Academies of Science arose in Germany.
But whereas in centralized France and centralized England the
development of institutions of real importance was virtually con¬
fined to the capitals, in Germany several centres shared the
initiative. The origins are once more to be found in private
societies. From 1622 to 1625 Jungius worked at Rostock with a
circle of colleagues and friends, his academy being called
Societas Ereunetica. In 1652 an Academia Naturae Curiosorum
was founded at Schweinfurt which secured an Imperial Charter
in 1672, and in 1687 the right of conferring degrees. Under the
name of Leopoldinisch-Karolinische Akademie it is still in
existence and differs from all other academies in that its seat
changes according to the residence of the president. Late in the
seventeenth century Leibniz, the most universal mind of the
Baroque age, began to lead an intense propaganda for the intro¬
duction of an academic system on French lines. About 1670 he
wrote a pamphlet on the institution of a Society in Germany

(“Bedenken von Aufrichtung einer Societat in Deutschland”),

and the term Society shows that London had impressed him as

much as Paris. He pointed out the importance of a “Societat

oder academi” for improving arts and sciences, for combining
in one’s own country “handel und commercium mit Wissen-
schaften” — a typically Mercantilist argument — and for raising
the standard of medicine, surgery and chemistry. After several
more publications on the subject and other attempts, Leibniz at
last succeeded in winning the interest of Sophia Charlotte and
her husband Frederick I of Prussia. So the Academia Scienti-
arum was opened at Berlin in 1700, for the first time uniting

21
 INTRODUCTION

the tasks of the three Paris academies. The “Erhaltung der

teutschen Sprache in ihrer anstandigen reinigkeit” was to be
considered, and the “betrachtung der wercke und Wunder
Gottes in der Natur, auch anmerckung, Beschreib- und Aus-
iibung derer Erfindungen, Kunstwercke, geschaffte und Lehren ,
and the “ganze Teutsche und sonderlich unserer Lands Welt-
liche- und Kirchen-Historie”. The academy, a truly imposing
conception, developed into Frederick the Great s Academie
Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres, and later into the Konig-
lich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften.1
The Berlin academy was soon followed by a considerable
number of academies of a similarly comprehensive character, all
being modelled on the Paris example. The academic system
which absolutism and mercantilism had created in France was
now spread and divulgated by the powers of the Enlightenment,
and it may be useful, with regard to the main task of this book,
here to sum up the causes that made the statesmen of the Age of
Reason believe in, and stand for, academies. Since, in the late
Middle Ages, the power of independent cities such as Lubeck,
Bruges, Florence, etc. had reached such unprecedented heights,
a new interest in this world, in the nature of things and of man,
and in ways of mastering them, began to overshadow the
transcendentalism that had prevailed in medieval philosophy.
Names such as Copernicus and Leonardo da Vinci in science,
Macchiavelli in politics, Valla and Erasmus in theology and
philology, mark the new outlook. Protestantism concurrently led
to an appreciation of family, profession, and business, which was
alien to the spirit of the classic Middle Ages. While Humanism
freed the European mind from the bonds of uncritically accepted
authority, and Protestantism gained for the individual a direct
approach to God, science also developed most vigorously as soon *

i A. von Harnack, Geschichte d. Kgl. Preussischen Akad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin, Berlin,

1900, vol. 1, pp. 1-215. Academia Leopoldino-Carolina : A. E. Buchner, Academiae
Sacri Romani Imperii Leopoldino-Carolinae Naturae Curiosorum Historia, Halle, 1755, and
J. D. F. Neugebauer, Gesch. d. Kais. Leop.-Carol. Deutschen Akad. der Naturforscher, Jena,
i860. Leibniz, Die Werke von Leibniz, ed. Klopp, vol. 1, pp. 12 1 seq., 131, 142; vol. 3,
p. 306 seq.
22
 INTRODUCTION

as inductive methods were adopted. The discoveries of Kepler,

Galileo, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz are the outcome of the
new spirit of experimental research. They aimed and arrived at
a truth independent of religious dogma, a truth at the same time
satisfactory in itself as a proof of human ingeniousness and
superiority, and eminently practical for the domination of
Nature. Knowledge is power; the principle which Bacon had
taught permeates a considerable proportion of the scientific
work done by the age of Enlightenment. Now research directed
towards the discovery of concrete data lends itself easily to an
organized form. Progress along the lines which the seventeenth-
century regarded as desirable and useful in science, history, law, or
philosophy can be attained most effectively by combined efforts.
So academies were an apposite expression of the philosophical
spirit of the epoch, and as at the same time States were now con¬
vinced of the power of science and the importance of national
enterprise in every field of human activity, they were bound to
take a live interest in academically organized research bodies.
Thus it came about that most of the academies of science and

letters famous to-day were founded during the age of Enlighten¬

ment, between 1710 and 1810: 1713 Madrid (with the object
of publishing a standard dictionary of the Spanish language),
1720 Lisbon, 1726 St Petersburg, 1739 Stockholm, 1744 Phila¬
delphia, 1752 Gottingen, 1752 Harlem, 1759 Munich, 1766
Leiden, 1772 Brussels, etc. Some of them specialized in mathe¬
matics and physics, some in philological and historical research,
but as time went on the usual form became more and more

that which combined both “classes”, and if nowadays one reads

of “the Vienna Academy”, one would unhesitatingly take this
to refer to a governmental institution electing distinguished
scholars as representatives of scientific, historical and philological
research of the highest standard. 23

Unless one associates “the Vienna Academy ” with an academy

of art, which would be an equally justifiable association. For it
is in the two forms of Academy of Science and Letters and of
Academy of Art that the term, the history of which we have
 INTRODUCTION

al development
tried to follow step by step in its etymologic
ry chapter
through the centuries, is now used. In this introducto
been outlined from
the genealogy of academies in general has
of humanists in
their first appearance as informal gatherings
and fiscalization
Renaissance Italy to the earliest reglementation
conception of a
during the age of Mannerism, to Colbert’s great
Mercantilism,
system of academies serving Absolutism as well as
and to the diffusion of this idea all over Europ e.

similar treat¬
The following five chapters will be devoted to a
ns
ment of academies of art, showing and interpreting their origi
which
and evolution from almost exactly the same moment
to the
marked the beginning of humanist academies, down
present day.1
of science and letters seems ever
i No detailed account of the history of academies
(Accademie e Bibhoteche
to have been published. G. Gabrieli’s articles on the subject
and Enciclop edia Italiana, vol. 1) and Axel von Harnack s
d’ Italia, vol. i, 1927-8,
Resume in the Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft (vol. 1, Leipzig, 1931, pp. 854

H. Lehmann’s survey of early

seqq.) are hardly adequate. P. O. Rave and E.
academi es of art in O. Schmitt’ s Reallexikon zur deutschen
scientific academies and
(vol. 1, cols. 242-63, Leipzig, 1934) is well-fo unded but short.
Kunstgeschichte

24
 Fig. i Fig. 2
Figs, i and 2. Two engravings by Leonardo da Vinci or one of his pupils. They bear the
inscription ACADEMIA LEONARDI VIN(ci) and ACH(ademi)A LE(onardi) VI(nci)

Fig. 3. FEDERICO ZUCCARI Fig. 4. GIORGIO VASARI

Self-portrait. Rome , Accademia di From a woodcut in the second edition
S. Luca
of Vasari’s Vite
 Chapter II
FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI
TO THE ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA
The Sixteenth Century
The earliest known connection between an artist and the term
Academy occurs on six engravings with interlaced cord
patterns (fig. i), and one with a girl in profile wearing a wreath
(fig. 2) all of which — in various arrangements and with various
abbreviations— bear the inscription Academia Leonardi Vinci.1
As there has been much controversy about this academy, the
first task of a book on the history of art academies must be to
elucidate its character.
To deny its existence altogether, as has been attempted mainly
by Uzielli and Errera,2 would only be justifiable, if the engravings
could be proved to be faked or else executed some time after the
death of Leonardo whose name they bear. This, however, no¬

body has tried, and in fact their style as well as Vasari’s state¬
ment on them, based as it is on evidence given by Leonardo’s
favourite pupil, Francesco Melzi, show their close connection
with Leonardo. If they are not his, they are at least derived
from his studio, and can safely be considered of his design. As
far as their date is concerned, the head of the girl appears to

belong to the last years of the Quattrocento,3 and of the “knots”,

1 First publication of the engravings by A. M. Hind, Burlington Magazine, vol. 12,

1907—8; more detailed publication with illustrations by A. Calabi, Bollettino d’ Arte, 2nd
ser. vol. 4, 1924-5.
2 G. Uzielli, Ricerche intorno a Leonardo da Vinci, 2nd edition, Turin, 1 896, pp. 341 seqq.
Roy.
and pp. 496 seqq.; P. Errera, Rassegna d' Arte, vol. 1, 1901 ; Annales de l’Acad.
d’Archeol. de Belgique, vol. 53, 1914; cf. also E. Solmi, L. d. V., Florence, 1900,
attempt at
A. Favaro in Scientia, vol. 10, 1916, and A. 2M.5 Hind, l.c. Mr Hinds
dismissing the “knots” as “academic exercises” can hardly be accepted. There is
no proof of the term “academic” being used in this sense before the time when
academies of art proper and standards of academic art teaching existed.
3 P. Kristeller in his Kupferstich und Holzschnitt in vier Jahrhunderten, 4th edition,
Berlin, 1922, pp. 196-7, discusses the group in the Quattrocento chapter.
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

it is known that Durer copied them and mentioned his copies in

his Flemish Diary of 1520/21, and that they must therefore be
earlier than 1520. But as Leonardo died in 1516, this is not of
much value. An earlier terminus ante would be given, if the date
of about 1507 is accepted, which was proposed by Scherer and
Winkler on the score of a relation of similar character which

exists between Diirer’s Jesus amongst the Doctors in the Tyssen

Collection, and certain Leonardo drawings.1
Be that as it may — the question whether Durer designed his
“knots” about 1507 or (as seems more likely) at the time of his
work for the emperor Maximilian, does not help to fix the date of
his purchase of the original engravings, nor does it in any way
explain the origin and the meaning of these. What they concur
to establish is, however, the authenticity of the engravings as
works of Leonardo’s time; and once this is admitted one can
hardl y deny the existence of that which their inscription declares,
namely an institution of some kind which was known under the
name of Academia Leonardi Vinci. Errera’s statement “che
nessuna Accademia fu mai fondata dall’ artista” is entirely
based on an argumentum ex silentio : as the academy is not mentioned
anywhere, it cannot have existed. But this inference — so Olschki
has rightly answered — is the outcome of a wrong conception of
Quattrocento academies. Referring back to what has been dis¬
cussed in the first chapter of this book, it can now be said that
records concerning the academies of Alberto Pio, Niccolo Priuli,
Bartolommeo Liviano and others are also extremely rare and
preserved only by chance. Silence in existing documents can
therefore not be taken as an argument against an academy. If of

course one pictures Leonardo’s academy as a regulated institu¬

tion of the type of the Lincei or the Crusca, and the engravings
in question as its entrance tickets or as ex-libris of the library, the
position must seem quite different. Here lies the mistake into
which Uzielli and Errara fell, a mistake maintained even in 1923
by so prominent an expert on the Milanese Renaissance as was
1 Klassiker der Kunst, 3rd edition, 1928. The same date was suggested by M.
Thausing, Durer, Leipzig, 1876, p. 274.

26
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri. In the fourth volume of his La

Corte di Lodovico il Moro he called Leonardo’s academy the
“ Accademia degli Studi a Milano”, regretted that its foundation
date and rules have not come down to us and — on the evidence

of a misinterpreted passage from Corio’s Storia di Milano — gave

the names of several teachers.
To believe in the existence of the Leonardo academy does,
however, by no means imply believing any of this. According
to all we know of academies of the Renaissance, there is the

greatest probability of its having been hardly more ' than an

informal gathering of amateurs such as the Pontaniana at
Naples. Just as this was called Pontaniana from the name of its
most famous member, Leonardo seems to have been the sponsor
if not the founder of the Milanese group. And just as the
Pontaniana is not always mentioned under that name nor even
under the name of academy, the often quoted passage from
Luca Pacioli’s Divina Proportione may now safely be interpreted
as referring to the Academia Leonardi Vinci. Pacioli, as is

known, tells his readers of a “laudabile e scientifico duello”

which took place on 9 February 1498 in Lodovico Sforza’s
castle at Milan in the presence of numerous clerical and secular
scholars, theologians, doctors, astrologers, lawyers, and above
all of that “perspicacissimi architecti e ingegnieri e di cose nove
assidui inventori ”, Leonardo da Vinci.1 This passage, if accepted
in the sense suggested here, would be the only contemporary
reference to the academy of Milan. For a remark which occurs
in Corio’s Storia di Milano and has also more than once been

brought into the discussion has nothing at all to do with Leo¬

nardo’s academy. Della Torre and Seidlitz have proved that
quite conclusively, and if Corio’s name in spite of this is mentioned
here again, it is only because recently Suida and even Olschki
have revived the old misunderstanding of his words.2 27
1 Ed. C. Winterberg in Quellenschriften fur Kunstgeschichte, 2nd Ser. vol. 2, Vienna,
1896, p. 32.
2 Seidlitz, Leonardo da Vinci, Berlin, igofh v°l. 1 > P* 437 J Olschki, l.c. vol. 1, p. 2435
be found in
Suida, Leonardo, Munich, 1929, p. 112. The passage in question is to
Corio’s Storia di Milano, vol. 3, Milan, 1857, p. 456, and runs as follows: “Nondimeno
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

To sum up, it can be said that the engravings prove the exist¬
ence of an Academia Leonardi Vinci, and the passage from
Pacioli as well as comparisons with other contemporary aca¬
demies determine its character sufficiently. The interpretation
here advocated is incidentally by no means new. It coincides
e.g. with that suggested by Muntz and Olschki.1 Muntz speaks
of a “reunion libre d’hommes unis par la communaute des
etudes et des gouts”, and Olschki adds that according to
Leonardo’s special interests and the composition of the “duello”
which Pacioli describes, the academy has probably had a parti¬
cular bias towards science.

However, it is quite understandable that another interpreta¬

tion of the Academia Leonardi Vinci has readily offered itself
to scholars. Here was an academy called by the name of a great
artist ; was it not only too natural that later writers should picture
it as an art academy in the sense of their (and our) time? Thus
already at the beginning of the seventeenth century Borsieri, the
first writer to mention the academy, has interpreted it as a school
of architecture, giving details which are too muddled to be
adduced as testimony in favour of any theory.2 Don Ambrogio

in quel tempo erano tanto coltivate le virtu, che s’ era desta tanta emulazione tra
Minerva e Venere che ciascheduna di esse cercava di ornare quanto piu poteva la
propria scuola. A quella di Cupido da ogni lato accorrevano bellissimi giovani —
Minerva anch’ essa con tutte le proprie forze cercava di ornare la sua gentile acca-
demia”. The connection between “accademia” and “propria scuola” in the
preceding sentence makes it clear beyond doubt that “sua” refers to “Minerva”, in
the same sense as e.g. in that letter of Galeotto del Caretto to Isabella d’ Este written
in 1498 in which he praises her for having “tutta 1’ Achademia di parnasso in questa
citt£ di Mantova” (cf. Maylender, l.c. vol. 5, p. 90).
1 Muntz, l.c. p. 229; Olschki, l.c. vol. 1, pp. 239-51.
2 As the passage from Borsieri ’s Supplemento della JVobiltd di Milano (Milan, 1619,
pp. 57 seqq.) has never yet been correctly quoted in the literature on Leonardo, its
text may here be given in full: “Furono gia in Milano due Accademie di molto nome
per 1’ architettura, 1’ una e 1’ altra sotto i ducati de’ Visconti e de’ Sforza. Comincio
la prima verso 1’ anno 1380. ...La seconda comincio verso il 1440 sotto il ducato di
Francesco Sforza, il qual non contento di quel progresso, che s’*era fatto nella prima,
benche si servisse pur di Bramante, v’ introdusse Leonardo da Vinci, il quale lascio
quasi percid 1’ attender alia pittura _ Quinci riuscirono assai buoni architetti Gio.
Pietro detto Gio. Pietrino, Trofo Monzasco, Gio. Ambrogio Bevilacqua, Francesco

Stella e Polidoro da Caravaggio, che furono tutti anco pittori eccellenti. N’ hebbe la
cura per molti anni Antonio Boltrafio, di cui vanno attorno molte opere. . . che sono. . .
stimate di Leonardo. ... In questa Accademia comincio lasciarsi la minuta architettura

28
 ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

Mazenta, Borsieri’s contemporary and the second to speak of

Leonardo’s academy, has rather more vaguely spoken of an
institution “principiata sotto Lodovico Sforza per ornar d’ ogni
bella virtu il Nipote Gio. Galeazzo ed altri Nobili Milanesi”.1
Mazenta had obtained the information on which this passage is
based from Francesco Melzi’s sons, so that the twentieth-century
editor of his Memorie felt entitled to believe him and called Leo¬

nardo’s academy in one place a “riunione di amici senza legami

rigorosi”, but in another an “accolta di artisti che facevano
tesoro dei suoi insegnamenti”. Even Seidlitz did not come to a
decision. Although he first enumerates several arguments in
favour of the academy being merely a circle of humanists and
courtiers, he then says: “ Mit der Schule mag es.... seine Richtig-
keit haben”, and consistently adds that hence the credit for
first having used the term academy for an art school should be

given to Leonardo “or one of his friends such as Pacioli”.

If Seidlitz were right in this, it would be of such fundamental
importance in our connection that his arguments must be
examined more closely. As soon as this is attempted, it will be
noticed that there are hardly any real arguments. No direct

evidence of any kind tells in favour of Seidlitz’s assumption. For

why should the mere fact that the engravings with the inscription
Academia Leonardi Vinci were done in Leonardo’s studio imply
that this academy must have been an enterprise common to

nelle cornici
e ripigliarsi la soda riuscendovi chi seppe alfine mutar i fiori spezzati
compiute e le finestre lunate nelle quadre. Allhora si fece regolarmen te la pianta della
di S. Celso e d’ alcune altre chiese di Milano, che hanno alquanto del
Madonna
Accademic i fosse Pellegrino de’
mestoso. Credono molti architetti che uno di questi
fatto in Roma
Pellegrini, ma egli divenne eccellentissimo in quest’ arte per lo studio
Mazenta diverse
sopra i tempi antichi. . . . Ho io stesso vedute gia nelle mani di Guido
francesi, benche in
lettioni di prospettiva, di macchina e di edificii, scritte in caratteri
favella italiana, che erano gia uscite da questa Accademia e s’ attribuivano anzi al
1 architettura
medesimo Leonardo. . . . Non ha molto tempo ch un altra Accademia per
fu istituita a Milano da Gio. Battista Galliani... .

i This seems a quite plausible reason for 2 9 foundation of the academy, and
the
a hundred years
Giangaleazzo’s dates (1469—94) would fit in well. Similarly about
a Ferdinan dea at Florence was establish ed to take part in the
later the Accademi
Maylender,
education of the Grand-Duke Ferdinando’s son (cf. p. 11, note 1, and
in Analecta Ambrosiana,
l c. vol. 2, p. 361). Mazenta’s manuscript was printed in 1919
vol. 1, edited by L. Grammati ca.
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

master and pupils? Why should one, as Kristeller does, call the
engravings a work “of that Academia Leonardi Vinci which is
supposed to have been founded by Leonardo”?1
In point of fact no art historian would have ventured in
earnest upon a hypothesis of this kind, had there not been
more than one good reason for assuming beforehand that the
origin of what is now called an academy of art was to be dis¬
covered somewhere near Leonardo. His theory of art collected
in the so-called “Libro della Pittura”2 is in exactly the same
contrast to the conception and practice of art prevailing before
and in his time as the new academic ideas of the humanists were
to the dominant doctrines of the old scholastic universities.

Leonardo’s main endeavour was to raise painting from a manual

skill to a science. The “principio della scientia della pittura”
is what he wants to disclose. He praises the art of painting as

being “pretiosa e Unica” and a “parente d’ Iddio”, because it

is the art of “disegno”, and without “disegno” none of those
sciences could exist which above all he finds worthy of that name,

i.e. those which proceed “per le mattematiche dimostrazioni ”

and are based on “ esperientia, senza la quale nulla da di se
certezza”.3
However, claiming for the art of painting a place amongst the
artes liberales means separating it from craftsmanship and the
well-defined social system by which it had flourished in the
Middle Ages. Leonardo knew that this was so and rejoiced in it.

“Con debita lamentatione”, he writes, “si dole la pittura per

1 Kristeller, l.c. p. 197. The academy is also identified with Leonardo’s school in
P. O. Rave and E. H. Lehmann’s article in Schmitt’s Reallexicon, l.c. Even Olschki
seems to have wavered. On p. 246 he speaks of “die gelehrten Diskussionen, die in
seiner Werkstatt und am Hof des Fiirsten stattfanden” (cf. also p. 250).
2 Edited by Ludwig in Quellenschriften fiir Kunstgeschichte, vols. 15-18, Vienna, 1882,
and by J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1883, 2 vols.
I have preferred, for the following two notes, to quote Ludwig, on account of the
arrangement of his work. The passages in question are Nos. 482 seqq., 654, 655, 19,

etc. in Richter’s book. On Leonardo’s theory cf. besides Seidlitz and his other bio¬
graphers J. von Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur, Vienna, 1924, pp. 140 seqq.; and A.
Dresdner, Geschichte der Kunstkritik, Munich, 1915, pp. 71 seqq.
3 Ludwig, l.c. §4 (vol. 18, No. 2), §8 (vol. 18, No. 8), § 12 (vol. 18, No. 13),
§ 10 (vol. 18, No. 10), § 1 (vol. 18, No. 1).
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

essere lei scacciata dal numero delle arti liberali”. To have

“messa la pittura fra le arti meccaniche” seems to him an
odious crime, the very name of handicraft as applied to art, a

“vile cognome”. Consequently he refused to accept sculpture in

stone as a “scientia” and called it an “arte meccanicissima”,
because, he said, “it produces sweat and physical fatigue in the
workman”.1
Handicraft treated as a despicable toil, painting as a science;
these tenets were bound to react strongly upon the social position
of the artist, if they could be made acceptable to his public. And
whereas the artists alone might not have been able to achieve
their goal, success was secured by the aid of contemporary
writers. Humanists, on account of what they thought had been
a matter of course in Antiquity, began to praise individual works
of art and individual artists to an extent incompatible with the
medieval tradition of painting and sculpture as crafts in no way
above others (Petrarch, Villani, Facius, etc.). Thus already
during the Quattrocento, the bonds which held the artist in his
class were loosened here and there, and the attitude of Lorenzo
the Magnificent towards Bertoldo or of Lodovico Sforza towards
Leonardo was hardly different from that of the same and other
contemporary princes towards the poets and scholars of their
courts.2
And yet there is a very great difference between the social
esteem enjoyed by these artists and that which patrons of the
High Renaissance were willing to bestow upon their greatest

1 Ludwig, lx. § 27 (vol. 18, No. 30), § 23 (vol. 18, No. 27), § 35 (vol. 18, No. 36).
More against sculpture in stone: § 36 (vol. 18, No. 37). The term “scacciata” in the
quotation given in the text points to a common misunderstanding of the Renaissance.
If painting was expelled from the artes liberales, it must once have been one of them.
The general belief was that the Greeks had honoured their artists highly, a belief

strictly confuted by the famous passage from Plutarchus : x°clpovT£s tco i'pycp too 6r)pioup-
yoO KcrracppovoOpsv. Cf. Dresdner, l.c., chap. 1, and more recently B. Schweitzer, Der
bildende Kiinstler und der Begriff des Kiinstlerischen in der Antike, Heidelberg, 1925.
2 On Bertoldo cf. W. von Bode, Bertoldo, Freiburg i.B. 1925, pp. 10 seqq. Similarly

it could be shown that certain aspects of Leonardo’s theory were heralded by theorists
of the earlier Quattrocento. Alberti e.g. called the painter “ quasi... un altro iddio”
{Quell enschr if ten fiir Kunstgeschichte, vol. 11, Vienna, 1879, edited by H. Janitschek,
pp. 88-9), and defined painting in a surprisingly scientific and realistic way (ib. p. 69).
 LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE
FROM

lf when he
masters. Leonardo experienced this change himse
was met with
came to the court of Francis I. Only here the artist
ding to
that respect and veneration which was due to him accor
was equally
his theory. Raphael’s position at the court of Leo X
a prince
distinguished. He lived, so Vasari tells us, more like
by Charles V.
than a painter. Titian was made a Count Palatine
to illustrate
But it is Michelangelo’s life above all that can serve
as a boy
the new conception of the artist’s social position. When
d to becom e a
he told his father and his uncles that he wishe

painter, he was “mal voluto e bene spesso stranamente battuto”,

because the profe ssion of paint er was below the ambitions of a
fact, Michel¬
Florentine family of some civic tradition. And, in
angelo had to start as an ordinary edappre ntice in Ghirlandajo’s
studio, when his father had decid to let him have his way.
sted in him,
Soon, however, Lorenzo de’ Medici became intere
. So Michel¬
and granted him access to his house and his table
of medieval
angelo grew up and developed outside the bonds
esteem. At
guild life, and with his fame expanded his self-
of
Lorenzo’s court he was but a protege, later at the court
value of
Julius II he felt an independent man and knew the
im¬
his art very well. So when he once, in a matter of great
erately
portance, was refused access to the Pope and felt delib
iately
disparaged by the servants in the antechamber, he immed
at
left Rome and declined to return. In his letter to Julius — so
he wrote that he
least he contended well over thirty years later
his were ac¬
was prepared to come back if certain conditions of
Michel¬
cepted. If not, the Pope should give up all hope of seeing
ut
angelo again. Later a reconciliation was brought about, witho
fact
either Julius or Michelangelo really giving in. But the sheer
ened
of returning honoured instead of punished must have sti ength
his fame
his position decisively, and in the later part of his life
was beyond that of any earlier artist. “ Michel piu che mortal,
o’s,
Angel divino” sings Ariosto, and “il Divino” he is in Aretin
Cellini’s, Palladio’s, Varchi’s and Biondo’s writings. . Bio¬
graphies of the “unico pittore, singulare scultore, perfettissimo
o” were
Architettore, eccelentissimo poeta e amatore divinissim
 ACGADEMI A DI S. LUCA

published during his lifetime, and rulers of powerful States were

proud if they could secure one of his works.1
Michelangelo could neither have created nor maintained such
an unparalleled reverence in all those who surrounded him and
for whom he worked, had he himself not regarded his own pro¬
fession as something fundamentally different from that of his
predecessors, the painters and sculptors of the Quattrocento. In
a letter of 2 May 1548 he forbade his nephew to address letters
to him as to Michelangelo Scultore. “I am known here only as
Michelangelo Buonarroti,” he added, “for I have never been a
painter or sculptor such as those who make a business of it.”
This reproach may reflect more Michelangelo’s pride of belong¬
ing to an old and distinguished family than that of being an
artist. But the two were almost one in him. Condivi reports that
Michelangelo used to say he wanted to have young noblemen as
pupils and not plebeians. For painting to him as to Leonardo
was not manual skill but spiritual expression just as poetry. “Si
dipinge col cervello e non colla mano” is a saying to be found in
one of his letters. It is important to emphasize this, because
when at work he was, according to all we know from contem¬
poraries who saw him labour with his chisels, the most infuriated
workman, neglecting all comfort, and never flinching from any
hardship. His own pupils were
certainly not students but ap¬
prentices. Yet his personal position and reputation has un¬
doubtedly done more to create a new conception of what the
world owes the artist than Leonardo’s writings, known as they
were to only a small number of people. The most remarkable

proof of the effect of Michelangelo’s own standing on the appreci¬

ation of sculpture as a free art are two Motupropri of Paul III,
dated 3 March 1539 and 14 January 1540, and so far — it seems —
not recognized in their importance by writers on Michelangelo.
1 Raphael, Vasari- Milanesi, vol. 4, p. 384. Michelangelo’s desire to become a
painter and its consequences: Condivi (ed. K. Frey), Le Vite di M.B., Berlin, 1887,
p. 14. Michelangelo’s certificate of apprenticeship: Raphael, l.c. vol. 8, p. 138.
Story of the break with Julius II: K. Frey, Die Briefe des M.B. , Berlin, 1907, p. 171 ;
Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, Canto 33, v. 12; Aretino, Bottari-Ticozzi, Raccolta di Lettere,
Rome, 1754 seqq., vol. 3, p. 86 seq. “Unico Pittore”, etc. : B. Varchi, Lezioni sopra la
pittura e scultura, 1546, Opere, Trieste, 1859, vol. 2, p. 627.
PA 3
33
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

Paul III ordered the “statuarii, veluti viri studiosi et scientifici,

rerum naturalium imitatores sacrorum principum aliorumque

regnorum virorum simulacrorum representatori to be im-

munes perpetuo et libero a jurisdictione scarpellinorum seu
artificum marmorariorum”, and gives as his only reason the
“singulares animi dotes ingeniique virtutis praeclarissimas
dilecti filii Michaelis Angelis etate nostra inter statuarios totius

terrarum orbis primarium locum obtinentis”.1

The new conception of the artist’s position in society entailed
of necessity a new conception of art education. For up to
Michelangelo’s time medieval methods had still been unchal¬
lenged.2 At about twelve a boy could enter a painter’s shop as
an apprentice and would in two to six years’ time learn every¬
thing necessary from colour-grinding and preparing grounds
to drawing and painting. At the same time he was expected to
do all kinds of services in his master’s house. After the end of his
apprenticeship he could go out as a journeyman and then, when
some more years had passed, obtain his mastership certificate
from the local company of painters or the company to which the
painters happened to belong, and could settle down as an inde¬
pendent painter. It is hardly necessary to say that Leonardo,
to whose theory we must now return, deprecated this system of
education as much as he deprecated the conception of art as a
craft. His first advice to beginners — consciously opposed no
doubt then usual or imaginable — is as follows:
to anything
“Studia prima la scientia, e poi seguita la praticha nata da essa
1 Letter to his nephew: Frey, l.c. p. 213. Condivi, chap. 57 (ed. K. Frey), l.c.

p. 208. “Cervello” and not “mano”: Frey, l.c. p. 162. Of contemporaries who saw
Michelangelo at work, cf. e.g. Blaise de Vigenere (C. Justi, Michelangelo, vol. 1,
Leipzig, 1900, p. 383). Motuproprio: Printed by E. Steinmann, Die Sixtinische Kapelle,
vol. 2, Munich, 1905, Annex 2 (by H. Pogatscher), pp. 753-7. Michelangelo’s wish to
restore art as a profession of the educated is based on a common misunderstanding of
conditions among the Greeks. It has been mentioned above that Renaissance writers
thought of Antiquity as the one age in which the artist had been duly recognized. This
error is still to be found in Watelet’s contribution to the Encyclopedic (s.v. “Artiste”),
i.e. about 1785.

2 For these cf. the well-documented account in J. Meder’s admirable book,

Die Handzeichnung, Vienna, 1919, pp. 209seqq., and, more specialized, in H. Fluth,
Kiinstler und Werkstatt der Spdtgotik, Augsburg, 1923.

34
 AGCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

scientia.” For “Quelli che s’inamorano di pratica senza scientia

sono come li nocchieri che entran in naviglio senza timone o

bussola”. Consequently a new and at the time utterly revolu¬

tionary syllabus is proposed. Perspective is the first subject to be
taught. After this the student is to be introduced into the theory
and practice of proportion, and then into drawing from his
master’s drawings, drawing from reliefs, drawing from nature,
and in the end to the practice of his art.1
The aim of this system of education is evidently the same as that
of Leonardo’s theoretical system in general. Art is to be sun¬
dered from handicraft. The painter is to be taught knowledge
more than skill. Now this new conception of the artist has as its
corollary a new conception of the public. The connoisseur was
as such impossible within the medieval system of art demand
and art supply. The artist followed the requirements of his
patrons, whether they were princes or burghers. In consequence
of Leonardo’s teachings, however, the connoisseur was asked to
follow the intuition of the artist and to acquire the discrimination
indispensable for appreciating the aesthetic values of the new
style. When Michelangelo was reproved for having carved
Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici entirely different from what
they had been in life, his answer was that in a thousand years
nobody would know anyhow what they had looked like.2 Here
quotations
1 Ludwig, lx. § 54 (vol. 18, No. 54), § 80 (vol. 18, No. 53). The decisive
le
about the proposed syllabus are : “II giovane debbe prima imparare Prospettiva ; poi
da
misure d’ ogni cosa, poi di mano di bon maestro, per assuefarsi a bone membra; poi
di mane di
naturale, per confermarsi la ragione delle cose imparate,poi veder un tempo
in pratica et operare 1 arte (Ludwig, l.c.
diversi maestri; poi fare habito a metter
col ritrarre disegni di mano
vol. 15, p. 104). “II pittore debbe prima suefare la mano
debbe di poi
di boni maestri, e, fatta questa suefatione col giuditio del suo precettore,
suefarsi col ritrarre cose di rilievo bene” (Ludwig, p. 1 18). Ritrarre prima disegni di
coll’ arte sul naturale e non di pratica; poi di rilievo, in compagm a
bono maestro fatti
del disegno, ritratto daesso rilievo; poi di bono naturale...” (Ludwig, p. 140).
libro delle
2 Letter of Niccolo Martelli to Rogasco, dated 28 July 1544 (cf. II primo
mentioned in Steinmann’s
lettere di Nicolo Martelli , Florence, 1546). The letter is
of the passage to Di R. Witt-
Michelangelo bibliography. I owe the exact wording
Lorenzo, ne dal Duca
kower. It is as follows: “ Michelangelo ... non tolse dal Duca
composti, ma diede loro
Giuliano il modello apunto come la natura gli avea effiziati e
qual gli parea che
una grandezza una proportione un decoro una gratia uno splendore
nessuno non ne potea dar
piu lodi loro arrecassero, dicendo che di qui in mille anni
cognitione che fossero altrimenti. . ..”
35
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

one is already faced with all that scorn of the great artist for his
public and its desires which was to characterize the nineteenth

century and the beginning of our century. The artist’s only

intention was to express his vision, and the public had to appreci¬
ate this or leave him alone. So the public on which a painter or
sculptor could count lost in numbers what it gained in value, and
at the same time the painter and sculptor lost in social security
what he gained in social status. Being no longer determined by
the rules and privileges of the guild, he fell into the danger of
suddenly finding himself between the classes, in a similar position
as the humanist who had to go begging at courts. And so for
centuries a social uncertainty remained the artist’s privilege.
Pride and misery of a vie de boheme become for the first time
visible in Leonardo’s and Michelangelo’s theory.
This theory as created by Leonardo seems quite clearly to call
for academic education, and it is therefore only too under¬
standable that the Academia Leonardi Vinci of the engravings
has been taken by scholars as an art academy. However, once
more it must be said, no justification exists for doing so. The
only concession which one may feel inclined to make is that in a
group whose dominant personality was both an artist and a
scientist discussions on art and science may have played a more
prominent part than in other academies of the time. As a

tempting argument in favour of this, Olschki takes the inter¬

lacings on the engravings, these being something “ in between the
artist’s fanciful play and the mathematician’s exactness”. There
are plenty of cases where interlaced ornament of this kind is
used, in books on mathematics as well as in Lombard and other
North Italian paintings of about 1500.1
Whether this supposed bias towards science and theory of art

1 Olschki, l.c. vol. 1, p. 248. Interlacings in other works of Leonardo: A. M. Hind,

Burlington Magazine, vol. 12, 1907-8. In works of other North Italian painters, e.g.
carpet on Mantegna’s Madonna di S. Zeno (1456-9), throne on Mantegna’s Madonna
della Vittoria (1495-6). Especially popular in the school of Ferrara: Costa, 1488
(illustr. Venturi’s Storia, vol. 1, pt. 3, p. 763), Costa, 1492 (illustr. ib. 773), Cossa-
School, 1493 (illustr. ib. 655), Roberti (illustr. ib. 697). Influence from Oriental rugs
and faience is most probable.
 ACC ADEMI A DI S. LUCA

really existed in the Academia Leonardi Vinci, or not, little

remains of Leonardo as the founder of the first academy
of art.
His place, however, at the beginning of any history of modern
art education remains unchallenged. For it is his theory that has
laid the foundation for all future systems of academic instruction
up to the nineteenth century.
His theory only — this must be added. There is no proof what¬
soever of any attempt of his to put into practice his ideas about
the best method of instruction for painters. It may be that
certain favourite pupils who, as e.g. Melzi and Boltraffio, were of
noble birth could get admission to meetings of the academy ; but
even if that were so, it would have been in no connection with
their professional training. As far as this is concerned it is known
that Salai, whom Leonardo certainly liked as much as Boltraffio,
entered his studio as an apprentice entirely in the medieval
way.1 And even if he did set out the training of his pupils so as
to start them with theory of perspective and drawing from
drawings, this in itself would not be absolutely contrary to any¬
thing practised in the fifteenth century. Not much is recorded
of the details of artistic instruction in Italian Quattrocento work¬
shops, but a case such as that of Francesco Squarcione of Padua
— exceptional as his method was considered by contemporaries —
shows that perspective and proportions, drawing from drawings
and drawing from reliefs were by no means outside the possi¬
bilities of the time.2 A social effect on the medieval master-pupil
relation was not produced by these instructional innovations
either at Padua or at Milan.
To discover the first traces of a socially different system of art

1 Cf. Muntz, l.c. pp. 257 seqq. and J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of Lionardo,
London, 1883, vol. 2, p. 438 seq.

2 V. Lazzarini, “Documenti relativi alia pittura padovana del sec. XV”, Nuovo
Archivio Veneto, N.S. vol. 15, 1908. According to an agreement of 1467, Squarcione
promises to teach “la raxon d’un piano lineato e meter figure sul dicto piano, e meter
masarizie . . ., una testa d’ omo in schurzo . . ., la raxon de un corpo nudo mexurando de
driedo e denanzi . . .”. Furthermore he is going to “ tegnirge scuepre una carta d’ esem-
dicti
pio in mano, una dopo F altra di diverse figure toche de biacha, e corezerge
mentioned
esempi, dirge 1 fall... ” (l.c. p. 45 seq.). “Miostrare disegnos and relevi
l.c. p. 41 seq.

37
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

teaching one has to return to the town in which Leonardo re¬

ceived his training, and in which first the Platonic academy and

then the early language academies flourished — to Medicean

Florence. Lorenzo the Magnificent, animator of Marsilio s

academy, created the first small and informal school for students
of painting and sculpture, a school independent of all guild rules
and restrictions. This must have been almost exactly at the time
when Leonardo held his academy at Milan. The following is
Vasari’s account of Lorenzo’s experiment:
Lorenzo the Magnificent had at that time (about 1490) appointed the

sculptor Bertoldo to a post in his garden at the Piazza S. Marco, less as a

superintendent of his many and beautiful antiques, than as master and head
of a school which he intended to set up for the education of outstanding
painters and sculptors. For Lorenzo gravely complained of the lack in his
time of famous and noteworthy sculptors, whereas there were so many great
and prominent painters; and therefore he decided... to establish the school.
For this purpose he asked Domenico Ghirlandajo to send him to the garden
any apprentices of his whose talents might point in that direction. He would
have them instructed in such a way that it would do credit to himself and
Ghirlandajo and the city of Florence.1

We have no means of ascertaining what Bertoldo’s method

was like. But the fact cannot be denied — and that is what con¬
stitutes the importance of the school in our connection — that
Bertoldo’s pupils were not formally apprenticed to him for a
number of years at the guild’s offices, and that their training did
not consist of manual help in their master’s jobs but of the study
of the ancient and modern works which formed the Medici
Collection. It is known that Michelangelo was one of the chosen
apprentices of Ghirlandajo, and so became one of the first to
receive a modern type of education — a most significant fact
which nobody with a feeling for the inscrutable logic of history
will dismiss as an accident. It is not an exaggeration to call
Bertoldo’s the first modern method.2 Already Vasari must have
recognized this. For in the second edition of his Lives he writes
1 Cf. Vasari (ed. Corr. Ricci), vol. 4, p. 393 seq.
2 M. Wackernaqel in his excellent recent book on the social position of the artist
in the Florentine Renaissance (Der Lebensraum des Kiinstlers in der Florentinischen

Renaissance, Leipzig 1938, p. 269) calls it “the first academy known to the history
of art”.
 demy” in Rome
Fig. 5. Baccio Bandinelli’s “Aca
Engraved by Agostino Veneziano in 1531
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

that the study in the Medicean gardens had been “come una
scuola ed accademia ai giovani pittori e scultori”; and he adds
(falling into the same misunderstanding or misconception as
Leonardo and Michelangelo) that the instruction there was

given “to all who pursued the art of drawing, and especially
to
young noblemen”; for Lorenzo “had always encouraged the
belli ingegni, especially those of the aristocracy who were in
sympathy with the fine arts”.1
While this passage from Vasari shows that he recognized the
academic character of Bertoldo’s school, its absence in the first
edition makes one presume that calling an art school an academy
was not yet usual about 1550. And in fact, as the Leonardo
academy can no longer be regarded as a teaching establishment,
the question is still left open, when and how the term was first
adopted for a place concerned with art education. It has not
been possible to trace this exactly. Only one instance earlier
than 1560 can be quoted referring to the use in connection with
art of a word so extremely popular for many other purposes
during the Cinquecento.2 There is an engraving by Agostino
Veneziano (fig. 5) which bears the inscription “academia di
BACCHIO BRANDIN IN ROMA IN LUOGO DETTO BELVE¬

DERE mdxxxi”. It represents a corner in a room with a low

ceiling where, by the light of a candle, seven artists are working
at a long table. An elderly man is sitting and drawing on the
right. Behind him a younger artist examines a statuette of a
female nude in the Mannerist style. A boy looks over his
shoulder. Of the four youths on the left side of the table two are
also drawing. They seem to copy the figure of a naked young

1 Vasari- Milanesi, vol. 4, p. 256. Vasari’s first edition of 1550 does not contain the
transformation of the Bertoldo school into an academy for young noblemen. It is one
out of many changes for the worse (i.e. the less correct) which were introduced by
Vasari in preparing the 2nd edition of 1568.
2 For the academy to which Titian had belonged and which is once mentioned in
a letter of Leone Aretino to his brother, the great Pietro Aretino (Lettere scritte a Pietro
Aretino, Scelta di Curiosita Letterarie Disp. 132, 2, Bologna, 1875, p. 254) was just a
private club founded probably by Aretino, and joined by Titian, Sansovino and some

others. The passage in Leone Aretino’s letter (not quoted in Maylender’s book) is
“ . . .e perche sono molti giornich’ io non mai intesidivoi,molto il desidero e parimente
dei vostri amici dell’ Academia vostra come il compare messer Ticiano, et vostro messer
Jacopo Sansovino, et il compare messer Francesco Marcolini, e gli altri tutti...”.

39
 DA VINCI TO THE
FROM LEONARDO

as the female statuette.

man on the table, a work of the same size
different height, there are
In the background, on two ledges of
a goblet and a book. What
three more statuettes, some vessels,
demy represented are
conclusions as to the character of the aca
g?
to be drawn from the details of this engravin
be given it will be ad¬
Before an answer to this question can
y portraying some¬
visable to discuss another engraving obviousl
not introducing the
thing very similar to Agostino’s although
word academy. The simply :^‘Baccius
inscription on thisnois Scul
inel lus inve n. Enea Vigo Parm egia psit (fig. 6).
Band
place, gives an im¬
The room in this case, with its freestone fire
present. At the
pression of a certain wealth. More artists are
all drawing.
table on the right there are two boys and a man,
very dignified looking
A group of two young and three older and
the mantelpiece
men (according to the coat of arms repeated on
r side
Bandinelli himself is one of them) are standing by thei
left of the fire¬
talking and looking at their drawings. On the
hing
place three boys are busy with styli, a fourth boy is watc
ep over his
what they are doing, and an older man has fallen asle
the bust
board. Books, torsos, statuettes, the head of a horse and
of a Roman emperor are on the stone shelf along the back wall.
In the front an arrangement of torsos and parts of human
skeletons is shown. The second engraving is evidently later than
s—
the first. This is suggested by the dates of the two engraver
Agostino was born about i49°> Enea Vico in 1523 and easily
ved
proved by arguments of style. Agostino’s details are still deri
from Marcantonio Raimondi’s Renaissance, Enea Vico’s are
characteristic of Mid-Cinquecento Mannerism. To see the
difference, it will be sufficient to compare the faces or gestures of
the men on the right, or, more generally, of the composition of
the main group, which in one case is put into the centre and
seems stationary and in balance, whereas it is in the other case
pushed to the right and — by the typically Mannerist group of
bones and torsos — into the background.1 When and where the
1 Agostino, Bartsch xiv, 314, 418; Vico, Bartsch xv, 305, 49. The two engravings
have already been illustrated by Meder, l.c. p. 215, and in an interesting paper by
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

first of the two “academies” existed is revealed by the inscrip¬

tion: in 1531 and “in luogo detto Belvedere”, which means in
the Belvedere court of the Vatican. In fact we know from

Vasari that Leo X had put at Bandinelli’s disposal “in Belvedere

una turata con un tetto per lavorare”, and that after the Sacco
di Roma, when Clement VII returned, Bandinelli also “se
n’ ando...a Roma, dove ebbe al solito le stanze in Belvedere”.1
The second “ academy” must by what is recorded of Bandinelli’s
and Vico’s lives have been held in Florence about twenty years
later. So much for their dates ; their character requires a closer

examination. As in the case of Leonardo’s academy this can be

based on the results of the previous chapter. Organized institu¬
tions called academies were in 1531 still unknown in Rome.
The term still meant exclusively free gatherings of men of com¬
mon interests for the sake of discussions dealing with their own

or other people’s interests. Supposing now it occurred to some¬

body that the fashionable term might be applied to matters of
art, what would such an academy have looked like? It would

not have been a school with evening classes (“ Abendkurse”, as

Meder thought), nor anything based on a teacher-student rela¬
tion. The engravings indeed would not justify such an inter¬
pretation of the two academies. We do not see a master opposite
his pupils, but several older and several younger artists ap¬
parently practising together. They are not all concerned with
one task, but everyone seems to be drawing or studying on his
own. It is not impossible that the boys represented are Bandi¬
nelli’s apprentices — the fact that the two boys in Agostino’s
engraving are copying one of Bandinelli’s statuettes tells in
favour of this hypothesis2 — but, however that may be, at this

O. von Kutschera-Woborsky (“Ein kunsttheoretisches Thesenblatt Carlo Marattas

... ”, Mitteil. der Gesellschaft f. verviel/dltigende Kunst, Beilage zu Die Graphischen Kiinste,
1919). Illustrations of the Vico print also in A. Venturi’s Storia dell’ Arte Italiana,
vol. 10, pt 2, 1936, p. 240; and of both prints in a popular article by G. Habich on
Old and New Academies (Die Kunst fiir Alle, vol. 14, 1898-9). Here, however, an
adequate distinction between illustrations of academies, illustrations of studios and
didactic presentations of systems of the arts is lacking.
1 Vasari- Milanesi, vol. 6, pp. 145, 152.
2 A comparison of attitude, expression and proportions of this statuette with one
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

ees. The
evening entertainment they are not present as train
s Roman
purpose of these gatherings in the workshop of the famou
and later Florentine sculptor was to enjoy in a socia ble way
theory
drawing under one another’s eyes and discussions on the
rs would
and practice of art. Naturally beginners and maste
have derived different kinds of benefit from this, but nothing
justifies an interpretation of it which would make it appear at all
as
like present-day academies of art. In fact they seem almost
remote from our art schools as was the Acad emia Leona rdi

Vinci. Still, it remains highly significant that Bandinelli, whose

self-important and arrogant character is clearly reflected in his
own and his contemporaries’ writings, appears to have been the
first to transfer the novel term from the circles of amateurs and
humanists into the humble workshop of the sculptor.1
In the general history of academies the first important caesura
lies, as the foregoing chapter has shown, in the years between
1530 and 1540. The academy as an unorganized group was
reshaped into a regulated enterprise (Rozzi Siena, 1531) and,
soon after, into a governmental institution (Fiorentina Florence,
1541). Only about twenty years later and about ten years after
the second Bandinelli “academy” the same change took place
in the history of art academies. This, one can safely say, was due
almost exclusively to one man : Giorgio Vasari. The Accademia del

Disegno which at his suggestion was founded by Cosimo de’ Me¬

dici, the originator of the Accademia Fiorentina, is exactly as
different, and in the same way different, from Bandinelli’s
evening entertainments as was the Fiorentina or the Crusca from

the Platonica or the Aldina. Vasari’s Accademia del Disegno

stands at the beginning of the evolution of modern academies of
art. It will therefore be necessary to analyse its character and its

by Bandinelli at the Bargello (Bode, Italienische Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance, Berlin,

1907-12, vol. 2, plate 139) makes it evident beyond doubt that they are both works
of the same hand.

1 Cf. “II Memoriale di B. B. ”, published by A. Colasanti, Repert.f Kunstwiss. vol.

28, 1905, and occasional remarks in letters, e.g. Paolo Govio (Der literarische Nachlass
G. Vasaris (ed. K. Frey), vol. i, Munich, 1923, p. 199) or Baldassare Turini (G. Gaye,
Carteggio inedito d’Artisti, Florence, 1840, vol. 2, p. 279).
 ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

history at some length, so much the more so because no mono¬

graph on the subject is yet in existence.1
In order to understand Vasari’s intentions in proposing an art
academy, it is essential to convey first an impression of the social
situation of art in Florence about 1560. As everywhere, both
painters and sculptors had since the Middle Ages belonged to
guilds or companies. Sculptors had to be members of the Arte
dei Fabbricanti, because they (or most of them) worked in
stone, painters of the Arte dei Medici, Speziali e Merciai,
because they had to do with pigments. A special Membrum of
the painters with a separate council was formed within the Arts
as early as 1360. Besides this compulsory organization there
existed, probably also since the first quarter of the Trecento, a
Compagnia di S. Luca for painters, sculptors, and artists working
in kindred crafts. This was one of those religious companies or
confraternities with mainly charitable aims which were for
various reasons so popular during the later Middle Ages.2 In
the rules of the company dated 1386 nothing is said about
matters of art ; all its paragraphs deal with such duties of the Con-
fratelli, as e.g. to pray five Paternoster and five Ave daily, to
go to confession, to attend services, etc. When a decline of the
company became evident at the end of the fifteenth century,
the guild itself tried to revive it. It was decreed that every member
of the guild should belong to the Compagnia. Thus the con-
1 In print there is only a small pamphlet by C. I. Cavallucci, Notizie Storiche intorno
alia R. Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Firenze, Florence, 1873 which is based on the

manuscript “Notizie dell’ Accademia del Disegno della Citta di Firenze dalla sua
Fondazione fino all’ anno 1739” by Gir. Ticciati. But these two proved of little
value, although I examined two versions of Ticciati, one at the Academy’s archives,
Bibl. Laurenziana Ashb. 1035, one in a later rearranged edition at the Bibl. Maru-
celliana A. II. The latter was printed by P. Fanfani, Spigolatura Michelangiolesca,
Pistoja, 1876, p. 193 seq. To collect more information, I had to resort to the original
records at the Archivio di Stato (Arti, Ace. del Dis.). It is on these that all my following
statements are founded. A concise and well-informed account of the early history of
the Accademia del Disegno is given by K. Frey, Der literarische Nachlass G. Vasaris,
vol. 1, Munich, 1923, pp. 708 seq., 772.
2 Cf. C. Fiorilli, Archivio Storico Italiano , vol. 78, 1920, 2nd part, pp. 7-74, and, in a
less detailed way, Gaye’s Carteggio, vol. 2, and A. Doren, Entwickelung und Organisation
der Florentinischen Zunfte, Leipzig, 1897. On the Compagnia di S. Luca cf. also
Cavallucci, l.c.

43
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

tinuance of the company was secured, and their membership

lists of the middle of the sixteenth century contain the names of
all the then best-known Florentine artists : Granacci, Bugiardini,
Sogliani, Puligo and Bacchiacca; Pontormo, Bronzino and
Conte; Salviati and Vasari, and also — besides gold-beaters,
illuminators, engravers, box or casket-makers and members of
similar professions who came under the Arte dei Medici e
Speziali — sculptors such as Tribolo, Ammanati, Montelupo,
Montorsoli, Rossi. It may be worth a special mention that in this
voluntary association artists could meet who still — for medieval
reasons — had to belong to different guilds. A similar arrange¬
ment in a similar confraternity in Rome will be discussed later.
When Vasari decided to interfere, the guild had lost all its

importance, and the confraternity was also, as Vasari says, “del

tutto dismessa”. There was no longer even a fixed meeting-
place. Vasari found a pretext for taking action in the donation
made by Father Montorsoli, the sculptor, in 1562 of a vault for
future funerals of all distinguished painters, sculptors and
architects. In connection with this Vasari got hold of some artists,
the painters Bronzino and Michele Ghirlandajo, the sculptors
Ammanati and Rossi, and the architect Francesco da Sangallo,
and apparently proceeding from the idea of this burial-place to be
common to all artists regardless of their dependence on different
guilds, he proposed a new system of organization by which artists
might free themselves altogether from the restrictions of guilds
and obtain a raised social status. On 24 May 1562, when

Pontormo’s exequies took place and most of the artists of reputa¬

tion were present, Vasari thought the moment to be propitious
and came out with his plan. For the 31st he called a meeting

of “una scelta dei migliori” with the intention of founding an

academy. This was to be a body set above the Corpo della
Compagnia, i.e. the whole of the artists and craftsmen belonging
to the old confraternity. It is impossible to say more about the
structure planned. For already after a few months Vasari began
to realize that to impart all the glamour desired in an academy
in the grand-duchy of Tuscany, it would be indispensable to
44
 ACCADEMI A DI S. LUCA

secure the good-will of the Grand Duke. It had pleased Cosimo

to confer the grace of official recognition upon the Accademia
Fiorentina; should one not try to obtain the same for the new
Accademia del Disegno? In fact Vasari succeeded in per¬
suading the Grand Duke to accept the protectorate and presi¬
dentship of the academy, and under his auspices and with the
active help of his art experts a regulation was drawn up con¬
sisting of forty-seven articles. It is preserved at the Biblioteca
Nazionale, and being the first of its kind ever made will be found
reprinted in full on p. 296. After it had been presented to Cosimo
on 13 January 1563 and had found his approval, the foundation
meeting was fixed. Cosimo and Michelangelo (who lived in
Rome) were solemnly made Capi of the institution — a combina¬
tion of prince and artist eminently characteristic of the state

now reached in the development of the artist’s social position.

Vincenzo Borghini, connoisseur, writer and friend of Vasari
(who should not be confused with Raffaele Borghini, the author
of II Riposo), was nominated Luogotenente, i.e. de facto chairman
of the academy. The selection of members was left to the Grand
Duke, to whom Borghini submitted a list of all names proposed at
the secret ballot and another list which contained the names most

frequently put forward. Thirty-six artists were elected; thirty-

two of them resident in Florence. It is understandable that this

voting and electing method led to complaints almost immedi¬

ately. A first alteration of the bye-laws of the academy had to be
carried out as soon as July of the same year. A complete text of
the amended version has so far not been traced.1

1 The history of Vasari’s reform is told by him in the Life of Montorsoli (Vasari-
Milanesi, vol. 6, p. 655 seq.). “Una scelta dei migliori” (ib. p. 657; cf. Vasari-
Milanesi, vol. 8, p. 3665 seq. : “una scelta dei piu eccellenti”). An interesting letter of
Borghini to Vasari, printed by Frey, l.c. p. 688, dates from the last days of the pre¬
paratory phase. About the foundation and the first activities of the academy cf.
Vasari’s report to Cosimo (Gaye, l.c. vol. 3, p. 82 = Frey. l.c. p. 719) an(1 Michel¬
angelo (Vasari- Milanesi, vol. 8, p. 366seq. = Frey, l.c. p. 736 seq.). Complaints of 1563,

scornfully called “baie da fanciulli” by Borghini, Archivio di Stato; Arti, Acc. del Dis.
clvii = Cavallucci, l.c. p. 45. Regulation of January 1563: Cod. Magliabecch. 11, 1,
399. When I stayed at Florence in 1932 in order to examine the early records of the
Accademia del Disegno this volume had unfortunately been sent abroad to a student
of secret societies in the Cinquecento, who must have hoped — in vain, it seems — to get

45
 LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE
FROM

words and the

In attempting now, with the aid of Vasari s own
on as to what
various articles of the regulation, to form an opini
like, two
this first art academy was meant for and indeed was
they were
separate purposes have to be distinguished, although
and with
in more than one way connected with each other
Vasari’s character and position. It must be regarded as the
foremost aim of the new institution to establish a society of

leading Florentine artists under the Grand Duke’s special pro¬

eved
tectorate. This purely representational aim was to be achi
by neglecting the old guild entirely, and by keeping the Com-
pagnia di S. Luca as a general subordinate body under that
“ ristretto e scelta dei piu eccellenti ” which was given the name of
Accademia del Disegno. The fact that its members worked in
many different materials and had therefore belonged to dif¬
ferent guilds was now waived, because they were all concerned
with “disegno”, that all-important “espressione e dichiarazione
del concetto che sia nell’ animo”.1
A second purpose of the new academy was, however, also
under discussion from the very beginning, and this concerns the
education of beginners. Since this has by now become the most
essential and in the majority of cases the only task of academies
of art, the question must here be carefully investigated, as to how
far Vasari’s plans went in this respect. On 17 March 1563 he
told Michelangelo in a letter that the Grand Duke had united
the artists of Florence “per fare una Sapienza per i giovani e alio
insegnar loro”. This is explicit enough; above all the use of
the word “sapienza” — meaning at that time university (whereas
“ university” meant guild) — shows that a kind of university of art

some information out of it. I should therefore not have been able to publish it and
discuss it without the kind help of Comm. Dr Fr. Kriegbaum, Director of the German
Kunsthistorisches Institut at Florence, who took it on himself to copy it all out for me.
I am glad of this occasion to thank him.
1 On the significance of “disegno” in Cinquecento art-theories cf. K. Birch-
Hirschfeld, Die Lehre von der Malerei, Diss. Leipzig, 1912, p. 27 seq. ; Schlosser, Die
Kunstliteratur, passim and Panofsky Idea, passim. The quotation is from Vasari- Milanesi,
vol. 1, p. 168. In a similar way Borghini speaks of “Padre Disegno” (A. Lor-
enzoni, Carteggio artistico inedito di D. Vincenzo Borghini, vol. 1, Florence, 1912,
pp. ioseqq.).
 AGCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

was considered. The same seems to result from a letter of

3 February 1563 in which Borghini divides the members of the
academy into Capi and Giovani.1 Moreover, Vasari gives as the
aim of the academy that “ chi non sapeva imparasse, e chi sapeva,
mosso da onorata e lodevole concorrenza, andasse maggiormente
acquistando ” ; and it may in this connection be remembered
that in the second edition of his Vite he called Bertoldo’s school a
“scuola ed accademia”.
More detailed information on this matter can be obtained
from the regulations of January 1563. There we read in
articles 32 and 33: Each year three masters shall be elected as
“ Visitatori”. Their task is to be to teach a certain number of
picked boys in the art of “disegno” either at the academy or at
their workshops. They shall also go round the various shops
where the “giovani” work and draw their attention to faults
which must be amended, before the students can be allowed to

“mandar fuora” their paintings, sculptures, etc. Directly a

youth seems to be advanced enough, the visitor shall propose him
as a member of the Compagnia. The ballot is to be based on a
drawing submitted by the candidate. All this means no doubt
the introduction of educational duties into the academy, but it
does not mean organized instruction or classes. The idea seems
rather to be a kind of friendly though compulsory consultation
of a few distinguished artists by beginners. And even this degree
of compulsion has never come true. For Cavallucci reprints
another text of the same paragraph which can only be that of
the amended regulation of July 1563. Here we read:

Et a fine che nell’ Accademia e Compagnia nostra si abbiano a venire alle-

vando sempre uomini che possano riuscire valenti nelle arti del Disegno . . .
vogliamo e ordiniamo: che ogni volta che accadra che alcuno dei giovani
della Compagnia et Accademia nostra richieda alcuno dei Consoli o altri
dell’ Accademia e Compagnia dell’ Arte del Disegno, istrutto e di maggior
nome, che gli nostri, insegni o rivegga qualche lavoro di tale arte, ciascuno,
cosi Consolo, come altri sia tenuto di andar col giovane che lo richiedera, una

1 Vasari’s letter: Vasari- Milanesi, vol. 8, p. 366 seq. = Frey, l.c. p. 736. Borghini ’s
letter: Frey, l.c. p. 716.

47
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

olmente e con sincerita mo-

o piu volte, secondo che occorrera; et amorev
strare et insegnar loro quanto giudic hera conven iente ad utile e benefizio et

ammaestramento de’ tali giovani. . . .

The same in an abbreviated form is said in the title to § 8 of

the second regulation: “Che i Maggiori della Compagnia nostra

et Accademia sieno obbligati insegnare a minori essendo richi-
esti.” From these quotations it follows that no replacement of
workshop training by something that could be called academic
training was considered. The only real courses which were
lestablished dealt with auxiliary subjects. Lectures on geometry
and during the winter on anatomy (to be held at the Spedale di
S. Maria Nuova) were planned by the regulations of January as
well as July 1563. In fact, Pier Antonio Cataldi was appointed
teacher of geometry and perspective in 1569. He had to deliver
lectures every Sunday, but these were discontinued when
Cataldi left Florence in 1570. We shall see presently, however,
that they did not fall into complete oblivion. Another educa¬
tional measure was the decree of 1571 according to which
sculptors were to prepare a clay model twice a week for studying
drapery. But this does not seem to have been carried out at all.1
As for the contents of the other articles of the first regulations,
only a few points must be singled out. Several of them deal with
religious services, celebrations, exequies, donations for charity
and similar matters. Whereas these prove the connection of the
Accademia del Disegno with the old confraternity, other para¬
graphs show points of contact with the contemporary literary
academies. Amateurs e.g. and dilettanti were eligible for member¬
ship. Young artists who wished to become members had to sub¬
mit reception pieces. These, as well as paintings and sculptures
which the Giovani had to produce every year in celebration of
the feasts of St Luke and the Trinity, and also for exequies, were
meant as the nucleus of an art collection. It took, however, a
long time before a collection was really founded.2

1 Arch. d. St. xxiv = Ticciati, chap. 4.

2 Cf. C. I. Cavallucci, Notizia Storica intorno alle Gallerie .. .della R. Acc. delle Arti del
Disegno in Firenze, Florence, 1 873, p. 7.
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

With regard to the activities of the academy during the first

years of its existence, it must be said that they were those of a
supreme authority in matters of art and not only of a board of
management to the company. Otherwise it would not have been

called by the Grand Duke a “nobile et honorata impresa”, and

it would not have been asked to give verdicts on art questions of
prime importance — in 1563 on the statues of the apostles to be
placed under the cupola of the Cathedral, and in 1567 by King
Philip II of Spain on plans for the Escurial. The fact that
Philip consulted the Accademia del Disegno shows how rapidly
its fame had spread, and also how well Vasari had chosen the
moment for its foundation. To popularize the academy nothing
could have been a more effective help than the exequies for
Michelangelo arranged in 1 564 in such a spectacular way. The
pompousness and the high flow of rhetoric that made this
occasion memorable must have opened the eyes of artists outside
Florence to the significance and the use of such a representational
society. On 20 October 1566 — only five months after Vasari had
been to Venice, where no doubt he had spoken in the highest
terms of the academy — Titian and Tintoretto, Palladio, Giuseppe
Salviati, Danese Cattaneo and Zelotti wrote a letter and applied
for membership. Needless to say that this was granted just as all
other applications recorded for these early years. In fact all the
leading Florentine painters of late Mannerism, both the group
of the “Studiolo” style and the group of the “transitional” style
between Mannerism and early Baroque, belonged to the
academy. A last proof of its recognition as the supreme repre¬
sentative of the artists of Florence is supplied by the decree of
1571 exempting the painters from their obligation to belong tqi
the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, and the sculptors from that to be
members of the Arte dei Fabbricanti. In future, painters and

sculptors were to form a separate Arte et Universita, repre¬

sented by the academy and dependent only on the supreme
authority in all trade matters, the Mercanzia.1
1 “Nobile impresa”: A. Lorenzoni, Carteggio artistico inedito di D. Vincenzo Borghini,
vol. i, Florence, 1912, p. 2. Statues of the apostles: Frey, Lit. Nachlass Vasaris,
PA 49 4
 DA VINCI TO THE
FROM LEONARDO

a com¬
can also be interpreted in
However, this innovation as far as
y con tra ry way . Vas ari wanted to sever the artists
pletel
To make the ac^de^
possible from all affairs of the guild. g of
the gravest misunderstandin
artists’ guild is tantamount to
the Accademia del Disegno
Vasari’s intentions. And indeed
have
ger. Vasari himself seems to
succumbed at once to this dan
ce
whole of his late corresponden
virtually retired from it. In the
academy hardly occurs, an
as now published by K. Frey the
y because Vasari is annoyed
when it is once mentioned, it is onl
Nostn Accademici In the
with the “baie et coglionerie de
these years, we find the
transactions of the academy during
idical actions davanti a
“ Consules Artis Designation^ ” and jur
m for guild _ or
quest’ arte”; and “arte”, as is known, is a synony
self-respecting artists felt that
company. Very soon judicious and
academic character to the
action should be taken to restore the
vol. 2, Munich, 1930, p. 5; Gaye, Carteggio, vol 3, PP- 1 1 8seqff vftlon^ofThe^e by
and the recent puhhcatonofthec bj
Arch, di St. clvii ; cf. Ticciati, l.c. chap. 1 i935, P- 4*4- Exequi es °f Miche lange lo
17,
V. Daddi-Giovannozzi, Rivista d' Arte, vol. Vene Pan
vol. 2, pp. 40 seqq. Letter from the
The most detailed account Frey, l.c. ucci “
l.c. chap. 1. Cavall
artists: Arch, di St. xxiv, p. 1 7, cf. Ticciati,
borators
ri, Fontana, Sabbatim and other colla
(l.c. p. 25) that the application of Zucca ted. It was, as is
Vecchio was not accep
of Vasari in the decoration of the Palazzo
nce
the various groups of painters m Flare
proved by Arch, di St. xxiv, p. i3- On teent h centu iy, cf.
between 1570 and the beginning of the seven
Rom, Berlin , 1920, and N. Pevsner, Die italiemsche
Spatrenaissance in Florenz und
zum ausge henden Rococo , l.c. p. 90 seq.
Malerei vom Ende der Renaissance bis
Olschki’s excellent Geschichte der neusprach-
Decree of 1371 : It is a misinterpretation in
is regarded as signifying an endowment
lichen Literatur (vol. 2, p. 193) that this decree
titles of a university . He would hardly
of the academy “with the privileges and
n the term “Unive rsity” as meanin g a university and not in the then
have mistake
er of the Accademia del Disegno in
usual sense a guild, were his idea of the charact
here. Olschki claims that Cataldi s
general not so different from that presented
lectures reintroduced at various later
lectures on geometry mentioned above and similar
Pflegstatte mathematischer Wissen-
dates prove the academy to have been “die einzige
” and to have “den geomet rische n Geist in alle Kopfe einge-
schaften in ganz Italien
, I think, can be dismissed.
pflanzt ”. On the evidence given above such an interpretation
o was not a kind of Techni sche Hochschule. It is another
The Accademia del Disegn
es (p. 188) the “arti del
error of Olschki logically resulting from the first, that he identifi
academy. This cannot
disegno ” with those sciences cultivated according to him in the
no” in the sixteen th century is amply
be done, for the meaning of the term “diseg
by many Manner ist writin gs. A third though unimpo rtant error is
documented
art academy at
the assumption that Cataldi had gone from Florence to “a similar
a”. His lecture s at Perugia were, as Olschki in fact mention s, deliver ed publicly
Perugi
in the academ y, which accord ing to
“nello studio”, i.e. in the university and not
Cappel la di S. Angelo della Pace.
Calderini’s book (cf. p. 55) held its meetings in the
 ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

institution. A first attempt of this kind occurs in the records

under the date of 18 April 1 574. The suggestion was to separate
the affairs “che attengono al Magistrate ” from those which
“bisognano nella Accademia e Compagnia”. More important,
even for the general development of the conception of art
academies, is a letter dating from between 1575 and 1578 which
I found in the National Library at Florence, and in which
Federigo /juccctri pleads for a reform of the Accademia del
Disegno.1 The letter, Zuccari writes, is to be regarded as a
scheme “per rimetter in piedi li studij di questa nostra acca¬
demia”. They seem to him to be badly neglected (“trasandati”)
and if a reform is not achieved at once, it may well happen that
“il nome che haviamo dell’ Accademici,...sia ritornato in noi
vano”. His suggestions for a reorganization of the educational
side of the academy are much more precise than Vasari’s had
been. He demands complete separation of teaching from admini¬
stration and wishes to limit to teaching the activity of the
academy proper. A room for life-drawing, which ought to be
held once a week, should be found, and two sculptors should for
four months take the students under their care, after which time
another two would
be elected. Even in this suggestion, inci¬
dentally, it seems according to the text of the letter as though no
regulated courses were meant, but still only amicable advice.
Much emphasis is laid by Zuccari on theoretical subjects, and these
are to be taught in the form of courses. Anything having a bearing
on the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture ought to be
included. Lectures on mathematics and physics are mentioned;

and prizes are to be awarded to the most successful students.2

1 Vasari “baie et coglionerie ” : Frey, l.c. vol. 2, p. 311. “Consules Artis” and
“davanti a quest’ arte”: Arch, di St. vn, e.g. p. 37 v. Separation between Magistrato
and Accademia: Arch, di St. xxv, p. 32 v. Zuccari letter: Cod. 11. iv. 31 1. Between
then
1575 and 1578 Zuccari was painting in the cupola of the Cathedral. It is only
that he was a paying member of the Academy (cf. N. Pevsner, Regesten aus dem
Archiv der Florentiner Accademia del Disegno 1563-1620, Mitt. d. Kunsthistorischen
Institutes in Florenz, vol. 4, 1933).

2 The importance of Zuccari’s justify my reprinting the text of the

letter may
Ufficij
paragraphs discussed. § 14: “che tal negozij si faccino nel Magistrato, essendo
di Magistrato, et nell’ Accademia studij accademici.” § 1: “...una stanza, ove si
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

This programme represents indeed a great step beyond

Vasari. Points such as the offering of prizes or the establishment
of a life-drawing room, so indispensable in modern academies,
are here proposed for the first time. We shall meet them again
presently in Zuccari’s Roman academy. In Florence the plan
remained on paper. Nothing of what is suggested in this letter
seems to have been carried out. Nor were some proposals more

exercitassero a ritrarre dal naturale, sopra di che bisogna fare fondamento.” § 3 : “ Che
ogni quattro mesi s’ elegessero quatro Accademici, cioe dua Pittori, e dua Scultori, per
particular! riveditori di detti giovani et questi dovessero amorevolmente ammonire,
et insegnar loro sino le prime regole, e darli a conoscere, le proporzioni, e misure della
figura, et d’ ogn’ altra cosa, et cosi e giovani in breve, verebbeno a far acuisto grandis-
simo, et caminarebbon per la via buona, et si agevoleria lor la strada, per P erta
difficile del monte della scienza di nostra Arte.” § 4: “Che i sudetti quattro Maestri
per il tempo dell’ Officio loro, dopo che haranno reviste et examinate 1’ opere di detti
Giovani, ciascuno fusse obligato proporre, qualche util ragionamento, et per non fare
confusione, toccasse una tornata per uno. Come dire, li scultori, mostrassero a sua
giovani, gl’ awertimenti, le discrezzioni e qual tanto che bisogna, et sia bene osservare
di Valent’ huomini nell’ opere loro, et nella Natura stessa, et in che modo si lavori di
Terra, di cera, come si faccino i modelli grandi, et come si rapportino in opera, et
lavorisi e marmi, il maneggiar de ferri et come, et con che modo, si debbino abbozzare,
et per che verso pigliarli, et come condurli a fine, et simili altre cose.” § 5 : “ Con simili
discorsi i Pittori mostrassero h giovani et insegnassero a loro, come si disegna, con che
osservazione si ritraghino le opere, de valent’ huomini, come si colorischi, et con che
tinte varie s’ osservi la Natura, dovendo in sustanza quel immitare, et non 1’ opere di
Giovani o di Piero, et quanta osservanza, et discrezione si debbe havere ne com-
ponimenti, quel che convengha in un luogo, et quel che non stia ben nell’ altro, le
grazie, i decori, gli affetti come si esprimino, et simili altre, et infinite cose, che a
immitare la verita fa di mestieri.” § 6 : “In oltre mostrare a’ giovani pittori, quanti sia
utile, et buono anzi necessario il fare di terra e modelli, et ritrarre dal vero per
possedere bene e lumi et ombre, e sbattimenti di figure, et come si vestino esse figure
graziosamente, le discrezzioni de panni, et pieghe, et come et perche si faccino e
cartoni grandi et simili altre cose, cosl alii scultori, quanto lume dia, et sia utile et
buono il disegnare di penna, o di matita, o altro modo, che essendo un anima in
dua corpi, pittura et scultura, et 1’ Intelligenza del disegno, 1’ anima propria, conviene
e al una, et al altra, 1’ una et 1’ altra pratica et scienza.” § 7: “Et con queste essendo
unita 1’ Architettura, i piu periti Architetti sopra di lei, alle volte ragionassero, et
mostrassero, come si deve usare questa scienza tanto utile et necessaria, et quai modi si
debbono usare, et quai fuggire.” § 8: “Non si tacesse la prospettiva al pittore tanto
necessaria, che senza la scienza di lei non si fanno fare scurci, ne componimenti di
storie, ne 1 opere possono havere grazia dove sia mancamento di tal regolo et scienza.”
§ 9 : 1 ramezzare alle volte qualche lezzione di matematica, come a piu periti piacesse,
et altre si fatte cose, che sono necessarie et utili a’ giovani a saperle, et cio facendosi,
ne immagino, che non sarebbe mai tornata, che qualche utile e bel ragionamento non
si fusse discorso. . .essendo vero, che nel discorrere et nell’ insegnare sempre s’ im-
para.... §11: Mettere qualche premio, per minimo che fusse, un segno solo
d’honore, per darlo a’ giovani che meglio si portassero, et cosl ciascuno
con lo sprone,
prima della gloria, et poi di qualch utilita piu volontieri et meglio si affaticarebbe.”
 ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

effective which Ammanati, the Florentine sculptor, put forward a

few years later in his famous letter to the Accademia del Disegno
dated 22 August 1582. In this letter which has so often been
quoted as a document of counter-reformatory zeal — Ammanati
accused himself of indecency, because he had modelled so many
nudes — he demanded regular lectures on subjects such as com¬
position, perspective and treatment of marble. In spite of these
attempts at recovering the academic character of the establish¬
ment, the new rules which were published in 1585 are in their
tenor scarcely different from the rules of any contemporary
guild or company. The transactions of the academy meetings
during the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries
also contain hardly anything beyond reports of the election of
functionaries, decisions on litigations and estimates given by

appointed “stimatori” in order to settle disputes between artists

and their “customers”.1
To point out where in the Accademia del Disegno of about
1600 something of the Vasari tradition still survived is not an
easy task. It happened every now and then that members of the
Florentine aristocracy applied for, and were granted member¬
ship ; the lectures on mathematics were taken up for a short time,
about 1590; the academy was asked in 1602 to supervise the
execution of a law against the export of works by the most
famous masters
of the past — a law incidentally which is equally
interesting as an early attempt at the protection of national art
against emigration, and as a document in the history of taste.
Michelangelo, Raphael, Sarto, Beccafumi, Rosso, Leonardo,
Franciabigio, Pierino, Titian, Salviati, Bronzino, Volterra, Fra
Bartolommeo, Piombo, Filippino, Correggio, Parmigianino,

Perugino and Sogliani are the masters named.2 No other

1 Ammanati letter: Bottari, Raccolta di lettere sulla Pilt., Scult. ed Archit. vol. 3, Rome,
e Universita
1769, p. 359 seq. Rules of 1585: Arch, di St. v (“Statuti dell’ Accademia
del Disegno”). It is characteristic that in the transactions this is changed into
“ Statuto del arte et Universita dell’ Achademia del disegno ”, an utterly muddled title
in which “ arte ” and “ universita ”, i.e. guild, is dominant and “academy ” subordinate.
2 Noblemen as members: Giovanni de’ Medici, son of the Grand Duke, 1583
Arch, di St. xxvi, p. 30 v.); Piero Strozzi, 1586 {Arch, di St. xxvi, p. 47 v.); cf. also

53
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

activities of the academy are worth recording. Not even exequies

such as were held in 1564 for Michelangelo (see above), in 1570
for Cellini, and in 1571 for Sansovino are recorded. Silence
descends over the academy, and it is not until the second third of
the seventeenth century that signs of recovery can be noticed.
They will be discussed later.
What remains as the result of the early history of the Accademia
del Disegno? It will be advisable to distinguish between the
plans of the founders and promoters, and the actual work done.
In fact the academy had not achieved more than to relieve the
artists of Florence from the restrictions of the various guilds
which they had belonged to, by uniting them in a new guild.
This may have entailed a certain rise in their social position, but

nothing that can be compared with Vasari’s original scheme.

Hifc plan was, to repeat it once more, to do away entirely with
the medieval system of guilds for artists. An artist, he felt,
should not be in a dependent position, in the same way as a
common craftsman. To make him a member of an academy
instead would demonstrate that his social rank was just as high
as that of a scientist or another scholar; and to make him a
member of a grand-ducal academy would demonstrate that, if
he accepted dependence, it was only a dependence on a prince.
Whereas these considerations show that the conception of an

artists’ academy was due at that particular moment to the social

evolution of art, it can also be argued that an academy was of
necessity a welcome form of organization at that moment in the
political evolution as well as the evolution of art in a narrower,
formal sense. The Medici court of the second half of the Cinque-
cento is one of the foremost representatives of the early phase of
absolutism. The academy is the obvious equivalent in art to the
shapes which political organization took in absolutist States.
Mannerism as a style is on the other hand the aesthetic corollary
Arch, di St. vn, p. 72 (1590). Lectures on mathematics: 1589/90, cf. Arch, di St.
xxvii, p. 4 seq. (purchase of some instruments and a lecturer’s desk) ; 1596, cf. Arch, di
St. xxviii, p. 9. At that time the appointed lecturer was Ostilio Ricci of Fermo, who
had asked to be admitted as a member on 2 February 1593. Law against export of
works of art : Ticciati, chap. 3 = Cavallucci, p. 28 seq.

54
 ACC ADEMI A DI S. LUCA

to both absolutism and academic organization. Its rigid schemes

of configuration, its distrust of the freedom of human movement,
its coldness, its belief in certain teachable dogmas and certain
canons discovered by a few divine artists of the past, all this goes
well with absolutism and calls for an academy. It is an eminently
characteristic fact that Vasari, the originator of the historio¬
graphy of art, is at the same time the originator of the first

academy of art. The “Vite” lead through ages of preparation

up to Michelangelo as the greatest and ultimate genius. Man¬
nerist artists, and that is what Mannerism means literally, try to

adhere to the “maniere”, set by the masters of the Golden Age.

The academy is a logical outcome of this attitude.
It is unnecessary to say explicitly what a wide gulf separates
Bandinelli’s “academies” from the programmes drawn up by
Vasari and Zuccari. But as these programmes were not really
carried out, and as not even the liberation of art from the system
of guild organization was achieved, it is to be doubted whether
the first decades of the Accademia del Disegno should not be
regarded as part of the pre-history of the problem here in ques¬
tion rather than as its first chapter.1
The same can certainly not be said about the Accademia di S.
Luca in Rome. But before the structure of this institute can be
discussed, it may once more be advisable to look back at
medieval conditions and the pre-academic position of the artist
in Rome. As in Florence, artists belonged to different guilds]
For the painters, a code of rules dated 1478 has been preserved]
The liberation of the artist began in Rome with the sculptors not

1 Decidedly pre-history is the only other art academy founded during the early
years of the Accademia del Disegno. At Perugia an academy was opened in 1573
under the protectorate of the Papal Governatore and the Bishop. It was obviously
modelled on the pattern of Florence, and had amongst its members Vincenzo Danti
the sculptor, Egnazio Danti the mathematician, and Orazio Alfani the painter (cf. G.
Calderini, I pregi ed i guai dell’ Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia, Perugia, 1885, and
Z. Montesperelli, Brevi cenni storici sulla Accademia di Belle Arti di Perugia, 1899). It
shows a certain appreciation of the academic character of this new institution that in
1576 the municipal authorities promised in future to appoint as town architects only
members of the academy. This promise however can hardly have been kept. For by
the end of the Cinquecento the academy seems to have disappeared and one does not
hear of it again until 1638.

55
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

the painters, owing to Michelangelo’s overpowering person¬

ality. The meaning of the Motuproprio by which Paul III
exempted the Roman sculptors from the jurisdiction of the
guild has been discussed already. Some similar development
may concurrently have taken place in the position of the
painters. In any case the existence of a tendency amongst artists
to combine regardless of guild classifications is attested in Rome

by the foundation in 1543 of a kind of artists’ club, the society of

the Virtuosi al Pantheon , or to call it by its correct name, the
Congregazione di S. Giuseppe di Terra Santa alia Rotonda.
Just as in Florence this congregation still kept the form of a
medieval confraternity, having its own chapel at the Pantheon
with special services and a special vault, and also the habit of
solemn exequies for defunct members. It collected sums for en¬
dowing the daughters of poor fellows, and was entitled to beg off
one prisoner each year from the courts.1 The majority of the
leading artists who worked in Rome about the middle of the
sixteenth century belonged to it: Pierino del Vaga, Daniele da
Volterra, Venusti, Salviati, Conte, Muziano, Zuccari, Sabbatini,
Cesari, Pulzone amongst painters, Sangallo, Ligorio, Vignola,
O. Longhi amongst architects. The internal organization of the
Congregazione with Capitoli, a protector, a Reggente, and two
Aggiunti seems very similar to that of contemporary literary
academies, so much so that one might easily call this society an
academy, if one consciously refrained from thinking of the
modern meaning of the word. As compared with Florence any
attempt at official recognition was lacking, and any attempt at
teaching too. And when in Rome these two ideas were taken up,

1 Rules of the company of painters : E. Muntz, Les Arts a la cour des Papes, Paris,
1882, vol. 3, p. 101 ; cf. also E. Rodocanacchi, Les corporations ouvrihes a Rome, Paris,
1 894, vol. 2, pp. 2ggseqq. Virtuosi al Pantheon: J.Orbaan, Repert.f Kunstwiss. vol. 37,
1 9 1 4 — 1 5 , and f°r some additions S. Kambo, Atti del Congresso Naz ■ di Studi Romani,
vol. 1, Rome, 1929- Kambo sums up his view of the confraternity by assigning to it

(p. 706) “quasi completamente finalita religiose e filantropiche”. It had incidentally

a predecessor in a Confraternita mentioned by Rodocanacchi as existent in the
fifteenth century. I have not been able to find any details about this. It seems to have
merged into the Virtuosi. The evident connection between these and Montorsoli’s
donation to the artists of Florence has been mentioned on p. 44.
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

it was done, it seems, without any connection with the Virtuosi

group.
Who conceived the plan of an academy of art for Rome, we do
not know. Malvasia refers to a letter the whereabouts of which
were unknown already when he wrote his book. This letter, he
says, proved that the Bolognese painter Lorenzo Sabbatini was
the real founder. An argument in favour of this is the fact that
Sabbatini had lived in Florence and worked under Vasari just
at the time when the Accademia del Disegno was opened and
went through its first successful years. He became a member
himself in 1565. On the other hand it is only too well known that
Malvasia invented documents, and above all letters, to exalt the
glory of his native Bologna. Looked at in this light, it seems
particularly suspicious, if a letter is explicitly called lost. How¬
ever that may be, no steps leading to the actual foundation are
recorded that could be ascribed to Sabbatini’s lifetime. The
first step is a Breve of Gregory XIII dating from the year after
Sabbatini’s death, and — according to Baglione — not caused by a
suggestion of Sabbatini but of Girolamo Muziano.1 The point of
departure of the Breve is a state of decadence noticeable in
contemporary painting, drawing and sculpture. This,
Roman
the Pope argues, is due to a lack of knowledge and of Christian
morals (“defectum optimae intelligentiae et christianae chari-
tatis ”) . Much too early and without an adequate training young
artists start on great tasks, because they are forced to do so by
economic needs. The results are so unsatisfactory, that the Pope
has decided “Academiam unam artium praedictarum in ea
Urbe erigere”. Its aim shall be to make experienced artists see

1 Malvasia, vol. i, p. 231. Sabbatini as a member: Arch, di St. xxiv, p. 13

(Giornale del Proveditore E) : “Vinsero per accademici otto uomini . . . forestieri che
hanno lavorato e lavorano in Palazzo con S. Giorgio” (14 October 1565). One of
them is Sabbatini. Gregory’s Breve: G. J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italie omtrent
Nederlandsche Kunstenaars en Geleerden, 2nd part, The Hague, 1913, p. 4 seq. History of
the Accademia di S. Luca : M. Missirini, Rome, 1 823. For the earliest years he reprints
Academia
the first published account of the academy: R. Alberti, Origine et Progresso dell ’
del Disegno de Pittori, Scultori & Architetti di Roma, Pavia, 1604. Neither J. Arnaud’s
work on the academy (Rome, 1886) nor Ugo da Como’s biography of Muziano
(Bergamo, 1930) contain any additional matter of importance.
57
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

to it, “ut dictarum artium studiosi Christiana doctrina et pietate

bonisque moribus apprime imbuantur et in eisdem artibus

juxta cuiusque intelligentiam et capacitatem se exerceant”.

This programme stresses the educational side of the future
institute far more than had been done in Florence, although, as
one would expect in the capital of Catholic Christianity and at
the moment of the most rigid Counter-Reformation, with an
emphasis on morals entirely out of consideration at Florence.
The Breve explicitly refers to the “sacris canonibus decretisque
Concilii Tridentini”.
Little is said about plans for the organization and activity of

the academy. A “ congregazione, sotto 1’ invocazione di S. Luca”

was to be founded in a church of the city, with a hostel next to it
for foreign artists who had not enrolled yet with a local master.
Incidentally, this particular scheme could not have originated at
any other moment in the history of art in Rome. In the second
half of the Cinquecento the journey to Rome had become almost
compulsory with North Italian and transalpine painters and
sculptors, but the medieval tradition of working under one master
instead of freely studying on one’s own was still alive and un¬
challenged. Of the methods of instruction recommended we hear

only that the “ ottimi e piu rari esemplari delle arti stesse, onde va
Roma superba” were to play a prominent part, i.e. Antiquity
and High Renaissance as admired by all those who then came
to Rome. No mention is made of technical training. Many

more details on Muziano’s ideas appear in a manuscript by

Lodovico David, a Lombard painter of the late Seicento. He
talks abundantly of a collection of plaster-casts, of a life-class
(“Sala del Facchino”), prize-givings, speech-days, and even of
journeys to be made by students to Venice and Lombardy in
order to study Titian, Coreggio, Veronese. At first sight this
seems to go very well with Muziano’s own inclination towards
North Italy, an inclination typical of his period in the history
of Italian painting (cf. Barocci in Urbino, and Passignano,
Pagani, Ligozzi in Tuscany). However, nothing exists to con¬
firm David’s surprising statements. They are so evidently out of
 ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

keeping with the early forms of academic organization as we

know them that one can safely assume the author to have trans¬
ferred into Muziano’s programme — without malice probably —
all that had become an established part of art education in his
own time.1
Whatever Muziano’s
exact plans may have been, they were
also, in spite of Gregory’s Motuproprio, never carried out. This
was explicitly stated by Sixtus V, when in 1588 he sent out
another Breve for the same purpose. Its contents are almost
identical with those of the previous document. Again the

foundation of a “ confraternita ” is urged, and again all the

emphasis is laid on religious aspects.2 The only new suggestion
is to allot to the academy a proper meeting-place, the church of
Sta Martina by the Forum and some adjacent property. But
Sixtus’s scheme remained on paper too. Another four years
elapsed before the matter was taken up once more, and this time
successfully. The new initiative was due to Cardinal Federigo
Borromeo and the painter Federigo £ uccari , the same Zuccari who
about fifteen years earlier had tried in vain to reform the
1 It may be regarded as especially telling that journeys to North Italy were
actually usual at the Academie de France in Rome late in the Seicento. There is
another reason incidentally for distrusting David’s authenticity with regard to
academic matters. He asserts in another place that Muziano’s example had been
Vincenzo Catena, a painter of Venice, who is said to have left property to the Collegio
dei Pittori for the foundation of a “scuola”, i.e. according to David, an academy.
The story has not raised Da Como’s
suspicions (cf. p. 123), although as long ago as
1905 G. Ludwig had found and published Catena’s original wills (Jb . d.preuss. Kunst-
samml. vol. 26) which prove that “scuola” means, as usual in Venetian documents,
exactly what “confraternity” is in other parts of Italy. The 200 ducats were in fact
bequeathed to the confraternity of painters for endowing five poor girls and helping
five poor artists. It may have made the case more confusing that in the first of the
wills the “pueri de la dita Schola” are mentioned, but the two following wills show
this to be a lapsus calami for “poveri de la dicta schola”. The Latin text says:
“pauperibus scholae”.
2 Sixtus’s Breve: Missirini, l.c. p. 23 seq. The passage mentioned runs as follows:
“detti Pittori, e Scultori per alcune controversie, o difficolta insorte nel mandare ad
effetto le dette lettere Apostoliche, non aver potuto finora conseguire i vantaggi delle
ottenute largizioni, o per altre cagioni distolti che non fossero, non essersi per essi
eretta ancora la predetta Congregazione, ed Accademia, avendo protratto la cosa
fino a questo giorno.” The future academy is regarded by the Pope as desirable
because “li frutti, che provengono dallo studio delle buone arti siano grati a Dio, utili
all’ universale cristiana repubblica, e salutari alle Anime di tutti i Fedeli”. A
remarkable contribution to the topic: counter-reformation and art.

59
 LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE
FROM

Accademia del Disegno. Now at last- on 14 November 1593

in
the Accademia di S. Luca was declared open by a solemn service
in a
the church of Sta Martina. A general meeting followed—
the
shed incidentally— and Zuccari was elected president with
g
power of choosing his Coadiutori and Consiglieri. The openin
to be
speech was again full of admonitions to the members
virtuous, pious and charitable. Rules were drawn up in this and
at
the next meeting. They, too, insist on a regular attendance
the academic services. Another point that is particularly
stressed is the importance of lectures and disputations on the
i
theory of art, which “conversazione virtuosa” is to Zuccar
“ Madre degli studi e fonte vera di ogni scienza”. Every day an
hour after lunch is to be devoted to theoretical debates, and a

whole meeting once a fortnight. Amongst the subjects to be dis¬

cussed on the first occasions there are the following : On the pre¬

cedence of painting or sculpture (i.e. the famous “Paragone

which had occupied Leonardo’s mind already and become so
popular in Mannerist treatises), on the definition of Disegno (a
“segno di dio in noi”, said Zuccari in his own book on the theory
of art, the “Idea”), on the rendering of the movements of the
human body, on “decoro”, on composition. The distinguishing
qualities of architecture also came within the orbit of the
academy’s interests, for architects, though left out of Gregory’s
and Sixtus’s Breves, were now included just as they had been in
Florence from the beginning.
However, the essential innovation lies in another part of
the programme. Clearly enough it is said in the rules of
1593 and those of 1596 that the primary aim of the academy
is to be educational. In the first of the two it is proposed
that

un’ altr’ ora si spendera nella pratica, ed insegnare a disegnare ai Giovani,

con il mostrar loro il modo, e buona via dello studio, ed a questo effetto
abbiamo gia ordinati dodici Academici, che abbiano particolar cura, e
carico un mese per uno in assistere questi giorni, e le feste principal^ a detti
giovani.
Even more detailed instructions are contained in the rules of
60
 ACC ADEMIA DI S. LUCA

1596. The Censori — this is now the name of the twelve visiting
teachers — are to decide

chi disegnera disegni a mano, chi cartoni, chi rilievi, chi teste, piedi, e mani,
e chi andera fra la settimana disegnando all’ antico, alle facciate di Polidoro,
chi ritrarra Prospettive di Paesi, Gasamenti, chi Animali, et altre si fatte cose,
oltre nelli tempi convenevoli spogliare ignudi, e ritrarli con grazia, e intelli-
genza, fare modelli di creta, di cera, vestirli, e ritrarli con buona maniera;
chi desegnera di Architettura, chi di Prospettiva.

It need not be emphasized that the stress laid here on land¬

scape and animal subjects points forward into the Seicento.
More important is it to say that in their programme all at once
the modern academy of art as a training institute seems con^
ceived and realized, complete with drawing from plaster and

from life, with “professori” (although that name was not

adopted until the new rules of 1607) in charge of the correcting,
and occasional prizes such as drawing materials. Members (and
the Principe) are required to present the academy with works of
theirs. A monopoly for estimates of works of art had already
been given to the academy in 1595.1
The activity of the academy was — as in Florence — less am¬
bitious than had been planned, although the majority of the
more renowned artists of Rome were members: the three
Alberti, Cesari, Laureti, Zucchi, Roncalli as painters, Vacca,
Landini, Valsoldo as sculptors, Giacomo della Porta, O. Longhi
as architects. Above all, Zuccari’s lectures, which he, the author
of the “ Idea ”, must have had especially at heart, never came off
quite successfully. Giacomo della Porta as well as Taddeo
Landini cancelled their talks on their own subjects, and in either
case Zuccari himself had to take the place of the speaker at short
notice. His audience incidentally did not consist of students only,
there were also some dilettanti who had applied for membership,
noblemen and scholars, who in the rules of 1617 are introduced
as Accademici d’ onore e di grazia. Meetings were still held at
the “Fienile” near Sta Martina, and although Zuccari had

1 Missirini, l.c. pp. 30, 32, 70, 68.

6l
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

a dei
bequeathed to the academy his own house near the Trinit
Monti (now the Biblioteca Hertziana) as a Ricetto and
were
Ospizio, the premises of the Accademia di S. Luca
till a few years ago in their old place behind SS. Martina e
Luca.1
The academy seems to have been no less slack in setting up
instruction than in introducing lectures. Romano Alberti who

wrote from experience says that already, in 1595? L’ Accademia

fu quasi abbandonata di maniera che poco 6 niente si faceva ,
and he adds explicitly: “ tralasciandosi li buoni ordini, e indirizzi
lasciati del S. Zucchari, a instruire i giovani.” For 1597 the
following brief note is given: “ ...non si fece niente, di sorte, che
li buoni studji, incaminati dal S. Zucchari bene presto man-
carono”, and up to 1599, the last year dealt with by Alberti, no
improvement was to be noticed. Still, most of Alberti’s com¬
plaints may have been aimed at the lectures which form the
principal part of his pamphlet. Instruction of some sort must
have existed during these years, for a paragraph newly intro¬
duced into the rules of 1596 forbids to all students “far adunanze
in case, ne tener modello senza permesso del Principe”, which
obviously means private life-classes or any kind of study in
private groups, i.e. just what Bandinelli had done. If there had
not been any life-drawing at the academy, this paragraph would
scarcely have been inserted. In a similar way the donation of
the Salvioni Collection of casts in 1598 proves an interest of the
academy in this part of its curriculum. Moreover, in the rules of
1607 instruction is treated just as in the previous rules without
any mention of its being obsolete or neglected. The passage
reads as follows: “Gli studji dell’ Academia saranno di dissegno,
di pittura, di Anatomia, di Scultura, di Architettura, di Pro-
spettiva, d’ ogn’ altra cosa spettante alia professione.” One
Professore each month is to take care of the teaching, and at the

1 Accademici “d’ onore” and “di grazia”: Missirini, l.c. p. 84. Some engravers
and goldsmiths also belonged to the academy (Missirini, l.c. p. 67). Zuccari’s will was
contested and never carried out, cf. W. Korte, “Der Palazzo Zuccari in Rom, sein
Freskenschmuck und seine Geschichte”, Romische Forschungen der Biblioteca Hertziana ,
vol. 12, Leipzig, 1935.
62
 ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

“stanza accademica” an Assistente is to live who can let students

in.1
Again, however, little is known as to whether these rules were
ever fully put into operation. In none of the biographies of those
painters who at that time studied in Rome
does the academy
play any part. And its history after 1600 makes it less likely still
that much trouble was taken over the establishment and the
running of courses. For new difficulties arose between the

academy and the surviving medieval artists’ organization. No

contrast can have existed or at least made itself felt at the

moment of the opening. Otherwise the rolls of the guild con¬

taining the entrance fees of new members would not have passed
on to the academy without any noticeable break. But in 1596 a

first quarrel is recorded between the academy and the “con-

fraternita o Compagnia”, i.e. the subordinate body uniting all
minor artists. New Capitoli confirmed the position of the
academy: Its Principe is at the same time Capo of the Com¬
pagnia. Rectors and Council of the company must be taken
from members of the academy. On the other hand no acade¬
mician is to have an open shop for selling his work. In 1598?

however, victory seems to be with the “gelosia” of the com¬

pany. The Principe is now compelled to part with his title and
henceforth to call himself Capo only. The reaction against this
advance of guild-organized over academic art is to be found in

an order of Clement VIII dated 1600. Here the “Universita e

Collegio de’ Pittori di Roma” is being exempted from a tax,

because “la pittura e professione nobilissima, divisa della qualita
delle Arti meccaniche, con quelle, che per mezzo di continuo

studio, e di perspicacia d’ ingegno, e di attenzione risplende con-

tinuamente, e si fa chiara”. The recognition of painting as a
noble profession has remained, but the difference between a guild
63
l.c. p. 70.
1 Alberti, l.c. pp. 77, 78. Prohibition of private life-courses: Missirini,
of 1607: Ordini dell Academia de Pittori et Scultori di
Salvioni Collection: ib. p. 73- Rules
p. 82 seq.) has only a very inadequat e
Roma, Rome, 1609, pp. 41, 23. Missirini {l.c.
to check all Missirini’s
summary of these. It would certainly have been desirable tely not been
statements from the original records. This, however, I have unfortuna
able to do.
 FROM LEONARDO DA VINCI TO THE

(universita) and an academy appears forgotten. Then in 1607

the competence of academy as against company is re-established,
without much success; for in 1617 new instructions have to
restore the title of Principe and the institution of reception-

pieces. Only “Pittori e Scultori eccellenti g che operino da se”

shall be members. And again, as if nothin had happened, an
order of 1620 re-draws the line between academy and com¬
pany. Notwithstanding this, new rules of 1621 issued by
Gregory XV make no distinction either between the diletti
Figli dell’ Universita, ed Accademia de’ Pittori”. Only the
Congregazione Generale is treated as different from the council
of the Colletta under the chairmanship of the Principe. There are
instructions as to the appointment of a doctor and the establish¬
ment of a hostel for members in case of illness, for poor foreign

artists, and more generally “Pittori e Scultori, che vengono in

Roma, afinche abbiano sufficente recapito”. The obligation of
providing reception-pieces and of obtaining all estimates through
the academy exclusively is again emphasized. Instruction is still
considered, for the “Pittori e Scultori che diriggono le scuole”
are mentioned. However, all these vicissitudes, orders, repeated
orders, and withdrawals of orders, can only serve to prove be¬
yond doubt that ten, twenty, forty-five years after the founda¬
tion of the academy all that ascendency of the Accademia di
S. Luca over the guilds had vanished, and painting and sculpture
were in a position hardly different from that a hundred years
before.1
This was frankly admitted by Urban VIII, the most power¬
ful figure amongst Seicento Popes, when he had resolved to
reform the academy. He cancelled in 1627 the rules given by

his predecessor and stated “che la detta Universita assunto il

64
1 Account-books of guild and academy: Hoogewerff, l.c. p. 6. Capitoli of 1596:
Missirini, l.c. p. 71. The feeling of academicians against direct art-dealing was strong;
cf. Missirini, l.c. p. 123 of 1668: Members of the academy must not sell pictures in a
shop, because this is not an “opera intellectuale”. 1598: Missirini, l.c. p. 73. 1600: ib.
p. 81. 1607: ib. p. 84. 1620: ib. p. 85. 1621: ib. p. 86 seq. Certain artists are
appointed “Stimatori dei Scultori”, others “Stimatori dei Ricamatori” etc.; cf. Hoo¬
gewerff, l.c. p. 47.
 AGCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

primitivo suo nome d’ Accademia d’ oggi innanzi sia retta e

governata secondo questi Statuti e Gapitoli riformati colle pre¬
sents Again teaching was entrusted to twelve members, each

being on duty for one month. “Accademia degli Studi” is the

name used for the institution. The guild is nowhere mentioned,
but some apposite privileges are also given to the Compagnia.
On the whole it appears as though Urban was not mainly or at
least exclusively interested in the academyas such, but rather in
laying down a law by which all artists working in Rome should
come under the jurisdiction of some Papal authority. This is
confirmed by his Breve of 1633 introducing a special compulsory

tax which was to replace a voluntary “Elemosina” given by

non-members on St Luke’s day for the upkeep of the academy.
Now every painter, sculptor, architect, gilder, embroiderer,
illuminator, art-dealer was to be compelled to pay the new tax.
Violent opposition started at once, headed by the gay young

Netherlanders and their popular club, the “Bent”.1 No wonder

that they were all up in arms. Glad to have escaped their
narrow guild laws at home, they could not be expected to bend
to the same thing in Rome where they enjoyed their freedom so
heartily. To them it did not matter whether a restrictive order
came from a guild or an academy. In the end the Papal
authorities proved powerless, and the whole question was
quietly shelved after a struggle lasting several years. So when
another two years had passed the Flemings and Dutchmen
resumed their voluntary payments.

If it had been Urban’s plan to establish a dictatorship of the

Roman academy, he had failed ; if however he only wanted to
re-establish the domination of the academy over the lower
us
sphere of art as a craft, he had fully succeeded. The ambitio
new building of the church SS. Martina e Luca is a telling expres¬
6
sion of the academy’s newly-restored5 pride. It was started in
VIII: Missirini, l.c. p. 91 seq. Tax of 1633: ib. p. 94; Hoogewerff, l.c.
1 Urban
l.c. p. 8, and more in detail, MededeeL d.
p. 91 seq. “Bent” opposition: Hoogewerff,
B, 1926. On the “Bent” in
Kon. Akad. d. Wetenschapen, Afd. Letterkunde, vol. 62, Ser.
Amsterdam, 1915,
general: Hoogewerff, in Feest-Bundel Dr A. Bredius aangeboden,
p. 103 seq. and A.lededeel. van het Nederl. Histov. Instituut , vol. 3> ^9^3*
PA 5
 DA VINCI TO THE ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA

1635. The building of the academy itself was also enlarged. Its

membership must by now have come to about a hundred.1 From

1634-8 Pietro de Cortona was Principe; amongst his immedi¬
ate successors were Turchi, Romanelli, Algardi, Rainaldi — all
prominent representatives of Roman Baroque. And yet, if the
series of Principi is followed into the second half of the century, a
significant and alarming sign of a change cannot be overlooked.
In 1651 a Fleming, Luigi Gentile, was elected Principe, in 1658
Nicolas Poussin’s name was put up. He did not answer the call,
but in 1672 another Frenchman was returned: Charles Errard.
At this juncture, when the Accademia di S. Luca itself ad¬
mitted the ascendency of Paris over Rome, we must leave Rome.
The centre of both art and academic teaching of art in Europe
becomes now, for about a century, the court of France.
It may, in conclusion of this chapter, be well to sum up what
our account of the Cinquecento has yielded. Leonardo has not
founded nor conceived an academy of art, but his theory to¬
gether with Michelangelo’s personality have done more than
anything else to prepare the ground on which Vasari and
Zuccari could erect the first art academies. Vasari by chiefly
emphasizing the representational and Zuccari by placing
foremost the educational purpose of an academy have clearly
mapped out the two principal tasks which academies of art were
to set themselves in the future.2 That this occurred under the
auspices of Mannerism, the most schematic and the most
“totalitarian” of all modern styles, and moreover the one most
devoted to taking over compositions, figures, details from the
works of great classic masters, has determined the character and
the destiny of academies of art down to the twentieth century.
1 New church: O. Poliak, Die Kunsttatigkeit unter Urban VIII, vol. i, Augsburg, 1928,
p. 185 seq. Lists of members of 1634-5 (89 names) and of 1636-7 (127 names) are
printed in Hoogewerff’s book (l.c . pp. 98, 127).
2 It was unfortunately only after this part of the present volume had been set that
I noticed a reference to a further letter by F. Zuccari, addressed to the princes of
Europe and printed at Mantua in 1605. The reference is contained in O. Kurz’s
Appendice to J. von Schlosser-Magnino, La Letteratura Artistica, Florence (1937).

66
 Chapter III

BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

1600-1750

I n spite of all the constructive thought that had been devoted

by artists of the sixteenth century to the conception of an art
academy, and in spite of the two institutes of that name really
founded at Florence and Rome, the social situation of painter,
sculptor and architect had scarcely undergone any fundamental
change through their influence. Artists at the beginning of the
seventeenth century stood more or less where they had been
before 1563, and the two academies themselves were reduced to
something like guild committees, although it must be admitted
that the distinction between Corpo and Accademici contained
in itself that notion of a contrast between “Art” and “art”
which the Renaissance had brought about. While this notion
had to a certain extent spread amongst artists and patrons in
Florence and Rome, the other centres of art in Italy were, in the
early Seicento, as yet unacquainted with it, and not without
difficulties was it introduced. Not much seems to be preserved
of these struggles, but the two cases which can still be followed —
Genoa and Bologna — may be taken as paradigmatic of their
character.

At Genoa 1 the guild of the painters persecuted Giovanni

Battista Paggi with fervent hatred, because, coming from noble
stock, he had made a reputation as a painter merely by studying
from drawings, casts and books, without any training in a local

master’s workshop. Mainly in order to get him out of the way,

the guild asked for renewed official sanction of its old rules, ac¬
cording to which nobody was allowed to paint at Genoa without
67
having gone through seven years of local apprenticeship. More-
1 Cf. R. Soprani, Vile de Pittori, Sculptori ed Architetti Genovesi, 2nd edition with
additions by G. Ratti, Genova, vol. i,i768,pp. 125 seq., i36seq. Also Bottari-Ticozzi,
Raccolta di Lettere, Roma, 1754-73, vol. 6, pp. 87-9 = Guhl-Rosenberg, Kiinstlerbriefe,
Berlin, 1880, vol. 2, p. 39. The case is also mentioned by Dresdner, l.c. p. 94.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

ntice, so that in
over, nobody was to employ more than one appre
less busy
case of surplus demand work could be passed over to
rt of
masters— a most typically medieval regulation. Impo
forbidden,
pictures and the immigration of painters were also
the case of
and this paragraph was of special importance in
er to live
Paggi, who had in consequence of a case of manslaught
shment
abroad, in Florence. His arguments against this re-establi
of an outmoded code of rules, which were put forwa rd in his

absence by his brother Dr Girolamo Paggi, must have appealed

to the authorities of Genoa at the end of the Cinquecento new as
well as interesting, though readers of this book are quite familial
with them, because they are broadly speaking the arguments of
Leonardo and Michelangelo reiterated. Paggi, in a letter which
has been printed by Bottari, pronounced his desire to see art once
more an honoured profession attracting the well-to-do and per¬
haps the noble. For its practice is chiefly based, he writes, on the
study of arithmetic, geometry, philosophy, etc., and its practical
part on observation, which is a natural gift and unteachable.
Why, in these circumstances, should a young painter or sculptor
not train himself, just as the poet or musician, by the study of the
work of great masters? Paggi succeeded in convincing the
Senate of Genoa. The conception of the freedom of painting was
accepted and the application of the guild rejected. The old code
of rules was no longer to be obligatory on “omnes et singulos
Pictores tarn presentes quam futuros, qui apothecam artis
Picturae apertam non tenuerint”, because the Senate contended
the art of painting to be “ubique gentium legibus libera atque
soluta”, a wholly incorrect but remarkably progressive statement.
An academy was, however, not founded at Genoa, although the
Paggi case no doubt would have served as a useful point of
departure.
At Bologna,1 on the other hand, a separate Compagnia of the
painters did not exist at all until 1598. They had belonged to
the guild of sword-cutlers, saddlers, and scabbard-makers until

1 Cf. F. Malaguzzi- Valeri, “L’ Arte dei Pittori a Bologna nel sec. XVI”, Arch.
Stor. d’ Arte, 2, S. iii, 1897, p. 309 seq. and M. Gualandi, Memorie, vol. 4, p. 164.
68
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

1569, and since then to that of the calico merchants (“Bom-

basari”). The separation was granted on 3 October 1598 by
Cardinal Montalto, the Papal legate, after the painters had
pointed out that £T arte della pittura merita et e solita ad essere
abbracciata et favorita da Prencipi To be safe, a new practical
argument was added: The number and reputation of painters
in Bologna had gone up steadily so that within the existing guild

there was now a “sproportione fra questa e quelle arti”. In his

decree of 28 December 1598 the legate accordingly recognized

the art of painting as a “nobile e virtuosa professione” and its

present state at Bologna as a “stato di floridezza e di celebrita”.
Montalto was wholly justified in emphasizing this; for by 1598
the art of the Carracci had reached its apogee, and the
generation of their pupils such as Reni was just starting. The
council of the new guild contained “alcuni Architetti, e scultori,
come di professioni molto conformi e necessarie al buon pittore”,
a remarkable proof of the spreading of “academic” ideas into
the spheres of guild-organized art. The next step, which would
have been to raise the new Compagnia to the status of academy,
was not taken, though in 1602 Lodovico Carracci had gone to

Rome in order to obtain “che la Compagnia dei Pittori in

Bologna a Somiglianza di quella di Roma fosse trasmutata in
Accademia anch’ essa”.1
Thus before 1650 only one new academy of art of the Roman
type was established in Italy, at Milan ,2 where the programme was
drawn up by the same Federigo Borromeo, since 1 595 archbishop
1 Rules of 1288 of the old Bolognese guild called the Societa delle Quattro Arti:
Aug. Gaudenzi, Statuti delle Societa del Popolo di Bologna, vol. 2 (Fonti per la Storia

d’ Italia, iv), Roma, 1896, p. 395 seq. Lodovico Carracci’s journey: Letter to
Francesco Brizio dated 8 January 1602 (quoted by Dresdner, l.c. p. 306). Malvasia
asserts that another attempt at establishing an academy at Bologna had been made by
Sabbatini in 1576. But that sounds rather improbable if the position of the painters
at that time is considered. It is furthermore mentioned on the same page on which
Sabbatini is made responsible for the first initiative towards an art academy in Rome.
2 Cf. L. Beltrami, “II sentimento dell’ Arte nel Card. Fed. Borromeo”, in Mis¬
cellanea Ceriani, Milan, 1910; S. Ricci in Arch. Stor. Lombardo, vol. 26, 1899, p. 99 seq.
and Gli Istituti Scientijici, Letterari ed Artistici di Milano, Milan, 1880, p. 357 seq. The
“Leges Observandae in Academia, quae de Graphide erit”, are published in the 7th
volume of A. F. Gori’s Symbolae Litterariae, Rome, 1754, p. 97- I am indebted to
Prof. Gnoli of the Biblioteca Braidense for information about this rare book.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

of Milan, who had, with Zuccari, started the Accademia di S. Luca.

In harmony with Federigo’s religious convictions, ideas of the

Counter-Reformation are more stressed in the rules of the
Milanese academy than in any other. In 1 6 1 7 the archbishop had
established a “Congregatio pro construendis, instaurandisve et
ornandis Ecclesiis sacrisque aedibus”. This council was con¬
verted into an academy in 1620; and the first words of its pro¬
gramme are: “Non aliqua nobis humana causa fuit instituendi
Scholam sive Academiam hanc picturae, sculpturae, architec-
tonicaeque artis, sed animo nostro propositum fuit, ut erudi-
rentur artifices ad divini cultus opera. . . .” The institution was
housed in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, also a donation of
Federigo, and ruled by six Praesides or Conservatores, three of

them clerics, and three “ Magistri”. Each Magister was in charge

of one department: Cerano, on whom the title of Principe was
conferred, of the painting school, Fabio Mengoni of the school of
architecture, G. A. Biffi of the school of sculpture. And just as
the spirit of the Milanese academy is still Cinquecento, so these
three artists are late representatives of Mannerism unaffected
by the new style of the Baroque, which at that time had passed
from its early, the Caravaggio-Carracci phase to its full maturity
in Rubens and Bernini. The academy was to train students in

drawing the “varias humani corporis partes ad vivum”, in

modelling reliefs and in copying outstanding works of painting
and sculpture. Federigo had therefore put at its disposal the
picture collection which he had given to the Ambrosiana, and a
number of casts from masterpieces of Antiquity such as the
Farnese Hercules, the Laocoon group, and the Apollo Belvedere.
The employment of a paid model for the life-drawing was per¬
mitted if not commanded. Prizes were to be given according to
the judgment of the student’s qualities by the Magister, but
there is a characteristically Tridentine flavour in the following
passage about this: “Neque artificii tantum excellentia, sed
veritas etiam ipsa rerum spectetur.” Lectures were also pro¬
vided for, but no disputations or debates. Most reasonably the
number of students was limited to twenty-four, to whom in-
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

struction would be given free of charge. The same sound judg¬

ment is shown in another paragraph. The academy was to have
nothing to do with any guild affairs. “Offitci, i quali sono ap-
presso all’ Universita” were none of its business, a precaution in
all probability introduced by Federigo into the rules of the
academy because of warnings received from Zuccari in Rome.
For Zuccari, as we know, had in his letter of about 1577 already
rejected too close a contact between guild and academy. While
the programme of Federigo Borromeo’s academy was thus in
several respects an advance over the Roman programme, it had

no real chance to prove its advantages, because after Federigo’s

decease in 1631 the institute soon collapsed.
If we halt for a moment at this juncture and try to take stock
of the Italian situation in the middle of the Seicento, it must be
repeated that the term Accademia, solemnly conferred less than
a century before on institutes of ambitious social aims, had
relapsed into being a kind of vague synonym of arte, or com-
pagnia, or universita. Two more examples may be quoted to
confirm this. In the twenty-two paragraphs of the code of rules
brought out by the Painters’ and Gilders’ Company of Udine in
1610, the company is occasionally called “Scuola ovvero Ac¬
cademia”, although its character was obviously medieval
throughout. And in 1632 the Senate of Bologna could still
introduce a tax to be paid to the Compagnia dei Pittori by all
painters, sculptors, wood-carvers, architects, painters of playing-
cards, gilders, art-dealers, etc.1 And yet it would not be correct
to say that academy about 1630 or 1650 meant only guild, or
guild council, or guild with a bias towards some educational
activity. For a new meaning of the word had by then become
much more usual. The origin and the significance of this new
meaning, predominant in all Italian records of the Seicento,
must now be discussed.
The first well-ascertained examples of the change date from
the second decade of the seventeenth century and are to be
1 Udine: F. di Maniago, Storia delle Belle Arti Friuliane 2, Udine, 1823, p. 374 seq.
The quotation is taken from Meder, l.c. p. 249. Bologna : Malaguzzi-Valeri, l.c.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

in Mancini’s manuscript Lives. says of Andrea

He
found
ies. In Roma
Comodi, who came to Rome early in the ninet
e Procaccini
faceva Accademie.” Of Camillo and Giulio Cesar
emy in casa
in Milan, he mentions that they held an acad
ria to
loro”. At the same time, Marino in dedicating his Galle
who
Prince Giovanni Carlo Doria (1619) praises this prince
i Giovani
“per nutrire questa bell’ arte, con la raccolta di divers
casa”.
studiosi ne ha stabilata un’ Accademia nella propria
of other Italia n
Similar passages can be quoted from the works
Seicento writers on art. Baglione, who also describes conditions
at the beginning of the century, though his book was not
published until 1642, talks of the “Accademie che per Roma si
fanno”, the “ Accademie. . .le quali continuamente qui sogliono
farsi”, the “Accademie, che si sogliono continuamente fare in
questa citta a beneficio comune”, or even of the “Accademie che
publico e in privato si fanno
continuamente in How
per tutta la citta these ”.
What were all academies? should the term here be
understood? Before deciding this, it may be well to add a few
more quotations referring to Italian art academies of the
seventeenth century: L. Vedriani in a dedication of 1662 speaks
of a “Virtuosa Accademia de’ Pittori Modenesi” over which
Lodovico Lana had presided until he died in 1646. Pietro
Paolini at Lucca called “Accademia di Pittura e Disegno” the
instruction which he imparted at his studio after his return from
Rome and which consisted of life-drawing and drawing from
plaster casts. Of Poussin’s studies in Rome about 1630 Passeri
says that he was engaged “nello studio delle Accademie, che si
costumano 1’ inverno in diverse case”. Soprani records that
Borzone about 1610 frequented “P Accademia del Nudo che di
que’ di tenevasi in Genova sotto la protezione di principali
Signori e distintamente del Sig. Giov. Carlo Doria”. It is this
same academy — the one praised by Marino — into which As-
sereto was admitted as a student. Malvasia tells us how Guercino

“comincio 1’ Accademia del Nudo”, after Sig. Bartolommeo

Fabri had made him in 1616 Padrone of two rooms equipped
to be used for the purposes of an academy. Malvasia gives
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

further details in a passage in which he praises Count Ettore

Ghislieri, because, for six years, he “fece nel suo Palazzo un
Accademia di Pittori, maestri della quale Accademia erano il
Tiarino, P Albani, il Barbieri, il Sirano, e Michel Desubleo”.
Of Savonanzi, a pupil of Reni, Malvasia says he had attended

an academy in Rome, “la quale si ragunava in quel tempo nelle

stanze del Sig. Cardinal Barberini”. The existence of this
academy is attested by Passeri and also by Bernini in his con¬
versations with Chantelou. A later quotation taken from Zanotti

refers to a “pubblica Accademia” meeting in Francesco Ghis-

lieri’s house about 1686. Of this academy, whose “direttori”
were Bolognini, Malvasia, Tarufh and Pasinelli, Zanotti writes
that “ognuno potesse disegnare, e ritrarre cosi V uomo ignudo,
come la femina”.1
As this probably incomplete survey shows, we are provided
with plenty of material for defining the type of institution which
Italians in the seventeenth century seem usually to have meant

when speaking of academies in connection with art.2 Their

common purpose can easily be recognized. Members met for
drawing “dal nudo” or “dal naturale”, which since the Re-,
naissance has been accepted as the most essential part of all art
training. Other tasks are only rarely mentioned and will be

discussed presently. The academies assembled either in an artist’s

studio or the palace of a patron. In the latter case the patron
would pay all costs, whereas in studio-academies the owner may
sometimes have charged some fee. Studio-academies were not
confined to the pupils of one master. One could attend several
1 Mancini: I have used Vat. Barb. Lat. 4515. Comodi in Rome: cf. N. Pevsner,
Vedriam,
Regesten, l.c. p. 129. Baglione, l.c. pp. 174, 241, 133, 242, 352. Lana: L.
and G. Baruffaldi, Vite de’ Pittori e Scultori Ferraresi,
Raccolta de' Pittori, Modena, 1662,
sul R. Istit. di B.A. in
vol. 2, Ferrara, 1846, p. 207. Paolini: E. Ridolfi, Relaz. Stor.
the town after
Lucca, Lucca, 1872. This academy was incidentally taken over by
Paolini’s death in 1681. Its first rules date, however, only from 1748. Poussin:
l.c. pp. 245, 272. Malvasia, l.c. vol. 2,
Passeri, Le Vite, Rome, 1773, p. 352. Soprani,
l.c. p. 188 and Chantelou
PP- 362, 376; vol. 1, p. 303. Barberini-Academy : Passeri,
Diary, ed. H. Rose, Munich, igi9> P-
of the Seicento
2 The interpretation given in the text of Italian private academies
cf. his short but full and competent article
is in agreement with that of A. Dresdner,
in Monatsh.f. Kunstwissensch. vol. 11, 1918.

73
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

academies at the same time, and Malvasia even asserts that

Vanni and Cesari, when passing through Bologna, went to

draw in Faccini’s academy. The time of day when academies

were held seems to have varied. In the case of Baldi, Crescenzi
and Tiarini, evenings were chosen, but of Ottavio Semini,

Soprani says that life-drawing was done “sul mattino”.1

One more question remains to be answered: When did these
private academies originate? Bandinelli’s is the first that we
know of, but, according to the two engravings, it does not seem
to have had life-drawing at all, and certainly not as its chief or
sole purpose. The same is true of a few other illustrations of late
Ginquecento studio gatherings, such as a picture in the Borghese
Gallery by Passarotti or a pupil of his, and an engraving by
P. F. Alberti called “Accademia di Pitori”.2 On the other hand,
Soprani and Malvasia refer to life-drawing at Baldi’s workshop in
1 Life-drawing: “Accademia del Nudo”, Falcone, Naples, cf. De Dominici, Vile,
Naples, 1742, vol. 3, p. 422; “Accademia del Nudo”, Vaccaro and De Maria,
Naples, ib. vol. 3, pp. 139, 308; “Accademia del Nudo”, Tiarini, Malvasia, l.c.
vol. 2, p. 21 1 ; “Accademia a posta per disegnare 1’ ignudo”, Guercino, Baldinucci,
Notizie, Classici Italiani, vol. 12, p. 279; “disegnare dal naturale”, O. Semini and
Cambiaso, Soprani, l.c. vol. 1, p. 67; “aviamo onore, per aver buon modello ”, Luti,
Bottari, l.c. vol. 2, p. 62; Academy “ove si spogliava il caporal Leone, che fu uno de’
modelli migliori”, Passeri, l.c. p. 352. Other tasks than life-drawing: Baglione reports
of Crescenzi, a painter and nobleman, that he used to buy for his academy fruit,
animals, and other “cose di bello e di curioso”. Studio-academies: Guercino,
Falcone, Vaccaro, De Maria, Semini, Cambiaso (cf. under Life-drawing above),
Domenichino, Sacchi (cf. Passeri, l.c. p. 392). Patrons’ Academies: Cardinal Bar-
berini, Carlo Doria, Ettore Ghisleri (cf. text), Card. Ottoboni, March. Sacchetti,
Paolo Falconieri (cf. Missirini, l.c. p. 159), Paolo Giordano (cf. Bernini-Chantelou,
l.c. p. 197) ; in the case of Crescenzi painter and owner of a palace, was the same (cf.
Baglione, l.c. p. 249). Fees: Baglione {l.c. p. 242) seems to distinguish between
public and private academies. This may have something to do with the question
of fees. Of Spada, Malvasia writes {l.c. vol. 2, p. 104) that he was too poor to pay
his share “nella pubblica Accademia”. A patron’s academy at his expense: Malvasia,
l.c. vol. 2, p. 415. Cf. Baglione, l.c. p. 133 (“a beneficio commune”). Expenses
would include heating, lighting, model and teacher’s fees. One case came to my
knowledge where a literary academy paid an artist for teaching drawing (as one of
the Arti Cavalleresche) to its members. This occurred in 1619 at Bologna, the academy
being the Ardenti, and the painter Bartolommeo Cesi (Malvasia, l.c. vol. 1, p. 327).
Similarly in Denmark about 1623 Reinholt Thein taught drawing, painting and
“fundamenta architectonica” in the Soro academy (F. Beckett: Kristian IV og
Malerkunsten, Copenhagen, 1937, chap. 1). Cesari and Vanni, l.c. vol. 1, p. 565.
Life-drawing evening: Malvasia, l.c. vol. 2, p. 183, Baglione, l.c. p. 249, Malvasia,
l.c. vol. 2, p. 21 1. Life-drawing morning: Soprani, l.c. vol. 1, p. 67.
2 G. Flabich, Kunstfiir Alle, vol. 14, 1898-9.

74
<
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

Bologna and at Cambiaso’s in Genoa and calls them academies.

But in these two cases the term may not yet have been used at the
time when the meetings took place, i.e. at the end of the sixteenth
century. Bernini informs us of an academy which met in Rome
in the house of Paolo Giordano, under the leadership of Annibale
Carracci (i.e. before 1606), but drawing “dal naturale” is not
especially mentioned in this passage.
Thus the first coincidence of the term academy and the fact
of life-drawing appears to be the oft-discussed academy of the
Carracci at Bologna, and a reconsideration of the character of this
institution must therefore now be undertaken. If this has been
delayed so far, the reason is that only a clear notion of what
artists and writers in the Seicento called an academy can enable
one rightly to interpret what there is in the way of records and
tradition on the Accademia degli Incamminati. Our knowledge of the
Incamminati is based mainly on Malvasia’s account, and this had
generally been accepted (and distorted into meaning an academy
of art of nineteenth-century type), until about thirty years ago
Hans Tietze in a study of prime importance which he devoted
to Annibale Carracci and his circle shook this belief and declared
his disbeliefin the existence of the academy altogether. He referred
to it only as to the “famosen Akademie” or “ phantastischen
Akademie”. His arguments were not challenged for some time,
and only a few years ago, when Heinrich Bodmer re-examined all
the records preserved, he reached a result considerably different

from Tietze’s. The following comments on the Incamminati are,

broadly speaking, in agreement with those of Bodmer.1
The existence of the academy is proved by surviving invitations
to attend a meeting of the Congregazione. They are engraved
by Agostino Carracci and show, if not the name of the academy,

its Impresa — the same Impresa which at Agostino’s exequies in

1 Tietze, Jb. d. Kunsthist. Samml. des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, vol. 26, 1906-7,
pp. 13 1 and 56. Similar remarks, e.g. H. Voss, Die Malerei des Barock in Rom, Berlin,
s.d., p. 484: “die spater von Legenden uppig umrankte ‘Accademia degli Incammi¬
nati and P. O. Rave and E. H. Lehmann in Schmitt’s Real-Lexicon, l.c. p. 248:
“ . . . wahrscheinlich keine Malerschule . . ., sondern wohl eher ein Trutzbiindnis gegen
andere Kiinstler”. Bodmer, Bologna, 1935.

75
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

1603 was put above the door of the Chiesa della Morte. Details
about the funeral service can be looked up in Malvasia. He
reprints the speech made by Lucio Faberio, which is full of
valuable information, and also a report of 1603 to Cardinal
Farnese in which the academy plays a part. Tietze has quoted a

contemporary note in P. E. Aldrovandi’s manuscript chronicle

in which the “exequie superbissime ” are mentioned which gli
huomini dell’ academia degli Incaminati” had prepared for
Agostino. This note caused Tietze to consider the academy a
kind of funeral confraternity with literary ambitions. However,
it should not be forgotten that exequies were a very prominent
part of the activity of the Florentine and Roman academies as
well. If one prefers to start from the possible meanings of the
word academy about 1600, it must be said that the Incamminati
must have been either a literary society of some kind, or an
institution of the Accademia del Disegno type, or else one of the
private gatherings for life-drawing and similar purposes. It
seems to tell in favour of the first of these alternatives that the

academy was called “degli Incamminati”, a name three times

occurring in Maylender’s catalogue. Those who regard this as
a convincing parallel must accept Malvasia’s statements about
Impresa, Censori and Ruotolo — the indispensable apparatus of a
Cinquecento academy. The use of academic nick-names in the
Carracci academy is moreover confirmed by a book which the
painter Valesio brought out, and in which he introduces himself
as “L5 Instabile, Accademico Incamminato”.
While it can thus be taken for certain that the Carracci
academy possessed rules, impresa, academic surnames and all
the other usual attributes of a Cinquecento academy, it is on the
other hand to be surmised that this institution was in some
particular relation to the art of painting, not only because all its
known members were painters, but also on account of the fact
that Zuccari twice used the term “bene incaminati” of the
students of his Accademia di S. Luca.1 Furthermore, it has been

1 Valesio: Maylender,/.c. vol.3,p. igo. Incamminati: e.g. “li giovani bene incami¬
nati. ..siano ammesi...tra gli Accademici” (Missirini, l.c. p. 32, also p. 29). Cf. also
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

mentioned on p. 69 that Ludovico Carracci, one year before

Agostino’s exequies, had tried to obtain authorization for the

establishment of an academy in Bologna, and, what is more, that
the members called themselves in the publication of the exequies
“Academici del Disegno”, i.e. by the very title of the members
of the Florence academy. This fact cannot be waived as a mere
accident. If one be prepared to accept the Incamminati as an

“Accademia del Disegno” with the external arrangements of

literary circles of the time, the question follows whether it was an
official or an unofficial establishment. The first case can be
ruled out. Bolognese archives would no doubt have yielded
records to confirm its public character. So it must have been a
private enterprise, but was it in its activities more similar to
Florence and Rome or to the studio “accademia del nudo”?
Malvasia’s answer to this question contains nothing improbable.
Faberio says that the academy was set up at Agostino Carracci’s
suggestion, which seems to suit what we know of his character.

Malvasia mentions in his Life of Faccini “la stanza”, “ove si

spogliava il modello”, in another place also the use of a female
model, and the existence of a human skeleton hung up for
anatomical demonstrations. This corresponds to the Vico en¬
graving of Bandinelli’s private academy. Faberio adds as some¬
thing unusual that “armi, animali, frutti e insomma ogni cosa
creata” were drawn. All this evidence points to a private
studio-academy, and it seems that Zanotti was quite right in
placing it in the same category as the academies of Guercino,
Albani and Canuti. Distinguishing features were, however, not
altogether missing. Of these Malvasia has some information.
Prizes were distributed and certain lectures on perspective,
architecture and anatomy were held. The lecturer in anatomy,
Dr Lanzoni, even received fees. These points evidently derive

from the programmes of the official art academies.1

the title-page of R. Alberti’s previously quoted pamphlet, where he says that the
lectures at the Accademia di S. Luca were held to “incaminar i giovani & perfettionar

i provetti”.
1 Malvasia on the details discussed in the text: l.c. vol. i, pp. 427, 566, 378. Lec¬
tures on Mathematics were according to Malvasia also given in the academy of Pietro

77
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

To sum up, it can safely be said that the Accademia degli In-
camminati did in fact exist. It seems to have originated in the
workshop of the three Carraccis, and may never have become
entirely separate from it. If we can assume that a drawing in
the collection of the Dusseldorf academy (fig. 7) really repre¬
sents the “Scuola dei Carracci”, as its inscription says, it looks
very much as if drawing was not practised in a way different
from that of other workshops. The inscription is evidently of a
late date, as also the added names of the draughtsmen (the three
Carracci, Reni, Lanfranco, Domenichino), but its style makes it
quite probable that it derives from the Carracci workshop.1
Neither beginning nor end of the academy can be dated.2 There
were still exequies for Calvaert in 1619, but — strangely enough —
not for Lodovico Carracci in the same year. The hey-day of the
academy must have been during the last years before Agostino
and Annibale left Bologna. It may well be that at that time
title, impresa, etc. were added to show the growing fame of the
school.3 While these points were taken over from the programme
of the literary academies, the idea of giving some theoretical
instruction derives from Florence and Rome, i.e. the public
academies of art, and the life-courses from these and — probably
more directly — the popular private meetings in artists’ studios.
Faccini (l.c . vol. i, p. 580). The lecturers were Cataldi and Giacomo Landi. Al¬
though this seems rather ambitious for a private academy, it is also recorded of the
Venetian academy near S. Trovaso which was conducted by Pietro della Vecchia
(cf. V. Canal, Vita di G. Lazzarini, ed. Moschini for the Nozze Da Mula Lavagnoli,
Venice, 1809). Distributions of prizes were copied from the Carracci Academy by the
Barberini Academy in Rome which was mentioned in the text (Bernini-Chantelou,
l.c. p. 164). This confirms Malvasia, l.c. vol. 1, p. 303.
1 Illustrated as Bonzi by J. Budde, Beschreib. Kat. d. Handz. Dusseldorf, 1930,
No. 45. A similar drawing in the Munich Print Room illustrated by Bodmer, l.c.
fig- 5-

2 Bodmer is going too far in trying to work out a precise date for the “inaugura-
zione”. For if Malvasia can really fix the year when G. P. Buonconti joined the
Carracci — it was in 1582 — his words “nel passare a P Accademia dei Carracci” may
easily just mean their studio, the word academy being taken in the most usual
Seicento sense, and not the Accademia degli Incamminati.
3 The Carracci academy was incidentally not the only one to possess a name and
an impresa. The same is recorded by Zanotti (l.c. p. 6) of the academy of Francesco
Ghislieri (Accademia degli Ottenebrati), which may be taken as a further proof of
the contention that nothing impossible is attributed by Malvasia to the Incamminati.
 "•
i - -V
' F4 ■ * <* ■ *■'£ &

; • ■ - -••• • * *:
t. . \ 4
*>-
•yy-;;V.. J>:fo-:
K.
■-•
' ."4
TIM- J
'1
’’ I .• 'S'
"T1 , I
j
A-t V
Xh™' f,._, • /.. / • ; .. . /'
«?<■ ... s _ S ;, -• 5 ■

XV •" V... ip- ,

:. M Y' . .’. ■ -t ■„*

Fig. 7. Drawing from life in a Bolognese studio, perhaps that of the Carracci, about 1600
Diisseldorf, Staatliche Kunstakademie

Fig. 8. Drawing from life in Rembrandt’s studio, about 1650

Weimar, Kupferstich-Kabinett
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

So the Carracci academy seems in fact to have continued

qualities previously developed separately in separate institutions
termed academy, and thus to have played a similar part in the
history of art academies as the Carracci style in the history of
painting. Eclecticism may be regarded as characterizing the
Incamminati as well as the pictures of Lodovico, Annibale and
Agostino, but it should be recognized as creative eclecticism.
To return to the information imparted by Malvasia on the In¬
camminati, there is no reason at all — that should now be clear —

to call it “fantastic”, although it would be fantastic to picture

the Carracci academy as a modern academy of art instead of
visualizing it against the cultural background of its own age.
This is the result arrived at by Bodmer, and also on a previous
occasion by the author of this book.
However interesting this attempted synthesis of the various
existing types of academies may be, it has, so far as we can see,
not influenced the succeeding development of art academies in
Italy. In the Italian language the term academy in connection
with art remained, this must be kept in mind, a word for a certain
popular kind of life-classes in the houses of artists or patrons,
right through the seventeenth and down to the middle of the
eighteenth century. This was not altered by the existence of the
two or three official academies; neither by that of Rome nor
that of Florence, nor by the one humbly trying to carry on at
Perugia. Missirini says in his book on the Accademia di S. Luca
that, about 1 700, academies were held in Rome in the Ottoboni,
Sacchetti and Falconieri Palaces, and when the German
painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein arrived in Rome in
1779, he found ten of these academies working.1
1 Perugia: the Vetus Perusiae Designationum et Mathematum Academia is once
mentioned in a document of 1638. For 1710 a Restaurazione, for 1734 a re-opening,
for 1737 a new closing-down, for 1781 and 1786 attempts at a revival are recorded. A
more permanent activity began only in 1 790, and that date lies far beyond the period
with which the present chapter is dealing. Missirini, l.c. p. 159; Tischbein, Aus
meinem Leben, Brunswick, 1861, p. 183. Academies were e.g. held in the Studios of
Batoni, Trippel, Bergler, L’Abruzzi, Corvi. Cf. also (Euvres de Mengs, ed. Doray de
Longrais, Regensburg, 1782, pp. 13, 122. A similar number of private academies in
Venice is enumerated in Dali’ Acqua Giusti, l.c.

79
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

To finish this account of Italian Seicento academies of art, a

Ginquecento
comparison may be drawn between them and the
aim of
foundations in Florence and Rome. The original
Vasari’s academy, i.e. the formation of a representational centre
com¬
of artists deserving a social position beyond that of mere
petent craftsmen, is completely given up. His secondary, and
Zuccari’s primary aim, a reform of art teaching though reduced
from an elaborate programme to life-drawing exclusively now
becomes the essence of the art academy.
Neither the originators in the Cinquecento nor those who
talked about academic teaching in the Seicento planned, how¬
ever, to replace workshop training by academic courses.

Apprenticeship was kept as a preliminary stage in the artist’s

education, and perhaps regarde d as even more essential now that
governmental academies were overshadowed by private ones.
A programme so ambitious as to do away with apprenticeship
altogether could only originate in an institute of official character,
and since the public art school as the only training-ground for
future artists has become such a matter of course nowadays, one
of the foremost questions to be asked in now examining the
French academic system of the seventeenth century, must be
whether a further step towards the modern system was made.
Before we can, however, pass on to Paris, a few pages must be
devoted to the Netherlands. For, whereas up to about 1600 the
development of art academies had been a purely Italian affair,
we can now discover a first stir in Holland. Here, just as in
Italy, artists were still organized in guilds, although there were,
and had been for a long time, certain court painters, such as the
Valets de Chambre of the French Kings and the Dukes of
Burgundy, who were outside the restriction of guild rules. Only
after seeing on journeys to Italy how much more favourable con¬
ditions were on the other side of the Alps did artists begin to
oppose the domination of the old companies.
The earliest attempt at taking over the Italian innovations is
connected with the name of Karel van Mander, and it is highly
characteristic that the very artist, whose Lives of the Painters is
80
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

an evident derivation from Vasari’s Lives , was also the first to

complain publicly of the low esteem in which the art of painting
was held in his country. He writes:
Oh Pictura,most noble and most enlightened art of all, mother of all adorn¬
ment, and foster-mother of the most noble and honourable arts, not inferior
to any of thy sisters, called the Liberal Arts. Thou wert appreciated so
thoroughly by the noble Greeks and Romans who welcomed thine artists
wholeheartedly wherever they came from, and whose rulers and magistrates
made citizens of them. Oh, ungrateful centuries of our age, in which by the
pressure of incapable daubers, such shameful laws and narrow rules have been
introduced that in nearly all cities (with the exception of Rome) the noble art
of painting has been turned into a guild _ Oh, noble art of painting. . .how
little distinction is made between thy noble followers, and those who have
acquired just a shadow and shimmer of art.

Here is everything again that has occurred in similar Italian

complaints since the days of Leonardo: painting as an Ars
Liberalis, the artist as a highly honoured citizen in the centuries
of Antiquity, craft as a term of disparagement. It is interesting to
see that Mander so emphatically introduces Rome. This can
only refer to the Accademia di S. Luca, which although not yet
in existence was very much in the air when Mander left Italy in
1 577*
On the evidence of this passage from his work, it could not
appear as an accident that the first art academy recorded in
Transalpine countries seemed connected with him. In the
anonymous life of Karel van Mander, added to the second
edition of his Lives in 1617, it is said that Mander, Cornelis
Cornelisz van Harlem and Hendrick Goltzius “established
amongst themselves an academy to practise life-drawing”.
However, it would be wrong to assume that here an academy
on the Roman pattern was founded. Hirschmann, and after
him Dresdner, have been able to prove that the Mander academy
was not an art school but a private enterprise with no other pur¬

pose than to draw “nae’t leven”. So Mander must have

brought his notion of an academy back from Italy, and it is well
worth stopping for a moment to consider this fact, because the
date of the start of Mander’s little academy — 1583 — is earlier
PA 81 6
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

of the
than any date we have found in Italy for the beginnings
mies of this
private life-drawing academy. If Mander saw acade
e
type while he was in Italy from 1573 to 1577, we can assum
of the
that, alongside the creation and early development
ion
governmental academy, there runs an uninterrupted tradit
h
of studio-academies from Bandinelli into the seventeent
century.1
As it was in this unpretentious shape that the art academy
first migrated into the North, it could not yet with any chance of
success try to attack the medieval guild organization. The laws
of the guilds remained valid in the Netherlands down to the
second half of the seventeenth century, and when they were at
last seriously challenged, the new initiative was no longer

stimulated by Italian examples, but by that of Louis XIV’s Paris

academy (cf. p. 126 seq.).

In Paris , just as in the cities of Italy and the Netherlands,

artists belonged to guilds or companies. The rules of 1260 for
the “ Paintres et tailleors” have been preserved. They were con¬
firmed by Philip the Fair, and again in 1391, 1430, 1548, 1555,
1563, 1582. The frequency of the confirmations in the second
half of the sixteenth century is a sign of restlessness on the part of
the guild quite understandable during the reigns of Francis I and
his successors, who kept inviting renowned Italian artists to
Paris. A painter, such as Primaticcio, endowed with the sinecure
of the abbey of St Martin-les- Ayres at Troyes, was bound to feel
superior to any professional restrictions. Independence of guild
rules was even at an earlier date not entirely unknown among the
French court artists. The Royal Valets de Chambre and
Brevetaires had for a long time enjoyed considerable privileges
over the artists of the guilds. Now that Italian architects,
sculptors and painters, accustomed to a state of freedom still
almost unimaginable in France, were appointed to these posts,
the company had to be very careful not to lose all its old-
1 Mander, ed. H. Floerke, Munich, 1906, pp. 386-9. Hirschmann’s and Dresdner’s
articles appeared in Monatshefte fiir Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 11, 1918.
82
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

established rights. Henry IV seems to have been the first

French King to recognize what this contrast between guild and
free artists really stood for. In 1608 he spoke about the “ maitrise,
qui oste la liberte . . .de travailler ” and refused an application for
the establishment of a special guild of the Enlumineurs, because,
he said, the attitude of the guilds was obstructive to his plans for
increasing the wealth and embellishing the appearance of Paris
by the introduction of new industries and the appointment of
distinguished craftsmen. Despite this, the guild succeeded in
obtaining another confirmation of its privileges in 1622. Once
more the compulsory duration of apprenticeship was fixed.
Once more the importation of works of art was regulated, and
the privilege of keeping an open shop limited to members of the
guild. These rules were, after much hesitation, registered by the
Parliament of Paris in 1639.
However, in the mood which led to the riots of the Fronde, the
masters of the guild were not satisfied with this success. In
1646 they embarked upon a new advance and asked Parliament
— not the King — to limit the lawful number of Royal Breve-
taires to four or at most six for the King and the same number
for the Queen. Royal Princes should not have any; and the
Brevetaires should not be allowed to carry out commissions from
private patrons or churches. The indignation of the court
artists at this blind obduracy was great. It caused the sculptor
Jacques Sarazin and the painter Joost van Egmont, and inde¬
pendently the young painter Charles Lebrun, who had just
returned from Italy, to take immediate action. Lebrun ap¬
proached Testelin the painter, Sarazin and Egmont pleaded
more successfully with the Councillor de Charmois, a man of
influence and taste. Soon the two groups began to co-operate,
and as a result of this— just as seventy- five years before in
Florence and Rome — no plan was 83
considered more suitable for
establishing a higher social status for the free artist than the
foundation of an academy.1
1 For the pre-history, foundation and development of the Paris academy cf. A. de
6-2
Montaiglon, Memoires pour servir a I’histoire de I’Academie Royale, Paris, 1853; L. Vitet,
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

On 20 January 1648, after long preliminary discussions,

M. de Charmois submitted to the King a Requete, once more
putting forward the stock arguments of the Cinquecento. The
separation of “arts nobles” from “arts mecaniques” was made,
and a glance cast at the golden days “d’ Alexandre dans 1’Aca¬
demic d’Athenes”. Some severe remarks are also to be found
about the damage that would be caused to the Arts, if no artists
or works of art from outside or abroad were admitted into Paris.
Not even Raphael or Michelangelo, the petition argues shrewdly,
would have been able to live in France under these conditions.
Leonardo, Primaticcio, Freminet and Poussin are mentioned
amongst others who, thanks to the favour of the Kings of France,
had in the past been exempted from guild restrictions. While
there is hardly anything new in these arguments, the style in
which they are couched is distinctly Siecle de Louis XIV,
grandiloquent and adulatory. Louis, then ten years old, is com¬
pared with Alexander the Great, and the artists are said to be

longing to paint “Son Visage Auguste” and “les beaux traits et

les graces que le ciel y a imprimez”.1 The end of the memoran¬
dum contains a programme of art education, no doubt drawn up
by Lebrun. Emphasis is laid on the necessity of a thorough
knowledge of architecture, geometry, perspective, arithmetic,

anatomy, astronomy and history. Charmois’s final suggestions

are sweeping. It would not be enough to exempt all real artists
from trade rules. The masters of the guilds who run open
shops should also be cautioned against producing any figure-

L’ Ac ademie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, 2nd ed. 1870; H. Lemonnier, L’Art
Frangais au temps de Richelieu et de Mazarin, Paris, 1893; H. Lemonnier, L’Art Frangais
au temps de Louis XIV, Paris, 191 1 ; and also the Proems- Verbaux of the Academy published
in 10 volumes between 1875 and 1892. The discourses of the academicians were edited

by Jouin (Conferences de I’Ac. R. de Peint. et de Sculpt. Paris, 1883) and Fontaine (Con¬
ferences inedites, Paris, s.d.). For the history of the guild cf. J. Guiffrey, Histoire de

l’Academic de St Luc, Paris, 1915, p. 7. The 84 of 1646 is reprinted in Montaiglon,

request
l.c. vol. 1, p. 19 seq.

1 M. de Charmois’s Requete, cf. Montaiglon, l.c. vol. 1, p. 29 seq., and Vitet, l.c.
pp. 195 seqq. Charmois refers to the academy at the beginning of his memorandum
as having existed for a long time already and being now “lassee des persecutions”.
Vitet (p. 195) seems to believe this, although it is evidently only a dexterous way of
linking up the court artists of the past with the new aims of the day.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

pictures, portraits, landscapes, statues or reliefs either for private

or clerical patrons. This passage was evidently intended as an
answer to the guild’s challenge of two years before. It is doubtful
whether Charmois and Lebrun ever had any hope of getting this
paragraph accepted, although it was known that the Queen-
Mother was in favour of a wholesale suppression of the guilds.

Charmois’s other request was, however, granted, and the academy

held its foundation meeting on i February 1648. The rules,
which were laid down there and printed under the date of
9 March, show a close dependence on Rome and Florence. The
academy was to convey the principles of Art to its members by
means of lectures, and to impart instruction to its students by
means of life-courses.1 Correspondingly, a distinction is made
between ‘"Corps” and “Jeunesse”, i.e. the twelve “Anciens”
(the number was soon enlarged) and the students. Just as in
Rome, each Ancien or teacher was to be responsible for setting
the model for a month. Two hours a day were reserved for the
life-class. No funds were at first supplied by the King, so that
the academy had to rely on students’ fees, members’ contribu¬
tions and M. de Charmois’s generosity.
While this was a considerable obstacle to a satisfactory de¬
velopment of the new institution, a greater danger lay in the
political situation of about 1650. The time when Mazarin had
to flee as an exile and the King to withdraw from Paris could not
be propitious for the establishment of a body to supersede the
guilds of the bourgeoisie. Immediately after the foundation of
the academy, the Paris guild started its counter-attack. Only
ten days had passed since the publication of the academic con¬
stitution, when the municipal police searched the studios of the
members and confiscated articles of value as a fine for breaking
the laws of the company. The academy lacked money to protest
85 could with impunity go
effectively against this, and the guild
1 Rules: Vitet, l.c. p. 211 seq. As to life-classes, H. Sauval (Hist, et Recherches des
Antiquites de la Ville de Paris, vol. 2, 1 724, p. 500) asserts that for some time before the
opening of the academy life-courses had been held in Paris in the houses of private
people who wanted to make money out of letting rooms for the purpose to amateurs
or artists.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

one step farther and open up an academy of its own. It was pro¬
vided with two models instead of one, and twenty-four teachers
instead of twelve. Simon Vouet was the soul of the anti-royal
establishment, which was called “Academie de St Luc . Char-
mois’s academy preferred a compromise to resistance. Negotia¬
tions were started, and on 4 August 1651 the two institutions
were amalgamated. Only Lebrun, whose idea had been so much
more than just the introduction of drawing-classes, kept aloof.
For to extend the social privileges of 1648 to all masters of the
company, as was done now, was to him tantamount to destroying
the sole raison d'etre of his creation.1
But in reality the academy had by no means resigned its
original claims. As soon as the King began to master the
Fronde, the academy succeeded in obtaining the parliamentary
registration of its privileges of 1648 (7 June 1652). Now these
privileges made the ascendency of the academy over the guild
clear beyond doubt. The “Maitrise” consequently protested
and temporarily retired from the joint meetings. Once more,
however, the academy for want of financial strength could not
make the most of a favourable situation. For two months, during
the Autumn of 1652, it could not even afford a model, which
meant a complete stoppage of its activity. So the renewed return
to the guild was unavoidable. By arranging lectures on theo¬
retical matters the academicians hoped to weary the masters out
of the meetings. But this was only part of their stratagem.
Secretly they kept working at court, and in 1654 at long last
their aim was achieved. On the 24th of December a new and
enlarged code of rules was given, and registered by Parliament
on 23 June 1655.
The first words of these new rules are, characteristically

enough, “A l’exemple de F Academie de Peinture et de Sculp¬

ture, dite de St Luc florissante et celebre a Rome”, and a hit at

1 Academie de St Luc : J. Guiffrey, Histoire de V Academie de St Luc (Archives de

PArt Fran$ais, Nouv. Per. ix), Paris, 1915. Amalgamation: Montaiglon, l.c. vol. 1,
p. 86 seq.; Vitet, l.c. p. 221 seq., and Proces-Verbaux, vol. 1, p. 52. Lebrun’s attitude:
Jouin, l.c. p. 75.

86
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

“ces deux Arts, que P ignorance avait presque confondus avec

les moindres metiers” follows immediately. Lectures, prize-
givings and exhibitions were planned. The staff had different
and better defined titles. But, more important than these changes,
the King now promised to give £1000 a year to the new institu¬
tion, and rooms in the College Royal de l’Universite. By this
promise the Academie was made a royal enterprise — and the
consequence at once became visible. As the life-course was con¬
sidered the centre-piece of the educational programme, it was
declared a monopoly of the academy. Nowhere outside the
academy was public life-drawing to be allowed. The clause,
which proved of decisive moment for the immediate future, runs
as follows: “Sa Majeste veut et entend que doresnevant il ne
soit pose aucun modele, fait monstre, ni donne legon en public,
touchant le fait de Peinture et de Sculpture qu’en la dite Aca¬
demie Royale.” Even private life-drawing circles in artists’
studios were forbidden. This privilege, in conjunction with that
of conferring upon the thirty members of the academy the same
rights as enjoyed by the forty of the Academie Frangaise, made
inevitable a complete breach between academy and guild. The
“ Maitrise” filed its protest and left the meeting of 3 July 1655.1
The next ten years brought further progress. In 1656 the
academy moved into rooms at the Louvre, where since the time
of Henry IV most of the royal artists had had their studios.2
The most fortunate step, however, was the choice of a new Vice-
Protector in 1661. As the Protectors (first Mazarin, then

Seguier) at that time scarcely interfered, the Vice-Protector was

the real ruler of the academy, or at least could be if he chose.
Colbert, elected in 1661, saw this at once and henceforth devoted
his indefatigable energy to the establishing and strengthening of
the social might of the academy, just as Lebrun — in the mean-i
time appointed Premier Peintre du 87Roi and Chancellor of the
1 First lecture on theory of art: 30 August 1653. Rules of 1655: Vitet, l.c. p. 236.
s was raised to
Life-drawing monopoly: Vitet, l.c. p. 238. The number of academician
that of the Academie Frangaise.
forty in 1664 to bring it into line with
in
2 In 1661 the academy had to leave and go into the Palais Royal. It was only
1692 that it obtained its permanent residence in the Louvre.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

ic
academy — endeavoured to establish the rule of an academ
du
style. Within less than two years, Colbert obtained an Arret
the
Conseil (8 February 1663), ordering all privileged painters of
gourt to join the academy, failing which they would lose their
privileges. This decree, a logical continuation of the life-drawing
monopoly, was obeyed by all Brevetaires except Mignard and
a few others, who preferred to join the opposition movement of
the guild. The dictatorship was thus established. Absolutism had
successfully defeated that very independence of the individual
artist for which, less than a hundred years earlier, the first
academies had been founded. While apparently combating the
medieval conception of the guild, a system was substituted which
left less of the really decisive freedom to the painter and sculptor
than he had enjoyed under the rule of the guild, and infinitely
less than had been his under the privileges of the previous
French Kings.The great historical changes which had taken
place between the sixteenth century and the Siecle de Louis XIV
could not be illustrated more strikingly.
Just as Colbert did not create the economic system of Mer¬
cantilism, but spent his superhuman energy and industry in
putting it into operation, so was his part in the development of
the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture not the
foundation but the consummation of the system on which was to
be based its activity for the centuries to follow. The way in
which he saw the academy develop, first as its Vice-Protector
and after 1672 as its Protector, was bound to please him greatly.
Here were men whose aims, in matters of art, exactly coincided
with his economic aims. To make Mercantilism work, Colbert
had to break all local and provincial powers. One central
authority was to replace all that was left of particularism in
France. With unerring consistency his movements were directed
towards this goal. In 1664 customs boundaries between dif¬
ferent parts of France were abolished, in 1667 followed the
Ordonnance Civile, in 1669 the Ordonnance sur les Eaux et
Forets, in 1670 the Ordonnance Criminelle, in 1673 the Ordon¬
nance du Commerce, and in 1681 the Ordonnance de la Marine.
88
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

Every one of these meant a considerable increase in the strength

of the King and the Central Government. To establish in

France, with their aid, “ la maxime de l’ordre ”, was Colbert’s one

all-important aim.1 He did not intend to leave science and art
out of his schemes, and here the creation of academies seemed
the most promising method. The title of academician is of great
representational value ; in the age of Baroque, with all the im¬
portance that was attributed to titles and elaborate orders of
precedence, this was bound to be especially appreciated. By
offering this advantage to the scholar, the dilettante, the archi¬
tect, and the painter, they were lured into giving up their inde¬
pendence. The King’s (i.e. Colbert’s) desires and intentions
could be imposed far more directly upon a body of Royal
Academicians than upon a private society, a guild, or a uni¬
versity. So it was by most determinedly following one principle
that Colbert became the founder of one academy after another.
Their names and aims have been given in the first chapter of this
book. It will be enough here just to repeat the foundation dates :
1 66 1 Academie de Danse, 1663 Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres, 1666 Academie des Sciences, 1669 Academie de
Musique and 1671 Academie d’ Architecture.
As for painting and sculpture, it goes without saying that
separating the “Royal” artists from those of the towns, and con¬
centrating all the royal artists into one body, was a logical
outcome of Colbert’s theory of Absolutism as well as of Mer¬
cantilism. Thus one would expect to find in the programme of
the academy some reference to the importance of satisfactorily
developed arts for the prosperity of home industries — a stock
argument of eighteenth-century Mercantilists, as we shall see
later — this is, however, not the case. No mention of it appears
to be made in any of the early records of the academy.
89
The final organization of the academy rests upon Colbert’s
revised constitution, published as a royal decree on 24 December
1663 and accepted by Parliament on 14 May 1664. There were
1 The quotation is taken from E. Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. 7, pt 1, Paris, 1906,
p. 182.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

-
now Academistes — soon their name was changed into Acade
i.e.
miciens — Agrees and Lleves. The body of the academicians,
old
all members entitled to a vote, formed a hierarchy of manif
Baroque
gradation, expressed in the obvious manner which the
The Pro¬
liked by the order of the seats in the meeting-room.
Batiments
tector, usually at the same time Directeur-General des
r of the
(an extremely telling fact), was the highest office
academy. The Vice-Protector followed, and under him came
the Director. Lebrun was appointed director in 1683. There
were moreover four Rectors, twelve Professors, six (eight after
ns.
1 703) Councillors, and an unlimited number of academicia
Later on it proved necessary to relieve rectors and professors
by introducing two Adjoints aux Recteurs and eight Adjoints
aux Professeurs. The treasurer and the secretary were also
members of the council. From the start the title of Bienfacteur,
later replaced by that of Academicien Honoraire or Conseiller
Honoraire, was conferred on certain dilettanti, who took an
active interest in the academy. Academicien Honoraire was also
the title given in 1651 to Abraham Bosse, the famous engraver
and first teacher of perspective in the academy. “Conseiller
Amateur” was the corresponding term in 1689, when Poussin’s
friend and apostle Bellori was elected. Later the same honour
was conferred upon Roger de Piles, the “connaisseur de premier
ordre”, as the records of the academy call him on that occasion,
and during the eighteenth century upon Count Caylus, the

famous archaeologist (1731), Marquis d’Argenson, Voltaire’s

friend (1749), Mariette, the art-collector and lexicographer
(1750), and as a rule upon the Royal Architects, such as Robert
de Cotte (1699), the elder Gabriel (1700), the elder Blondel
(1707), Soufflot (1760), etc. No more than eight honorary
memberships were to be conferred. In 1747 this number was
doubled by creating a kind of lower grade honorary member¬
ship, called Associes Libres.1

1 Rules of 1663-4: Vitet, l.c. p. 261. Cf. also L. Aucoc, Ulnstitut de France, Paris,
1889, p. cxxviiiseq. “Academistes”: Proch-Verbaux, vol, 1, pp. 145, 195, etc. “Bien-
facteurs”: P.-V. vol. 1, p. 1. A. Bosse: P.-V. vol. 1, p. 58. Bosse later quarrelled with
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

As for the tasks of the various <cOfficiers”, the rectors were

responsible for management in general, the professors for the
educational side of the institution. They had to set the model, to
supply drawings to be copied by the beginners, and to correct the
efforts of the students. The professors served in rotation, one
every month. On Saturday a rector had to join in the super¬
vision. Business meetings took place twice a month, on the first
and the last Saturday. Officers were requested to appear, unless
they could give good reasons for their absence. This applies also
to the religious services of the academy, which, thanks to Lebrun’s
generosity, could soon be held in a special chapel at the church
of St Nicolas du Chardonnet. Exequies such as had been usual
at Florence are also occasionally mentioned. Certificates on
matters of art were several times supplied by the Academiciens.1
Their principal task, however, was educational. The social
aim of the academy was by no means forgotten, but as far as this
went, the various titles to be obtained by gradual promotion
satisfied the ambition of the French Baroque artists. Thus the
academy must to contemporaries of Lebrun have appeared
almost exclusively a school of art.2 To train students — and to
train them in one particular style of drawing and modelling, the
style of the King and the Court — was according to Colbert the
aim of the new institution, as he clearly expressed more than
once. The academy itself readily responded to this, as is shown,
for instance, in the following quotation from the minutes of

2 January 1693 : “ . . .la vue de devenir Peintres et Sculpteurs, ce

qui est le motif de l’etablissement de la Compagnie.”
Some details must now be given as to the curriculum of the
academy. One fact should be clearly understood, to begin with,
and that is that the Paris academy was never meant to deal with
the academy. He opposed its absolutism and tried to set up a counter-academy (cf.
Montaiglon, l.c. vol. 2, pp. 1 7 seq., 80 seq., also A. Blum, Abraham Bosse et la societe

frangaise au XVIIe sikle, Paris, 1924). “Associes Libres”: P.-V. vol.. 6, p. 65.
1 Lebrun’s chapel : P.-V. vol. 2, p. 248. Strangely enough this donation after a short
time fell into oblivion (cf. Jouin, l.c. p. 320). Exequies: e.g. P.-V. vol. 1, p. 386 seq.
Certificates: P.-V. vol. 2, p. 29; vol. 3, pp. 291, 314, etc.
2 So it did to the Encyclopaedists about 1 750. In vol. I Academie de Peinture is

defined simply as “une ecole publique. .

 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

the whole of the professional education of a young painter or

sculptor. He neither painted nor carved nor modelled figures or
reliefs during his working hours at the academy. All this he had
to learn in the studio, or, as one may safely say, the workshop of
his master, with whom he still lived and under whom he still
worked, in a way almost exactly identical with that of the Middle
Ages. The rules of 1663 allowed each academician to teach six
pupils. Nobody was admitted as a student to the academy, un¬
less he could produce a certificate from his master.1 The course
at the academy was divided into a lower and higher class. In the
lower class, the Salle du Dessin, students had to copy from the
drawings of the professors, the upper class did only or mainly
life-drawing. It is not quite clear whether drawing from plaster
casts and originals of classical sculpture was regarded as part of
the elementary or the advanced course. Its existence is, however,
proved by many records and also by contemporary engravings
(fig. 9). The sequence of drawing from drawings, drawing from
casts, drawing from the living model was regarded as the
foundation of the academic curriculum. Theorists such as
Felibien, in the fourth of his Conversations on the Lives and Works of
the most eminent Painters (1666), also pleaded for it, conscious or
unconscious of its being the old programme of Squarcione and
Leonardo. It remained valid right through the eighteenth and
far into the nineteenth century. In addition, lectures on per¬
spective, geometry and anatomy were given, and a reference
library was gradually built up.2
More urgently necessary, however, for the advance of art in

1 Students as pupils of academicians: P.-V. vol. I, p. 267; vol. 2, p. 197; also

Vitet, l.c. p. 274. Before 1663 members could not have as many as six of their pupils
attending the academy. In 1651 e.g. {P.-V. vol. 1, p. 54) only one student per master
seems to have been conceded. Certificates: P.-V. vol. 2, p. 290, etc.
2 Drawing from drawings: P.-V. vol. 2, pp. 290, 297, etc. Roman sculptures:
Colbert ordered in 1671 some figures from the Royal Collection to be removed to the

academy {P.-V. vol. 1, p. 366). Felibien considers it advisable “apres avoir dessine
quelque temps apr£s les dessins des meilleurs maitres, etudier les statues antiques”
and as soon as possible to turn “a la nature meme, qui est celle qui a donne les
lemons k tous les peintres qui ont jamais ete” (cf. A. Fontaine, Les Doctrines d’Art en
France de Poussin a Diderot, Paris, 1909, p. 48 seq.). Perspective, geometry, and anatomy
were taught as early as 1648 (cf. Montaiglon, l.c. vol. 1, p. 55 seq.).
 Fig. g. The programme of French art instruction in the eighteenth century

This engraving by C. N. Cochin the Younger, dated 1763, stands at the beginning
of the set of plates dealing with Design in Diderot’s and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedic.
It shows drawing from drawings on the left, drawing from the cast in the centre and
on the extreme right, and drawing from the nude in the background on the right.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

France than library, perspective or geometry and perhaps even

drawing, were deemed the discourses, which were to be de¬
livered at the business meetings before an audience of members
as well as students. In this the example of Zuccari’s lectures in
Rome is evident, just as evident as is the example of Italian late
Mannerism everywhere in French theory of art in the seven¬
teenth century. Italy had not developed a new philosophy of
art since the time of Zuccari — a fact well understandable to any¬
body who is aware of the contrast between the schematism of the
Mannerists and the free flow of Baroque art. So the works of
Lomazzo, Armenini and Zuccari were still the acknowledged
textbooks when Freart de Chambray, Felibien and Dufresnoy
brought out their treatises (1662, 1666, 1667), and when

Poussin’s friend Bellori published (and dedicated to Colbert) his

Lives in 1672.1
The discourses of the Paris academy had evidently above all

educational aims. This distinguishes them from Zuccari’s lec¬

tures, which were to be given by accomplished artists to accom¬
plished artists in order to produce by mutual help and discussion
a clear understanding of Art and its principles. It was not this
aspect that interested Colbert. He wished to obtain as a result of
the lectures what he once — in a very seventeenth-century way —
called “preceptes positifs”. These should be laid down in
writing and printed for the benefit of the young. Lebrun must
have been of exactly the same opinion, if his contemporary bio¬

grapher Niveton is right in saying that the Premier Peintre’s

idea had been to supply with the aid of the discourses definite
rules for young artists.2 No epoch, this is well known, has had so
unswerving a faith in clear, mathematically provable rules and
in arguments throughout accessible to reason as the golden age
of Absolutism, the epoch of Corneille (“ Ma passion pour vous . . .
a... la raison pour guide”), of Spinoza (“more geometrico”),
of Boileau (“ Aimez done la raison. Que toujours vos ecrits | em-
1 For the theory of art in France cf. besides Fontaine, l.c. and Dresdner, l.c. the
excellent synopsis of Julius von Schlosser in his Die Kunstliteratur , Vienna, 1924.
2 Colbert: Fontaine, l.c. p. 63. Lebrun: quoted from L. Hourticq, L Art
Academique”, Revue de Paris, 1904, p. 599.
93
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

pruntent d’elle seule et leur lustre et leur prix”). One passage

at least must be quoted to demonstrate the expression of this
faith in the theory of art. Freart de Ghambray in his Idee de la
Perfection de la Peinture (1662) calls Sgavants, i.e. real art experts,
only those who “examinent et jugent les choses a la maniere des
Geometres”.1
In order to facilitate such exact judgments on a work of art,
the usual procedure in the academic lectures as well as the con¬
temporary books was to analyse a picture — it was usually one
from the royal collections— according to various categories to be
discussed one after another. Nobody seems to have raised any
objection to this dissecting method, and consequently no one can

have had any feeling for the spiritual oneness of the artist’s
creative activity, or of its product. One should recall the fact
that this change of aesthetic outlook did not take place until the
second half of the eighteenth century, before one interprets and
passes sentence upon the works of Lebrun and his followers

according to criteria not in existence at their time. Freart’s

categories are invention, proportion, colour, expression and com¬
position. Lebrun analysed Poussin’s pictures in his academic
lectures according to very similar categories. The final stage of
this system is reached by Testelin, the secretary of the academy,
in his Tables de Preceptes published in 1680, in which he briefly
sums up all the rules laid down by the academy, and by Roger
de Piles in his Balance des Peintres of 1 708, the notorious book, in
which marks from 0-80 are given to all famous painters according
to the value of their composition, expression, design (drawing)
and colour.2
Invention was to be noble, and Lebrun considered the presence

1 The quotation is from W. Fraenger, Die Bildanalysen des R. Freart de Chambray,

Heidelberg, 1917.
2 65: Raphael, Rubens; 58: Carracci; 56: Domenichino; 56: Lebrun; 53:
Poussin; 51: Titian; 50: Rembrandt; 49: G. Romano, Tintoretto, Lesueur, Leo¬
nardo; 48: Cortona, Holbein; 45: Sarto, Teniers; 43: Correggio; 42: Guercino;
41 : Palma Giovane; 39: Giorgione; 37: Michelangelo, Parmigianino; 36: Durer; 31 :
Bassano; 30: Perugino; 27: Palma Vecchio; 24: Giovanni Bellini. This odd docu¬
ment represents a later stage in the history of French taste than that of the first years
of the academy, as will be shown in the text on p. 105.

94
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

of such vulgar beasts as the camels in Poussin’s Eliezer and

Rebecca, or ox and ass in Carracci’s Adoration of the Shepherds,
an offence against this rule. The subject of a picture should also
have a didactic value. Therefore, just as amongst Mannerists in

the Cinquecento, allegories of all kinds (“ tableaux enigmatiques ”,

Felibien) were especially appreciated. Lebrun has in one of his
lectures ventured upon a most elaborate interpretation of

Poussin’s Assumption of St Paul, with allegoric explanations of

every gesture and every colour ; a piece of work that seems more
in harmony with the spirit of the Speculum Humanae Salva-
tionis than with anything that Poussin can have intended.
Another consequence of the same principle was the contempt of
all “genres mineurs”, i.e. anything that did not come under the
heading of ‘ ‘ Histoire ” . In F elibien’s book a scale of value of the
various subjects in painting can be found, which widely in¬
fluenced the generations to follow. Still-lifes are at the bottom
of the scale, landscapes are slightly preferable, pictures of
animals range higher by another grade, because they treat of a
higher form of life. As superior as humanity to the world of the
animals is the portrait to the animal piece. Histories, however,
are of necessity far more valuable than the realistic presentation
of individual beings.
As for the category of expression, this seemed — at the instance
of Descartes’s psychology — an especially promising field of dis¬
cussion. Again Lebrun goes farther than anybody in his elaborate
description and analysis of the various shapes of faces and expres¬
sions corresponding to different characters and moods. Propor¬
tion remained completely under the guidance of the canons of
Antiquity. Poussin set the example by his measurings of Roman
statues, which Bellori later published. Up to the sixteen-
seventies, Antiquity was moreover the unchallenged pattern for
most of the attitudes and gestures in painting. Even nature had
to be corrected, if she did not tally with Greek and Roman
sculptures. Rome was considered more essential to the creation
of a perfect work of art than Nature. In close connection with
this is the thesis of the ascendency of outline ( = trait or dessin)
95
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

over colour. Drawing is called by Lebrun “le pole et la boussole

qui nous regie”, and by Felibien “la premiere (partie) et la plus
essentielle de la peinture”. Colour, on the other hand, ranges
in Dufresnoy’s book as a mere “supplementum graphidis”.1
These few quotations on the theory of art from French authors
contemporary with Colbert and Lebrun may serve to give an
idea of the principles underlying the academic tuition in lectures
and the drawing classes.

Enough has now been said to judge the character of the educa¬
tion imparted by the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculp¬
ture. The difference as well as the similarity between this system
and that of the Accademia di S. Luca have also been sufficiently
stressed. The chief progress made is, however, most clearly re¬
vealed by the fact that a set time-table was observed in Paris.
For the casual and semi-private practice into which the Roman
academy had relapsed so soon after its foundation, a reign of
rule was now substituted. The life-class had to be attended
from 6 to 8 in the morning during the Summer months, and

from 3 to 5 in the afternoon (“a la lampe”) in the Winter.

Students were also encouraged to draw in the rooms of the
academy at other times, particularly from the existing plaster
casts. Perspective was taught on Wednesday and Saturday
mornings, anatomy also on Saturdays. Lessons were not given
free, although this had been planned. During the earliest de¬
cades pupils of academicians had to pay 5 sous per week. Sons
of academicians were at first exempt from fees. That the trans¬
mission of the artistic profession from father to son was con¬
sidered so much a matter of course (as in fact it was with the
Coypels, the Goustous, the Van far we
Loos, etc.) shows how
still are from the conception of art and artist which predominated

1 Lebrun on Poussin’s Assumption of St Paul : Conferences ine'dites of the academy,

edited by A. Fontaine, pp. 77 seqq. Felibien’s scale of subjects : Fontaine, l.c. pp. 56, 57.
Lebrun’s Methode pour apprendre a dessiner les Passions appeared first at Paris in 1667.
Antiquity and human figure: e.g. Freart’s ParalUle de V architecture antique et de la moderne ,
Paris, 1650. Antiquity superior to Nature: Dufresnoy, Fontaine, l.c. p. 18. Lebrun on
dessin: Conferences inedites, l.c. p. 39. Felibien on dessin: 4th Entretien. Dufresnoy on
colour: “De Arte Graphica”, Fontaine, l.c. p. 19.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

in the nineteenth century. Fees for masters and sons of masters

were fixed in 1656 at 10 sous as against 5 sous for the sons of
academicians. It was only in 1683, when Louvois had suc¬
ceeded Colbert that the academy was ordered to drop fees
entirely. The new system first worked in 1684 and soon com¬
plaints appeared about overcrowding in the life-class. In 1689
a monthly examination of all the drawings done in the academy
was suggested, in order to eliminate unsuitable students or at
least to move them back to the elementary class. While this
proposal as well as the entrance certificate from an academician
which was required for being admitted to the academy
were to
act as a protection against the influx of inferior talents, royal
scholarships had been introduced as a help for those exception¬
ally talented but poor. There were ten scholarships in 1689.
The number was however reduced to five in 1 696 because of the
political troubles of 1693 and the following years — unlucky war¬
fare, famine and discontent. The same reason probably accounts
for the reintroduction of fees in 1699, although it is not quite
clear whether they had ever really been given up. There is at
any rate a record of 1692, the year when the royal grant for the
academy was increased, ordering the council to abolish fees at
once. Their ultimate abrogation dates from the early eighteenth
century.1
Amongst the advantages of the academy which ranged highest
in the mind of the students was no doubt the exemption from
military service; amongst those most valuable to the institution
itself was the life-drawing monopoly. It seems almost impossible
actually to enforce a decree of this kind, and yet we find in 1662
and again in 1677 that students were warned and fined because
they had combined to hire a model and draw from the nude.
1 Time-table: Prods-Verbaux, vol. i, pp. 118, 146; vol. 1, p. 99 and vol. 2, p. 55;
vol. 1, pp. 96, 192 and vol. 2, p. 1; vol. 1, p. 401. For a short time perspective was
taught on Mondays and Saturdays, vol. 1, p. 401. Fees, 5 sous: P.- V. vol. 1, p. 54.
According to the Memoires (vol. 1, p. 70 seq.) the fee was 10 sous. Raised fees: P.-V.
vol. 1, p. 1 19. Abolition of fees: P.-V. vol. 2, pp. 266, 268. Overcrowded life-class:
P.-V. vol. 3, p. 21. Scholarships: P.-V. vol. 3, pp. 60, 103, 181, etc. Warning of 1692:
P.-V. vol. 3, p. 1 19. Fees reintroduced 1699: P.-V. vol. 3, p. 267. Final abolition:
P.-V. vol. 4, p. 32.
PA
97 7
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

and that
There was only one exception granted in the decree,
micians.
but underlined the privileged position of the acade
rawings
Officers of the academy were allowed to do life-d
their
privately in their studios, in the presence of pupils living in
houses.1
was the
A particularly conspicuous feature of academic life
prize-giving celebrations held at regular intervals. Here again
the idea was derived from Rome and only systematized in Paris.
fees.
At first, prizes were simply a reduction or remission of
Later, medals were distributed four times a year as Petits Prix,
and once a year a Grand Prix was offered. To compete for this
ts.
was, however, the privilege of only a small selection of studen
A preliminary sifting-out took place based on examination draw¬
ings done in the presence of academicians. Those who had
passed this first test were allowed to submit a sketch interpreting
a given (usually biblical) theme. On the strength of the sketches,
the candidates were chosen for the final test, which consisted of
carrying out a picture or relief from the sketch while in a locked
cell within the academy. A public exhibition of the works thus
produced was held, criticism was invited, and at long last the
council chose the student worthy of the highest award. An
extremely Baroque procedure, cumbrous and of an intricate, as
it were, pyramidal gradation.2 Besides the exhibitions of
students’ prize drawings, there were also exhibitions of works
done by the members of the academy. The first of these were
held in 1667 and 1669, but here no real regularity was as yet

attained. Only ten exhibitions during Louis XIV’ s reign are

recorded, and to trace the gradual evolution of the Paris Salons
from these beginnings would be outside the scope of this book.
The crowning award for a student, an award beyond even the

1 Cf. P.-V. vol. 1, p. 197 seq. ; vol. 2, p. 108; vol. 2, p. 33.

2 Remission of fees: P.-V. vol. 1, p. 208. Petits Prix: P.-V. vol. 2, p. 290, etc.
Grands Prix: as an instance of the subjects given, the theme may be quoted which
Fragonard had to paint in 1752 when he competed for the Grand Prix: Jeroboam
worshipping idols. A subject so detached from any immediate interest could only be
satisfactorily treated by artists trained to regard their job much more as a matter of
knowledge and competence than of personal expression.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

Grand Prix, was the Prix de Rome, i.e. a schol

arship usually for
four years to live at the Academie de France in Rome. This
branch
of the Paris academy for it can be called that, altho
ugh in the
time of Louis XIV not only students from the Academie
Royale
but also quite frequently proteges of influential courtiers were
gi anted scholarships was inaugurated in 1666, accor
ding to a
plan which dates back to 1664, ^ie year of the publicatio
n of
Colbert s new code of rules. Colbert had intended to
appoint
Poussin its first director. However, Poussin died before the
matter came up. The draft of Colbert’s letter to Poussin which
was never despatched is still in existence and contains all that is
wanted to understand the aims of the new institution. A few
young artists were to live at the academy, free from financial

anxieties, “sous la direction de quelque excellent maitre qui les

conduisit dans leur etude, qui leur donnat le bon gout et la
maniere des anciens ”. At the same time these royal beneficiaries
were to serve the interest of the King, and that meant of Colbert’s
policy of Mercantilism, by producing and sending to Paris copies
of all the most valuable works of art in Rome. In a letter of
1679 to Charles Errard, first director of the academy, Colbert
asked for an index “de tout ce qu’il y a de beau a Rome en
statues, bustes, vases antiques et tableaux, en marquant en
marge ce que vous avez desja fait copier et ceux qui restent encore
a faire copier, ou en peinture ou en sculpture”. This scheme of
Colbert’s is of considerable historical significance. It glaringly
elucidates his outlook on both art and national economics. Just
as it was considered desirable that French workers should be
enabled to produce on French soil for French consumption
Venetian glass, Venetian lace, English cloth, German lead and
brass so that no capital was lured out of the country, Roman
Antiquity and Renaissance were also to be made available to the
people of Paris by the work of the Rome scholars. The difference
between original and copy did not occur to Colbert and his
advisers, nor did the irreplaceable value of the Italian atmo¬
sphere. And this apparently inartistic outlook was by no means
confined to the politician. Lebrun probably shared it to a large

99
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

extent. It can serve as another proof of the undeniable fact that

to the academicians a work of art was not intrinsically an integer,
but a sum of individual attitudes and gestures, of anatomy, com¬
position, etc. This was different with the young. To them no
doubt, in 1670 as in 1870 or to-day, Rome meant fullness of
experience first and foremost, the thrill of an unsophisticated life,
and of art happily blended with such a life. “Les peintres sont
disgoustes de copier”, writes the second director, Noel Coypel.1
This attitude could not be changed by any minister nor any
director. So the pressure was relieved whenever supervision
from Paris or discipline in Rome began to slacken, but it was,
until the second half of the eighteenth century, reinforced every
time reforms of the institute were considered, and this in spite of
the scepticism with which the Rococo regarded Raphael and the
“Anciens”. Life-drawing took place daily; the director was
responsible for setting the model. Lessons in mathematics and
anatomy were also provided, at first even with specially ap¬
pointed teachers.
When the four years of a Rome scholar had come to an end
and he returned to France, two courses were open to him, just as
to other students of the academy. He could obtain the freedom

of a painter’s company in any French town by presenting a

certificate from his academician-master as to the time of
apprenticeship which he had duly observed in his workshop and
at the academy. That was the medieval way. But he could also

— the new and modern way — apply for the “agree ’’-ship of the
academy. The application was subject to the student having
taken part in one of the Grand-Prix competitions, to his being
introduced by an officer of the academy and accepted by the
Protector. If these conditions were satisfactorily fulfilled, the
candidate had to do a piece of work at the academy. On the
strength of this he was accepted or refused. Every Agree had

1 H. Lapauze, Histoire de P Academie de France a Rome. 2 vols. Paris, 1924, vol. 1,

p. 42. Cf. also J. P. Alaux, L’ Academie de France a Rome , ses Directeurs, ses Pensionnaires,
2 vols. Paris, 1933. Colbert’s plan: P.-V. vol. 1, pp. 266, 273. Letter to Poussin:
Lapauze, l.c. vol. 1, p. 2. Letter to Errard: ib. p. 33.
IOO
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

after a fixed number of years (three in 1777) to try for the higher
dignity of Academicien. If he was successful in this, a sum of at
least £50 had to be put down and a reception piece presented.
These pieces which, just as in the Italian academies, remained in
the possession of the institute and helped to build up a “diploma
gallery”, seem only in rare cases to have been sent in punctually.
Complaints about tardy deliveries frequently occur in the Proces-
Verbaux of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.1 The
advantages of such a clearly delineated career are obvious. The
ambition of a young artist was continually incited from the
moment when he first entered the elementary class. He could
hope to climb from step to step, until he was an Academicien
himself. And as there was an unlimited number of Academi-
ciens, every talented (and reasonable) painter and sculptor had
the best possible chance of sooner or later attaining this goal
which was only the beginning of a new ascent, perhaps leading
up to the coveted dignities of Professeur or even Recteur. Thus
the social uncertainty of the seventeenth-century artist who was
no longer sheltered by universally accepted guild life was con¬
verted into an ingeniously adapted civil-servantdom of typical
Louis XIV character, equally alien to sixteenth-century and to
nineteenth-century academies of art.
This much of the system of organization ruling the Academie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Something must now be
said about its history under Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Three phases must be distinguished: the glory of the time of
Colbert, an unmistakable decline during the first half of the
eighteenth century, and a short phase of attempted reforms
under the influence of the Enlightenment. This last phase, how-
1 Cf. e.g. P.-V. vol. 1, pp. 74, 75; vol. 2, p. 361, etc. Pellegrini, the famous Venetian
painter, who worked in England for several years about 1710, and again in 1719,
applied in 1720, but sent his piece de reception only in 1733 {P.-V. vol. 4, p. 308; vol. 5,
p. 133). Amongst reception pieces, portraits, still-lifes and genre paintings are by no
means missing, but the most characteristic subjects are probably topical allegories
such as The suppression of heresy by the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, or The
Restauration of Catholic faith at Strasbourg (P.-V. vol. 2, pp. 323, 237). Fee of £50:
P.-V. vol. 1, p. 268. Originally the sum was only £20 (Montaiglon, l.c. p. 70).
Freedom of a company: e.g. P.-V. vol. 3, pp. 8, 18, 167, etc.
IOI
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

ever, extends beyond the crucial line of demarcation which we

have to draw about 1750, and therefore has to be discussed in
the next chapter.
When Colbert in the sixties brought out the final constitution
of the academy, its reputation as the leading European body of
its kind was firmly established. The Accademia di S. Luca gave
in without opposition. The dates illustrating this inglorious
defeat have been given in earlier pages. In 1672 Errard, the
director of the French academy in Rome, was made Principe
of the Accademia di S. Luca, and in 1676 a pro forma amalgama¬
tion was carried out. Lebrun was in absentia elected Principe
in Rome, the sculptor Domenico Guidi Recteur in Paris — a
significantly uneven barter. The amalgamation had no practical
consequence except that students of one academy were allowed
to work and compete for prizes in the other, but it was executed
with enough Baroque pompousness to make it a great occasion
in the eyes of contemporary artists, and it is in fact a highly
remarkable symbol of the newly acquired French ascendency
over Italy in matters of art.
Concurrently with the royal consent to the amalgamation, the
academy in Paris was presented on 26 November 1676 with
another favour of similar importance. A painter named Blanchet
had asked for the approbation of an art school or Ecole Acade-
mique which he wished to open at Lyons. This occasion was
used for officially authorizing the Paris academy to found
branch schools in provincial towns. The idea of thus subordi¬
nating to the one central institution art schools all over France

was very much in harmony with Colbert’s guiding principle.1

Despite this, the decree did not bear immediate fruits. The
Lyons school was not started after all, nor was one at Reims, the
plan for which dates from 1677. The only branch school existing
at the end of the seventeenth century was that of Bordeaux,
founded in 1691, and carried on in a small way for a short time.

1 Amalgamation with Rome: P.-V. vol. 2, pp. 68, 77, 89. Cf. also Aucoc, l.c.
p. cxlv seq. Foundation of provincial branch schools: Aucoc, l.c. p. cxl seq. ; Blanchet,
P.-V. vol. 2, p. 79.
102
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

It may be that this failure marks the first symptom of the

beginning of a decline. Strong reasons for a downgrade develop¬
ment of the academy at that time are evident. Louvois, for one,
took much less interest in the academy than his predecessor
Colbert whom he succeeded in 1693. Mignard, appointed
by
him director instead of Lebrun, had lived in strict opposition to
the academy for many years. On the day of his forced election
he had to be made Academicien, Adjoint-Professeur, Professeur,
Adjoint-Recteur, and Recteur in order to be eligible to the
directorship. “Soumission auxordres de Monseigneur nostre
Protecteur” is what the council called its approval of the new
head.1 A second cause of the decreasing authority of the
academic body is a change of taste first heralded soon after its
establishment. It is the reflection on art of what is commonly
known as the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. The
Anciens, as far as painting goes, were called the Poussinistes, the
Modernes Rubenistes. Disputes between these two parties began
in the academy in 1671. The Rubenistes were led by Roger de
Piles, a cultured dilettante and writer, and a broad-minded con¬
noisseur in spite of his Balance des Peintres. The controversy went
on for over twenty years and ended in 1699 with Roger de
Piles’s election to an honorary membership, a triumph of the
party of the Modernes. The academy in admitting the point of
view of the Rubenistes had parted with its fundamental principle
of the exclusive validity of rule and form. Couleur became an
accepted value as important as dessin , and sentiment was allowed
to guide the judging of pictures where before the application of
fixed precepts had reigned. Venetian qualities were appreciated
besides Roman, and Flemish besides French. While thus the
dictatorship of taste was seriously shaken, the dictatorship of the
academy as an institution was likewise endangered. As is
always the case in history, inner and outer causes collaborated
to one end. The vicissitudes of warfare in the nineties enforced a

103 grant. This had, thanks to

rigorous curtailing of the academy’s
Colbert, been raised from £1000 to £4000 in 1664, the sum to
1 P.-V. vol. 3, p. 31.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

rectors, £100 to
be spent as follows: £300 to each of the four
geometry
each of the twelve professors, £600 to the teachers of
for prizes,
and anatomy, £500 for model, oil, chalk, etc., £400
ned another
-£ioo for maintainance, etc.1 In 1692 Colbert obtai
academy
rise: from -£4000 to ^6000. Now, all of a sudden, the
entirely,
was requested on 24 April 1694 to stop its activities
n was
because funds were no longer available. The institutio
carried on
only saved by the good-will of the professors, who
¬
temporarily without salary. The King appreciated this gener
osity and conceded £ 2000 for other expen ses. At last, in 1699, the

grant was restored to £4000 and this relatively small sum

remained the annual income of the academy for a long time.
The development of the Roman branch during these years of
anxiety was very similar. Perspective and anatomy lessons were
stopped in 1694 and not re-established until 1700. The then
director La Teuliere, himself not an artist, tried his best to con¬
duct the academy through the difficulties. He could not count
on regular remittances from Paris. Often he had to help out of
his own pocket. The equipment of the building, always lar from
luxurious, got into a dangerously rickety state. There was no
longer much honour to be got out of this directorship, and
that may primarily have caused one of the later directors,
Poerson, a man obviously less enthusiastic and conscientious than
La Teuliere, to suggest in 1707 a complete abolition of the
Roman academy. In a letter to Hardouin-Mansart, Directeur-
General des Batiments and Protector of the academy, written
while the Austrian army was ante portas, he argued thus: Not
much good architecture exists in Rome anyway. France,
especially in the buildings by Hardouin-Mansart, offers a better
chance for students to learn what is worth learning. The frescoes
in Rome are in bad condition, and have moreover been in¬
accessible to French students for a long time. These arguments
forcibly demonstrate the change of taste which had affected
Rome as well as Paris. The same Poerson insisted in another
IO4
letter on the necessity of students’ visits to North Italy so that
1 P.-V. vol. 1, p. 248 seq.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

they might get the benefit of what Venetian or Lombard pictures

could teach them. A suggestion of this kind tells of such an utter
disregard of the original reason which had led to the establish¬
ment of the Roman academy that Poerson’s other proposal
appears quite justified after this. The closing-down of the
institute might have gone through, had not the Marquis d’Antin,
Directeur des Batiments after Hardouin-Mansart, energetically
objected and at times privately paid its needs.1
The abolition of the Paris academy was not considered even in
the worst years of military defeats and imminent bankruptcy.
But its absolute rulership in matters of taste was over all the
same. To the artists of the Regence the quarrel between
Poussinists and Rubenists seemed out-of-date and irrelevant.
They were both accepted, and now no longer only by certain
collectors and amateurs, but also by the very directors of the
academy. No wonder that this laxity had an effect on the
academic lectures. Only rarely, after the late seventeenth
century, were they delivered by the directors or rectors. They
now usually formed one of the tasks of the historiographer to the
academy. M. Guillet de St Georges, who held this post from
1682 to 1705, was especially interested in them, and it is a telling
fact that original contributions to the theory of the arts decreased
in number, while reports on the lives of past members became
the rule. If a theoretical theme was preferred, the most common
solution was to read an old lecture.2 Little thought was given to
matters of principle. Most of the rules of the Classic theory were
not officially contradicted, but just neglected in practice and
hardly mentioned. Revolutionary utterances one would seek in
vain in the Proces-Verbaux of the academy. If they happened
at all, it was in private, as in the case of Boucher, who warned a

1 Lapauze, l.c. vol. 1, pp. 101, 151 seq. Poerson’s letter about journeys to Venice:
Correspondance des Directeurs de VAcademie de France a Rome, vol. 4, Paris, 1893, p. 96
2 E.g. P.-V. vol. 2, pp. 29, 291; vol. 3, p. 314, etc. Indifference to the Querelle:
Antoine Coypel, cf. Fontaine, l.c. p. 165 seq.; Charles Coypel, ib. p. 1 7 1 seq. Early
IO5
proofs from the Proces-Verbaux: 7 October 1713 and 3 November 1718. Later on
Watelet in Diderot’s Encyclopedic (vol. 4: “Dessin”) has called the whole quarrel an
“abus de l’esprit”.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

young German painter, Mannlich, before he started off for Italy,

not to concern himself too much with Raphael, who “in spite of
his fame is a miserable artist”. Fontaine and others have tried
to trace what little there is of systematic art theory in the lectures
and writings of French eighteenth-century painters and ama¬
teurs. The qualities which he found praised everywhere are
“variete”, “enjouement”, “graces”. One consequence of this
is that the old scale of subjects could no longer be regarded as
valid; still-life was now of the same importance as history and
mythology.1 All this was bound to deprive the academy of a
great part of its glamour, and it is certainly not by accident that
the guild returned to the fray just at this moment. The masters
had in 1672 obtained permission to hold a private life-course for
their own benefit and that of their sons and apprentices. After
1723 this enterprise appears in the records again as Academie de
S. Luc, and the new name is made official in the rules of 173°-
Instruction was now given with two Recteurs, twelve Professeurs
and twelve Adjoints without any protest being filed by the Royal
Academy. Since 1751 the Maitrise had even ventured to arrange
exhibitions apart from the Salons, and again we do not know of
any complaint.2 It also cannot be an accident that between 1 702
and 1722 the distribution of Grands Prix had to be cancelled nine
times for lack of adequate candidates, and that between 1715 and
1 735 a greater number of painters from abroad was accepted into

1 Boucher : E. Stollreither’s edition of Mannlich’s memoirs (Ein deutscher Maler und

Hofmann, Berlin, 1910, vol. 1, p. 59). “Variete”, etc. : Fontaine, l.c. p. 169 (A. Coypel).
No scale of subjects: D’Argenville, AbregS , Paris, 1762, vol. 1, p. xviii.
2 Cf. Guiffrey, l.c. pp. 20seqq., and Histoire Generate de la Ville de Paris, part 12,
“Les Metiers et Corporations”, by R. de Lespinasse, Paris, 1886 seqq., vol. 2, p. 214.
The new rules of 1730 and the following history of the guild in the eighteenth century
show a second stage in the process of social sifting, the first stage of which had been the
foundation of the Academie Royale. In 1664 a line of demarcation had been drawn
for ever between court-artists and artists of the bourgeoisie. Now this lower class split
again, and artists worthy of the name were to be separated from mere artisans.
E.g. Argenson, who had accepted the protectorship of the guild academy, planned com¬
petitions by which those within the guild who were real artists could be recognized and
picked out. They alone should be entitled to the name of academicians. This scheme
was not carried out, but in 1 766 an open struggle between artists and non-artists broke
out in the Communaute. It went on for years, and was only terminated by the aboli¬
tion of all guilds in 1776 which will be mentioned in the text of the following chapter.
I06
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

the academy than ever before (1717: Boit ; 1 7 1 8 : S.

Ricci 51720:
Pesne and Rosalba Carriera; 1732: Pannini; 1733:
Pellegrini).
Its very weakness and irresolution, however, prevented
the
academy from embarking upon any serious reforms. The leading
artists felt how unsafe the foundation of the institution had be¬
come, but were too indifferent or sceptical to take steps. Their
attitude was very similar to that which made the philosophers
of
the Enlightenment tolerate church and government. Not until
the outbreak of the revolution were changes of any impor
tance
started. Just as a hundred years earlier, students still received
their principal training in the workshops of their masters with
whom they had board and lodging. Admission to the academy
still depended on the master’s Lettre de Protection. Teaching
was still (according to the Encyclopedie , s.v. Academie de Peinture )
confined to two hours a day “ecole publique”. The model was
set twice a week. Female models were still forbidden.1 And the
minutes of the academicians’
meetings are still filled with the
same type of affairs as in Lebrun’s time : in 1 758 — to pick out
one year at random — the following matters are reported: New-
Year s reception at the house of the Directeur-General des

Batiments, reading out of New-Year’s cards received, reading

out of the rules in full, reading of a lecture originally held some
time before by the then director Antoine Coypel, appointment of
a teacher of perspective and his adjoint, election of an adjoint
au professeur, rendering of accounts, reading out of the farewell
letter of a member gone abroad, distribution of medals, certificate
on the necessity of transferring on to a new canvas Raphael’s
picture of St John, presentation of an engraving to be registered
and provided with an academic privilege of publication, dis¬
cussion on a proposed alteration of the seating arrangement in the
life-class, admission of new agrees, examination of the works sub¬
mitted for the Grand Prix, distribution of prizes, fixing of a date

1 Lettres de Protection: e.g. P.-V. vol. 8, p. 229 (1776). Female models: as late as
1790 the application of some students to Ibe O7 allowed a female model in their cells
while working at a competition was refused (P.-V. vol. 10, p. 57). The same rule was
rigidly kept in the Academie de France a Rome (Lapauze, l.c. vol. 1, p. 288).
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

for a requiem, vote of thanks to Count Caylus for a Roman statue

presented, agreement on the subject of a picture to be carried
out by a candidate.
This example of some of the activities of the Paris academy
about 1750 may close our account of its history. If this account
has been more detailed than that of any other art institution, the
reason is that none has ever been so powerful, none so influential
as the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Various
causes led to this result, causes which we have traced in the
general history of the time, the history of style, the social history
of art, and in permanent national qualities of the French. One
further cause can now be added which is more closely connected
with the particular organization of the Paris academy. It has
been pointed out that an unlimited number of members could be
admitted. There was no question of Forty Immortals and no
more. Every talented artist could count on being accepted at a
comparatively early age. It was, above all in the eighteenth
century, not really a matter of a certain orthodox creed in
art. Watteau became a member without difficulty, nor were
Fragonard or Chardinleft out. This more than anything must
have helped to keep the academy afloat during an age not in

sympathy with its governing ideas. Had Colbert’ s and Lebrun’s

relentless centralism still ruled, perhaps the sceptical minds of
the Rococo would have let the institution die out. One must
clearly understand this rather complex position of the Paris
academy. It survived the licence of Regence and Rococo mainly
because it allowed the reins of its organization to get a little
looser without on the other hand giving up any essentials of its
character. Colbert’s plan had not been looseness but tightness,
not tolerance but dictatorship. That is what has made his
academy. Without the firmly established, because once en¬
forced, power of the academy it could not have afforded to be
mild and broad-minded later on.
Colbert’s centralism remained the creative idea, distinguishing
the academy of 1660 not only from that of the Rococo but also
from that of the Cinquecento. In Florence and Rome the
108
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

problem had still been that of the Renaissance: freedom of the

artist from the fetters of medieval guild organization. It was the
same problem that had engaged the Humanists of the late
fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries, although its final
realization in the Accademia del Disegno and the Accademia di
S. Luca took place under the auspices of so schematic and intri¬
cate a style as Mannerism. So, while the form of the first
academies, being decidedly Post-Renaissance, could still be
utilized by the Paris academy of the seventeenth century, its
real contents were in strict opposition to those of Lebrun’s and
Colbert’s creation. For though Colbert also wanted to sever art
from guild, his only aim in carrying this out was to tie art more
firmly to the court and the central government. Guild organb
zation seemed humiliating to him as well as to Vasari and
Zuccari. However, while dignity and freedom were the motto
of the struggle in the Cinquecento, it was now dignity and
service.
We shall have to refer to this fundamental difference on
various occasions in the chapters to follow. For the example of
what had been achieved in Paris influenced decisively almost
every one of the contemporary art academies. But the high tide
of this influence set in only about 1750 and is therefore to be dis¬
cussed later. During the seventeenth century it can be traced
but rarely, during the first half of the eighteenth century not
much more frequently. It must be the task of the remaining
pages of this chapter to investigate where, and in what respect,
early effects of the Paris system on European art schools can be
found.
On territory which is now, but was not at that time, French,
namely in the capital of Lorraine, Nancy, an academy was
opened in 1702. This does not, however, appear to have at¬
tained any importance other than local.1 In Italy several
significant alterations under obvious Paris influence were carried
out in the two existing governmental
I
academies. The Accademia
O9
del Disegno at Florence seems to have made new efforts to recover
1 Cf. Chennevieres, l.c. p. 51.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

its original reputation after about 1640.1 It now opened a branch

in Rome under Ercole Ferrata and Ciro Ferri, two outstanding
and distinctly modern artists. That was in 1673, i.e. some years
after the foundation of the Academie de France a Rome. At
last, in 1686 organized teaching was established and put into the
hands of so-called Assistenti. From 1706 onward there were also
public academic exhibitions, arranged, incidentally, in the
cloisters of the SS. Annunziata. In 1716a reference library and
collection of drawings, engravings, and plaster casts were started,
u¬
and in 1737 the academy adopted the system of annual distrib
tions of prizes.2
Even more evidently dependent on Paris is what the Ac-
cademia di S. Luca in Rome did to bring its organization up-to-
date. The election of Poussin and Errard as Principi (1658,

1672) and the pro forma amalgamation with the Academie

Royale (1678) have been mentioned before. In the eighteenth
1 Up to the thirties the minutes are still predominantly concerned with law cases,
valuations of works of art, elections of officers, etc. Still, the fact that in 1630 the
academy was asked to express its views about plans for the facade of the cathedral
shows that the authorities were prepared to regard it as more than a mere guild
(Archivio di Stato, Acc. del Dis. ix, x, civ, cf. Ticciati, l.c. chap. 1). In 1636 Giovanni
Carlo, a brother of the Grand Duke, was made Protector (Acc. del Dis. x), in 1637 a
resolution to reprint the old rules of 1585 was passed (ib. x), in 1638 the chair of
mathematics, deserted since about 1600, was refounded (ib. clvi, cf. Ticciati, l.c.
chap. 5), and— what is more important — on 26 June of the same year we find for the
first time in the history of the academy a record proving the existence of a regular life-
course (ib. cv). Even this course was, however, not a class, but arranged for the
benefit of the professors themselves (“accio li professori fussero meglio serviti”,
22 September 1649, ib. xi, p. 21), i.e. nothing more than an opportunity to do in a
governmental academy what was done in the studio academies everywhere in Italy.
For the following years, I found drawing from the model “che sta al naturale”
mentioned: 1644, 1648, 1649, 1650 (ib. x, xi). In 1638 and more strongly in 1649 the
academy urged the re-establishment of reception-pieces (ib. x, under 14 March 1638;
xi, under 14 March and 30 July; cf. Ticciati, l.c. chap. 3). It can be regarded as a last
symptom of the returning reputation of the academy that from the forties onward a
greater number of members of the Florentine nobility wanted to join the academy
(ib. xi). Alessandro Medici, archbishop of Florence, had incidentally been a member
as early as the twenties, and Galileo Galilei had joined in 1613.
2 Cf. Ticciati, l.c. chap. 1 for branch academy, Rome, and chap. 3 for Assistenti.
There was at first one Assistente a fortnight, making twenty-six for a year. The number
was reduced to twelve in 1717. Exhibitions : Cavallucci, l.c. p. 39. The first exhibition
at the SS. Annunziata had been held in 1680. It was solemnly opened by Francesco
Maria Medici. Later exhibitions took place in 1724, 1729, 1737, 1767. Library and
Collection: Ticciati, l.c. chap. 3; distribution of prizes, ib. chap. 1.

I IO
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

century, too, directors of the Academie de France a Rome were

sometimes directors of the Roman academy: Poerson (1714-18
and 1721-22) and J.-F. de Troy (1744). In 1671 Bellori re¬
introduced the lectures on theory which for so long — actually
since Zuccari’s death — had been obsolete. Pietro da Cortona’s
attempt to revive them while he was Principe (1634-38) had
failed, owing to the indifference of his colleagues. Now addresses
on art in its various aspects are to be found in the records of the
academy of 1673, 1680 and regularly year by year after the
great centenary celebration of the academy which was held in
1695 on the Capitol. At the same time the teaching part of the
original programme was taken up again. In 1673 it was stipu¬
lated that life-courses and anatomy lectures were to be in the
mornings, architecture and perspective in the afternoons. Com¬
petitions and distributions of prizes were also started. In future,
membership of the academy was to be confined to former prize¬
winners. An academic exhibition was for the first time arranged

in connection with the centenary ceremony.1 Poets of the famous

Accademia degli Arcadi celebrated the occasion by reciting florid
1 Bellori: Missirini, l.c. p. 130. Cortona: ib. p. 1 12. Revived interest in instruction :
e.g. ib. p. 172. Incidentally there were never fees at the Accademia di S. Luca.
Anatomy was taught by Carlo Cesi, Perspective by Pietro del Po. I found Jacopo del
Po mentioned once as their predecessor. One of Bernini’s closest followers, Mattia
de’ Rossi, had been appointed teacher of architecture in 1673. In 1675 military
architecture was established as a separate subject besides the architettura civile. The chair
was given to a captain in the Papal army (Missirini, l.c. p. 1 33) • ^ forms, it may
here be added, one of the most obvious differences between the system in Rome and in
Paris that the Accademia di S. Luca included architectural instruction, whereas in
Paris matters of architecture were assigned to a special academy, the Academie

Royale d’ Architecture, which Louis XIV had founded in 1671. This cannot come
into the scope of the present work, for the history of the architectural profession and
the training of the architect is a subject well worth a detailed investigation in a separate
book. Competitions are never mentioned in the rules of the earlier Seicento. The
first notice in Missirini is in connection with Errard at the time when he acted as
Principe for Lebrun (p. 142). Further remarks occur for 1682 and regularly from 1695
onward. Under 1713 it is reported that there were three classes each for painters and
ot
sculptors. In that year the first class of the painters had to do a picture of a miracle
the third class had to submit a
Pius V, the second a miracle of S. Andrea Avellino,
drawing of the statue of Sta Martina on the high-altar of the academy church. The
first class of the sculptors was asked to model a relief of a miracle of St Felix, the second
a miracle of St Catherine of Bologna, and the third a copy of the statue of Sta Martina.
Exhibitions are referred to by Missirini for 1 702 and 1 703. An annual public academic
function was instituted by Clement XI.

11I
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

encomia; and such panegyrics or solemn addresses contributed

by poets and rhetoricians became a permanent feature of the
prize-giving days. Just as in Paris it was no longer the artists
themselves who supplied the lectures. Regular instruction, how¬
ever, seems once more to have fallen into disuse. Marco Benefial,
conscientious both as a painter and a teacher, made an effort
in 1 746 to revive it. But in the modern form of a daily life-class
it was only introduced into Rome by Benedict XIV, the merriest
of Rococo popes, in 1 754, and this action is so inseparably linked
up with the Age of Reason that it will be better considered in the
next chapter.
Against all these similarities between Rome and Paris in
the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries stands one
difference of importance. It concerns the relation of academy and
guild. In Paris, as has been shown, the guild was kept completely
separate from the academy, with the result that it could just keep
alive but was forced to develop outside the main current of
modern art. In Rome, similar plans had also existed, the
academy nominally incorporated the guild, and it was a cause of
continual friction how far the dependence of the guild upon the
academy should go. By 1650 it seemed as if the position of the
academy were sufficiently consolidated. But in 1670 the guild
once more felt strong enough to venture upon attack. It was

primarily directed against Urban VIII’s tax payable to the

academy by all art-dealers and all those artists who carried on
their trade in open shops. The arguments of the guild are new
in our context and not without interest : the idle life of the artist
Jis contrasted with the industry of the artisan, the usefulness of
craft and trade with the futility of the fine arts. The oppression
of good citizens is dramatically denounced: let the academy
teach (this was by then accepted as its task) but stop its domina¬
tion. The answer of the academy was rather feeble. The subject
of the dignity of art is broached again. Any meddling with art as
a trade would be prejudicial to it. An ill-advised remark was
added to prove the material use of great art. The existence of
famous works has sometimes, we read, saved cities from siege and
1 12
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

reduction to ashes.1 The conflict ended with a considerable

lowering of the tax. It went down, according to a decree of
4 December 1669, from 10 scudi a year to 4^ giuli, i.e. 5 per cent,
of what it had been.
As far as the principle underlying the conflict goes nothing
was settled by this decree. A large part of the activities in Rome
that were connected with art could still be carried on out¬
side the academy. Nothing like the dictatorship planned by
Urban VIII and enforced in Paris was accomplished. The
border-line between academic art and guild art was as yet
not defined. It was the intention of further new rules, com¬
posed by the academy in 1714, to remedy this omission. They
contain a paragraph by which it was prohibited to any non-
academic artist to produce work for any but private purposes
unless it were examined and accepted by the academy. Had
this been put into operation the situation would henceforth
have been just the same in Rome as in Paris during the period
of the most rigid academic dictatorship. But it proved im¬
practicable. A tempest of indignation swept the art world of
Rome, the principal speakers being both non-academicians
such as Marco Benefial, and academicians such as — to mention
one of the most distinguished painters and one of the most dis¬
tinguished sculptors — Trevisani and Legros. It is extremely
significant in our connection to see here artists of the early
eighteenth century protest against the academy on behalf of
the freedom of art. The final verdict was favourable to the
non-academic point of view. It confirmed to all artists who
preferred not to belong to the Accademia di S. Luca that they
could “ora, ed in ogni tempo, e luogo, e ciaschedun di loro
assumere, continuare, ed esercitare perpetuamente a loro
arbitrio, e piacere in ciascuna di dette arti liberali con tutta, ed
assoluta liberta nativa, e propria, senza verun peso, proibizione,
rescrittiva, contribuzione, e altro qualunque benche minima
11 3
1 Missirini, l.c. p. 124 seq. Life-drawing in the eighteenth century before 1754:
L. von Pastor, Geschichte der Pdpste, vol. 16, part 1, Freiburg i.B., 1931, p. 129 seq.
Cf. also Missirini under 1727-8 and 1746.
PA
8
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

soggezzione”. This was clear enough, and — apart from a few

minor quarrels — peace ensued.1
The position in Rome by 1750 was then like this: Guilds no
longer had authority over artists ; the arts were once for all ac¬
cepted as artes liberates. The establishment of the new essentially
Baroque authority of the State (represented by the Government
academy) over the artist had been tried on various occasions but
had proved impossible. The influence from Paris was strong,
but restricted to individual points of organization. Although the
Papal court had to offer as much work to architects, sculptors,
and painters as the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV, their
dependency upon the court never became as exclusive as in
France. Not all bonds with the medieval tradition were de¬
stroyed. As no new social order replaced the old, the old re¬
mained valid and alive. If this was the situation in Rome, where
an academy of reputation existed, how much stronger must have
been the survival of medieval methods in the other Italian art
centres, in Venice, Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Turin, where there
were no academies at all before the eighteenth century or only
insignificant attempts at such.2

1 Rules of 1 7 1 4 : § 1 6 “ Niun artista non Academico possa operare in pubblici lavori

senza essere esaminato dall’ Academia, che rilascera le opportune licenze, secondo i
meriti” (Missirini, l.c. p. 195). Minor quarrels: Missirini, Lc. p. 204 (1723—5). It
could still happen that a guild chose of its own free will to join the academy (Em¬
broiderers 1715, Missirini, l.c. p. 200), but no compulsion was exercised.
2 The only new Italian academy of the Seicento was that of Turin (cf. C. F.
Biscarra, Relazione Storica int. alia R. Acc. Albertina di Belle Arti in Torino, Turin, 1873
and L. G. Bollea, Gli Storici dell’ Acc. Albert., Turin, 1930), and the closeness to France
of the kingdom of Savoy was certainly instrumental in suggesting such an innovation.
In 1652 the painters, sculptors and architects combined to form a guild of their own,
called Universita or Compagnia di S. Luca. Their ambition was to be accepted as an
academy, for in 1 675 they obtained an act of incorporation with the Roman academy,
calling themselves “Accademia del Disegno di Savoia”. Shortly after that — in 1678 — -
they issued new rules composed on the pattern of the Roman constitution, and now
officially adopted the title of academy. Madama Reale, the widow of the Duke
Vittorio Amedeo I, accepted the protectorship, and in 1716 the rules of the academy
were printed. It had its residence in the building of the university. However, some
time during the first half of the eighteenth century the academy seems to have been
discontinued, and when a revival took place after 1750, a new era in the history of art
education had already set in.
There is more continuity in the development of the Accademia Clementina which
was founded by Clement XI at Bologna, the second city of the Papal territory, and was
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

From Italy we must now pass to other parts of Europe, and see
how far the idea of art academies has struck root in the countries
of the North. Germany, where five academies of art originated
between 1650 and 1750, must come first, although it would not
be advisable to recall too much the stately establishments of Paris
and Rome in discussing the character of some of these academies.
A comparison with private provincial academies in Italy or

with Mander’s Harlem enterprise may be more appropriate.

This is true above all of the oldest of German art schools, that
which Joachim von Sandrart founded at Nuremberg in 1674 or
1675. Sandrart, the only German painter of his generation who
enjoyed international fame, was born in Frankfort, had learned

the capital of a moderate and eclectic style of painting in Italy (cf. G. P. Zanotti’s Storia
dell ’ Accademia Clementina, Bologna, 1739). Little is noteworthy about the rules or
history of this institution. It formed part of the Istituto delle Scienze, and was sumptu¬
ously lodged together with this at the Palazzo Poggi. Meetings were held in the
famous ground-floor room containing Pellegrino Tibaldi’s Odyssey frescoes. There
were forty members (as in Paris), and architecture was taught besides drawing and
modelling. Life-drawing courses were held in the evenings with artificial light, a
method regarded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as most useful for
appreciating details of light and shade. Competitions were provided for by the rules,
but not made a regular practice until 1 727. No quarrels with the guilds, especially the
Compagnia de’ Pittori, are recorded. All the leading artists were members. Amongst
figure -painters Cignani, life-director although residing outside Bologna at Forli,
Franceschini, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Del Sole, Torelli, Viani, Creti, Burrini, and

amongst the painters of architecture and “vedute” Mitelli, Bigari, Ferdinando Galli-
Bibbiena, Giuseppe Galli-Bibbiena and Francesco Galli-Bibbiena.
In Naples a special Congregazione dei Pittori was established in 1664, the reason

given being “per essere la Professione nobilissima”. It held an “Accademia del

Nudo”, first under the direction of Vaccaro, then of De Maria (cf. De Dominici, Vite
de ’ Pittori, Scult. ed Archit. Napolet. vol. 3, 1745, pp. 139, 308).
As to Venice, twice before the middle of the eighteenth century the word academy is
mentioned in surviving texts, but no public art school was opened before 175°

(cf. A. dall’ Acqua Giusti, L’ Accademia di Venezia, Venice, 1873). In 1679, the old
Scuola dei Depentori applied for separation from the gilders, paper-makers, etc. with
whom they were still in the same guild. The application was granted, but while the
artists had desired a “unione, sotto il nome di accademia”, they are henceforth
simply called “ Collegio dei Pittori”, i.e. a guild of their own, not an academy. It was
almost another fifty years before the next step was taken. On the occasion of the
sculptors’ dissociation from the masons in 1 723 and the formation of a special Collegio
of the sculptors, the Reformatori dello Studio, an educational State authority residing
at Padua, summoned the heads of the two colleges and asked them to prepare every¬
said
thing for the establishment of a “ben regolata accademia”. However, as was
above, it had to await the middle of the century, and with it that far-reaching change
of taste and outlook which will occupy us in the next chapter, before the academy was
really founded. On Venetian private academies of the eighteenth century cf. p. 79.

8-2
1 15
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

his craft under Honthorst at Utrecht, worked with his master in

England, and gained considerable reputation in Rome, where

at the age of twenty-four he was chosen, together with eleven
other distinguished artists, to paint a series of large mythological
canvases for the King of Spain. From 1637 to 1644 he lived in
Amsterdam, after 1660 at Augsburg, from 1674 until his death
in 1688 at Nuremberg. So he could bring to bear an exceptional
weight of experience when — at first privately — he opened his
academy. Its purpose was of course life-drawing. All early
members — this is remarkable — were amateurs. It can, however,
be assumed that Sandrart’s pupils also took part. To support
this hypothesis the fact may be of value that Sandrart in his

famous compendium, the Teutsche Academie, calls Honthorst’s

studio at Utrecht an academy. As to this bulky compendium,
the exact title of which is Teutsche Academie der Edlen Bau- Bild-
und Malerey-Kiinste : Darinn enthalten Ein griindlicher Unterricht von
diese dreyer Kiinste Eigenschaft , Lehr-Satzen und Geheimnissen . . ., it
would be amiss to regard its contents as an indication of a com¬
prehensive academic programme treated in Sandrart’s academy.
In spite of the fact that architectural lessons were given for a

short time by Elias von Gedeler, Sandrart’s foundation was

hardly more than one of the usual studio academies. The muni¬
cipal council of Nuremberg soon began to take an interest in the
enterprise, and granted it accommodation, first in the Franciscan
monastery which now houses the Germanisches Museum, then
in the Convent of St Katharine. A first reform became necessary

in 1703 to end a period of slackness after Sandrart’s death. There

was now to be life-drawing on four days a week— without, inci¬
dentally, compulsory correction of the drawings on account of
the many amateurs who attended — and there were a few
“Praemia”. In the next year a busy engraver, J. D. Preissler,
was made director and it is interesting in our connection to hear
that the municipal authorities confirmed to him the difference

between “virtuosi who have attained their qualification by

travelling, and common painters”. This did not mean, how¬
ever, that any painter was to be exempted from belonging to the
1 16
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

guild. In fact they had all to submit a masterpiece and to pay

their contributions, if they wanted to work at Nuremberg. A
later director called J. M. Schuster protested against this in 1737
or l73&, pointing to a paragraph in an old decree of 1626 by
which the council of the city could free prominent painters from
guild restrictions ; and also duly emphasizing the greater amount
of freedom enjoyed by artists in other German towns such as
Augsburg, Berlin and Vienna.1 We can now immediately pass
on to these, because, during the eighteenth century, Nuremberg
— and with it its academy — rapidly declined and soon lost most
of its reputation.
At Augsburg the beginnings of academic life-drawing can be
traced back to a pupil of Sandrart, a painter called Joh. Sigmund
Muller. Other private evening circles followed, until— inspired
probably by the example of Nuremberg — a municipal academy
was opened in 1710. It received rooms in a public building, and
was managed by two directors — not for artistic but for religious
reasons so that equality could be guaranteed to the two creeds,
Catholic and Lutheran, which were of about the same strength
at Augsburg. Although among the directors there were men
such as Rugendas, Bergmiiller, Johann Esaias Nilsson, Matthaus
Gunther, i.e. some of the most highly appreciated painters and
engravers living in this centre of painting and engraving in
South Germany, the academy remained small and relatively
unimportant. A clear separation between guild and academy
did not take place either, in spite of the above-quoted contention
1 Cf. J. Baader, gahns Jahrb. f. Kunstwiss. 1868, vol. 1 and G. Schrotter, Neujahrs-
blatter d. Ges.f. Frank. Gesch. vol. 3, 1908. The date of inauguration of the academy is
given by both authors as 1662, but Sandrart did not settle down at Nuremberg until
1674. On his life cf. the admirable edition of the Teutsche Academie by A. R. Peltzer,
Munich, 1925. The erroneous connection between the book and the actual art school
has e.g. been drawn by W. Waetzoldt (Deutsche Kunsthistoriker, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1921,
p. 27 seq.). In the anonymous life of Sandrart which precedes the Teutsche Academie,
the school is called “Academie der Kunstliebenden”. This may reflect Sandrart’s
experience in Honthorst’s studio where, according to the Teutsche Academie (ed.
Peltzer, p. 173), “furnehmer Leute Kinder” were also taught, a practice perhaps
more usual in Holland than we realize. Of Rembrandt’s successful early studio at
Amsterdam Sandrart (ib . p. 203) reports the same. Even the surprisingly high fee of
100 fl. a year is identical in the cases of Honthorst and of Rembrandt. The term
academy is applied to Honthorst’s workshop by Sandrart, l.c. pp. 184, 191, 247.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

of the Nuremberg director. For a short time another academic

institution at Augsburg seemed more promising, the Kaiserlich
Franciszische Academia Liberalium Artium opened by one
J. D. Herz in 1715. This, however, soon proved to be a bogus
affair, and nothing more happened until Paul von Stetten re¬
vived the municipal academy in 1779.1 No more glorious were
the beginnings of academic life in the capital of Saxony, Dresden.
There was first, in the i68o’s, a private academy directed by a
court painter called Samuel Bottschild, which was followed in
1697 by a second academy of the same kind under his pupil
Fehling. This was reorganized in 1705 at the request of the
Elector Augustus the Strong, who endowed it with an annual
grant just sufficient to pay the model. It all remained on a very
small scale, even when in 1726 Louis de Silvestre was made
director. One might have expected this Frenchman and
former student of the Paris academy to introduce the French
system, but no such thing happened. He was given the title of
Premier Peintre du Roi and Director of the Royal tapestry
workshops established on the pattern of the Gobelins in 1715,
but the academy remained an “ unentgeltliche Zeichenschule”.
Neither a staff of teachers nor organized instruction is mentioned
anywhere. A thorough reorganization amounting to the creation
of the first real academy of art at Dresden was again not con¬
sidered until after 1750. 2
Entirely different were the origins and early development at
Berlin. While at Nuremberg, Augsburg and Dresden studio

1 On Augsburg cf. E. Welisch, Augsburger Maler im 18. Jahrh. Augsburg, 1901,

pp. 99 seqq. The Imperial academy was actually begun only in order to enable its
founder to make money first for his publishing house, then by means of lotteries. He
must have succeeded in bluffing the court of the Emperor, for otherwise the title of
Imperial Academy would not have been granted to his institute which had scarcely
any students. It was still alive in the second half of the century, for the Danish
engraver and professor in the Copenhagen academy J. M. Preissler, son of the director
of the Nuremberg academy, called himself its member as late as 1 788 (cf. Tableau de
V Academie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture de Copenhague, Copenhagen, 1788,
p. 6).
2 Cf. M. Wiessner, Die Akademie der bildenden Kiinste zu Dresden, Dresden, 1864. The
“unentgeltliche Zeichenschule” is a quotation from Heinecken (JVeue Nachrichten,
vol. 1, p. 109).
Il8
Figs, io, ii, and 12. Five of the rooms of the Berlin Academy in 1696. Drawings by
Augustin Terwesten in the collection of the Berlin Akademie der Kunste. The subjects
taught are, according to the Dutch text underneath the original drawings, drawing
from plaster, drawing from drawings, anatomy, and perspective. Fig. 12 shows the
meeting room.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

academies were hesitatingly taken charge of by the authorities,

the Berlin institute was started as a court enterprise and as part of
a far-reaching cultural programme. The Elector Frederick III,
soon to be called Frederick I as the first King of Prussia, and his
wife Sophie Charlotte of Hanover wished to make their capital a
centre of modern ideas and modern taste. So they built the new
Berlin castle on a large scale and many other great buildings
besides, and founded the University of Halle in 1694, the art

academy in 1697, and — upon Leibniz’s suggestions — the Aka-

demie der Wissenschaften in 1701. The art academy was, as it,
is put in a memorandum by the first director, to be “eine recht
wohlgeordnete Akademie oder Kunstschule, nicht aber eine
gemeine Maler- oder Bildhauer-Akademie, wie deren aller
Orten bestehen, wo man allein nach einem lebenden Modell

oder nach gipsernen Bildern zeichnet”, “a high school of art or

university of art like the academies in Rome and Paris”, “a
community or assembly of painters and sculptors with some of

them teaching and some learning and receiving instruction”.

The object of its endeavours should not be to teach “a craft
but the mysteries of the arts”. Joseph Werner, the director,
though a mediocre artist, had studied in Rome, and been minia¬
ture-painter to Louis XIV in Paris, just at the time when the
Academie Royale received its ultimate rules from Colbert. Fol¬
lowing the French example, Werner was also put in charge of
the tapestry workshops and the interior decoration of the castles.

Dependence on Paris is obvious in Werner’s memorandum as

well as in the first official rules of 1699 with their additions of

1 700, 1 701 and 1 705. There were to be protector, vice-protector,

and director, four rectors with their Adjuncti, professors, Aca-
demici Honorari, amateur Assessores, prizes and reception
pieces, lectures on paintings in the electoral collection, and the
exemption of members from the jurisdiction of the guilds — a
privilege which incidentally was not opposed by the guilds, as

far as we can see. Spacious rooms were put at the academy’s

disposal on the upper floor of the new Electoral Mews, and here,
for once, we know exactly how they were used. This is due to the
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

survival of a series of drawings by Augustin Terwesten, one of the

founders of the academy at the Hague, and later a professor in
Berlin (figs. 10-12). The annual grant amounted to 1000 Thalers.
Instruction was given exclusively by the four rectors — one of
them was the great Andreas Schluter, architect and sculptor to
the Elector-King — while the professors taught subsidiary subjects.
There is only one difference between Paris and Berlin, but this is
not without significance. A class for elementary drawing was
added at Berlin, and while life-drawing was held only twice a
week, the elementary class met three times. So the character of
the school may in fact have been much humbler than Frederick
and his minister von Danckelmann had visualized.1
Once Berlin had made a start, Vienna followed, though with
hardly more enterprise than was devoted to the matter in
Dresden. In 1705 Joseph I transformed into a public institution
a private academy which Peter Strudel von Strudendorff, one
of the favourite artists of the Imperial court, had opened in his
own house in 1692. No grant was given, and the academy
seems to have come to an end directly Strudel died.2
At about the same time Frederick I passed away, and his suc¬
cessor Frederick William I had little use for so subtle an enter¬
prise as an academy of art. He wanted to see immediate results
for his money, he strongly disliked France and French fashions,
1 Cf. H. Muller, Die Konigliche Akademie der Kiinste zu Berlin, 1696-1896, part 1,
Berlin, 1896, especially pp. 6, 13, 14, etc. The time-table of the academy about 1700
was as follows: Monday, 2 — 4 Perspective; Tuesday, 10 — 12 Geometry and Fortifica¬
tion; Wednesday, 2 — 4 Drawing, 4 — 5 Anatomy, 5 — 7 Life-drawing; Thursday,
2 — 4 Drawing; Friday, 10 — 12 Geometry and Fortification, 2 — 4 Drawing, 4 — 5
Anatomy, 5 — 7 Life-drawing; Saturday, 2 — 4 Architecture. The seven rooms of the
academy served the following purposes: (1) Elementary drawing, (2) Drawing from
engravings, (3) Drawingfromoriginaldrawings, (4) Drawing from plaster, (5) Anatomy,
Perspective, Geometry, Architecture, Fortification, (6) Meeting-room, (7) Life-room.
This is according to a description by a secretary of the academy (Muller, l.c. p. 39).
Terwesten assigns two rooms to theoretical subjects, and leaves out one of the rooms
for drawing.
2 Cf. C. von Lutzow, Geschichte der K. K. Akademie der bildenden Kiinste, Vienna, 1877.
The official title of the academy was Academia von der Mallerey-, Bildhauer-,
Fortification-, Perspektiv- und Architektur-Kunst. Life-drawing was, as usual, held
in the evenings, from 6 to 8. The sculptors were, it appears, taught by Strudel’s
brother Paul Strudel, one of the sculptors of the famous Trinity Column in the Graben
at Vienna. Plaster casts are also occasionally mentioned.
120
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

and his personal sympathy was more with the army, with hus¬
bandry and social measures, than with art and letters. The
salaries of the court artists were at once reduced, so was the
annual grant to the academy. With only 300 Thalers a year the
academy was forced to let half its rooms to a manufacturer, and
to dispense with the services of some members of its staff. What
had been planned so ambitiously not much more than fifteen
years before was now just one more of the common academies.
From 1722 onward the Berlin directories no longer mention it.
The only attempt at a revival was due to Antoine Pesne, once a
Grand Prix and Rome scholar of the Paris academy. In 1 732 he
applied to the King for the directorship of the academy, in order
to “raise it to the level of the academies of Vienna and Dresden”.
The reference to Dresden may have been caused by the recent
appointment of Louis de Silvestre, that to Vienna can only be
understood in connection with a new and important initiative
taken there in 1725.1
Jacob van Schuppen was the man who resuscitated the Vienna
academy, and at last raised its standard to the level of the best
institutions in Europe. He had been a pupil of Largilliere and
belonged to the Paris academy. The innovations which he
introduced were all almost literally derived from the Academie
Royale. This applies most strikingly to his rules of 1 726 as com¬
pared with the original Paris ones of 1648. Even the suppression
of life-courses outside the academy was imitated, and also the
exemption of all academicians from the guilds. Unlike those at
Berlin, however, the artists of the town were not willing to tolerate
this. In 1735 they induced the Mayor and Council of Vienna to
file a strongly-worded protest with the Austrian government.
The incompatibility of the old with the new point of view is once
more clearly demonstrated by this document. Any necessity for

inviting to Vienna painters from outside is denied, because “the

capital and residence of Vienna has for many years been without

1 Muller, l.c. p. 96. Frederick William I had by the way originally planned to
deprive the academy of the whole of its grant and to exact a rent for the rooms at the
Royal Mews on top of that.

12 1
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

such would-be virtuosi and everybody during that time was

satisfactorily served in the art of painting” (“gestalten die

Haubt und Residenz Statt Wienn lange Jahr ohne derley sein
sollenten virtuosen Kiinstlern gestandten auch wehrenter Zeit
iedermanniglich in der Mahlerey Kunst zu geniiegen bedienet
worden ist”). The government does not seem to have taken
action, and the matter was left in abeyance until 1783.
Under Schuppen the Vienna academy entered into a first
period of successful activity. There were on an average always
about 120 to 150 students. New teachers were engaged, one for
architecture and geometry, then one for elementary drawing and
one for engraving. Accommodation also increased. In 1726
there existed only a room for beginners, the life-class, and a room
for geometry and antique drawing, while in 1733 the academy
had two rooms for the beginners, two for architecture, geometry
and ornament, one for the antique-class, three for exhibitions,
and a hall for ceremonies. From 1731 onward solemn distribu¬
tions of prizes took place, with lectures in French. Amongst the
students of the academy between 1725 and 1755 we find a re¬
markable number of the best German artists of the time. The

sculptors may be taken to illustrate this, because of Vienna’s

leading position in the official, international tendency of German
eighteenth-century sculpture. About 1 728 Johann Baptist Straub
came from Munich, in 1730 Johann Wolfgang von der Auwera
from Wurzburg. Between 1750 and 1755 Ignaz Gunther, the
greatest of German Rococo sculptors, attended for a short time,
and Peter Wagner who led the Wurtzburg school during the
third quarter of the century, Auliczek, the Nymphenburg porce¬
lain artist, and amongst Austrians Messerschmidt, Hagenauer,
Dorfmeister. Oeser, Goethe’s Leipzig mentor, was also a student
at the Vienna academy.1
There was a sad contrast between the flourishing state of the
1 Rules of Vienna and Paris: Liitzow, l.c. p. 14. Academy and guilds: M. Dreyer
in Die K.K. Akad. d. bild. Kste in Wien, Vienna, 1917. Accommodation: Liitzow, l.c.
p. 18. Students: cf. A. Feulner, Skulptur und Malerei des 18. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland
(Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft), and S. Sitwell, A. Ayscough and N. Pevsner, German
Baroque Sculpture, London, 1938.
122
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

Vienna academy and the destitution into which that of Berlin

had fallen. Pesne’s application of 1732 bore no fruit. The

directorship was granted to him immediately, but somehow he
never entered into office. The old director remained, doing the
teaching almost single-handed and paying the small prizes out
of his own pocket. The French artists of the court, C. A. van Loo,
Dubuisson, Francis Gaspard Adam, and the engraver Schmidt,
who was a member of the Paris academy, accepted honorary
membership but otherwise kept aloof. Frederick the Great set
little store by it; he believed in his French painters and sculptors
and had no confidence in the artistic abilities of his Prussian

subjects. “ Mon academie”, he used to say, but in so saying he

meant the studio of his sculptors, which was first under the
direction of F. G. Adam and later under that of the Fleming
Tassaert, who was a pupil of Roubilliac, and an Agree of the
Academie Royale. The King’s indifference was not the only
misfortune that affected the Berlin academy. In 1 743 the Royal
Mews were burned down, and the academy lost most of its be¬
longings. Until 1 786, the date of completion of the new building
for both the Royal academies, it remained without an adequate
domicile. Instruction was given in the house of the new director,
Blaise Le Sueur, a man of little energy. He, along with one
teacher of elementary drawing, and one professor of mathe¬
matics, constituted the complete staff. Life-courses were no
longer held. The annual grant had gone down to 200 Thalers.
Even the municipal council now attempted to assert the claims
of the guild, and to re-establish city jurisdiction for academicians.
This the King did not tolerate ; but certainly not because of the

academy, which to him remaineda “drawing-class . . .that should

more aptly be called a Seminarium publicum”. It was his artists
he wished to protect. Not until 1 770 did he show any interest in
the academy, and the restoration which then began belongs again
to the next chapter.1
So the fact remains that only in123one of the German capitals the
Paris system had really gained a footing. It had met with ad-
1 Cf. Muller, l.c. pp. 125, 129.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO
miration in a few more, but only rudimentary attempts had been
made to substitute it for that haphazard form of private tuition
Still associated with the term academy.

The same exactly is true of England. As neither Charles I’s

Museum Minervae nor Sir Balthasar Gerbier’s academy can be
called academies of art (cf. p. 1 6) , the first plan for the establish¬
ment of such an institution seems to have come from Thornhill.
No academic organization of artists and their training appears
to have been considered in England before about 1 720, unless one

is prepared to accept Sandby’s authority for the existence of a

well-thought-out scheme published by John Evelyn. Everything,
one might say, points to him as the most probable originator of
such a project. He had lived in Paris just at the time when

Lebrun’s academy was founded, was interested in art and fond

of promoting societies. However, despite Sandby’s full account
of Evelyn’s plan and his assertion that this was printed in his
Sculptura , I have been unable to discover this scheme either in

Sculptura or in other books of Evelyn’s ; and this has kindly been

confirmed by two scholars who have made a special study of

Evelyn’s work, Mr C. F. Bell and Mr Geoffrey Keynes.

So it is again from the private studio academies that a history
of academies of art in England has to proceed. The earliest of
these private schools was established by Sir Godfrey Kneller in
Great Queen Street. Its first meeting took place in Kneller’s
own house on St Luke’s day, 171 1. Amongst those present were
e.g. Gibbs, the architect of the Radcliffe Camera, Vertue, the
much-quoted chronicler of English art, Michael Dahl, the court
painter, and McSwiney, dramatist, theatrical producer and art
agent. One governor, Kneller himself, was elected, and twelve
directors. Amongst these we find names such as Thornhill,
Laguerre, Richardson, Nicolas Dorigny, Francis Bird. Among
members, i.e. subscribers, during the early years were Dahl,
Laroon, Pellegrini, Dandridge, and Sir Richard Steele. Hogarth
describes this academy, which he12must
4 have heartily disliked, as
an enterprise started by “some gentlemen painters of the first
rank, who in their forms imitated the Academy in France”, al-
 Fig. 13. CHARLES LEBRUN

Bust by Antoine Coysevox. London,

Wallace Collection

Fig. 14.
J. J. WINCKELMANN

Painting by A. R. Mengs.
Krakow, Lubomirski Collection
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

though he admitted that they did this “with less fuss and
solemnity”. Kneller died in 1723, and almost immediately after
his death Thornhill, who had been governor of the earlier
academy since 1716, opened up a successor school in his house in

St James’s Street, Covent Garden. That was in 1724. His plans

had originally been much more ambitious. He had tried to
interest the Lord Chancellor, Lord Halifax, in the foundation of

a proper Royal Academy which would have been erected “at

the upper end of the Mews”. In this he did not succeed, and
the Thornhill academy remained small and of little account. It
seems as though it was not even the most popular of the private
London academies. There was one under Louis Charron and

Vandenbank in St Martin’s Lane that opened in 1720, in which

year Kent, Hogarth and Highmore were amongst its members.
Vertue, in one of his note-books, drew up a number of regula¬
tions for it, of which it is not known whether they were ever
submitted or accepted. In 1722 this academy was visited by the
Prince of Wales. Life-drawing was taught on Tuesdays,
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from October till Spring
each year at a fee of two guineas. A female model was available.
Another private circle met in 1735 in Salisbury Court, still
another it seems at Greyhound Court, and a fourth was opened
in 1758 by the Duke of Richmond in his private collection of
plaster casts at Spring Gardens, Whitehall. It was first under the
direction of Cipriani and Joseph Wilton; and later taken over by
the so-called Incorporated Society of which more will be said in
the next chapter.
After Thornhill’s death in 1734, Hogarth,
his son-in-law,
started afresh in Peter Court, St Martin’s Lane. He refused
to be regarded as the governor of this new academy, which
was equipped with the apparatus taken by Hogarth from
Thornhill’s house. There were no directors either. Every mem¬
ber enjoyed the same rights. The St Martin’s Lane Academy, as
it was soon called everywhere, became
125 after about 1 75° the chief
practising ground for artists in need of models. Reynolds, we
know, drew here from 1 755 onward ; so did Roubilliac, Hayman,
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

Benjamin West. The exclusive purpose of the academy was life¬

drawing. We shall have to refer to it once more in connection
with the pre-history of the Royal Academy.1
One problem seems to have been entirely absent in England,
that of the guilds in their relation to art. For reasons not to be
discussed here the authority of the craft guilds had developed in
England so differently from the Continent that questions of this
kind could hardly arise. But while English artists enjoyed more
freedom than their colleagues in other countries, the time was
not ripe yet for their aspiring after academic status. As long as
court and nobility had to procure from abroad the artists they
needed, no movement towards a central representative body of
artists would have had much chance of succeeding. If this lack
of recognized native painters and sculptors was really one of the
reasons why England remained without a Royal Academy up to
the time of Reynolds, it should be worth while investigating the
position in the Netherlands, where during the seventeenth
century so many great and eminent painters worked.
It may be well to start with Antwerp, the centre of the Spanish
and Catholic Southern provinces. The Guild of St Luke of the
Painters, Sculptors, Goldsmiths, Glass Painters and Em¬
broiderers existed already in the fourteenth century. Registers
of members are preserved from 1453 onwards. They show, in
accordance with the development of the local school of painting,
a considerable growth of the guild after about 1530. As early as
1480 the guild had made a first attempt to rise above the other
crafts and trades on to the plane of the Artes Liberales. It had
amalgamated with one of the Chambers of Rhetoricians, the
Violieere. These societies, the characteristically Netherlandish
parallel to the early Italian academies, were probably derived
from the medieval mystery-play communities. They concerned
themselves mainly with the arrangement of pageants, plays and

1 Gf. W. Sandby, History of the Royal Academy of Arts, vol. i, London, 1862; W. T.
Whitley, Artists and their friends in England, 1700-1799, London, 1928, and Vertue’s
Notebooks, edited by the Walpole Society, vol. 20, 1931-2, p. 126, and vol. 22, 1934,
pp. 7, 11, 76, 82, 123, 127.
126
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

processions, and as in these decoration was all-important, a con¬

nection with the artists’ guild could easily be established. The
words used in carrying out the amalgamation, namely that
Pictura and Poesis should go together, show that the guild was
quite aware of what their step meant. The guild, though more

“art-conscious” perhaps than in most other cities, remained

unchanged until long after Rubens’s death. Van Dyck as well as
Jordaens, Brouwer and Teniers, Snyders and Fyt, were members.
No objection to this state of affairs seems to have been raised.
For the guild wisely refrained from attacking the prerogatives of
the court. Rubens as a court painter was permitted to remain
outside the guild, and his pupils were not compelled to register
either. But modern as this appears, Rubens’s apprentices and
collaborators worked in his princely palace in Antwerp, as far
as we can make out, under his supervision just as in the Middle

Ages. They carried out their master’s sketches, which he then

retouched and sold as his works. Of academic teaching methods
there was no question. Generally speaking, the situation
amounted to this: An artist could by virtue of his connection with

courts — that of the Spanish King in Rubens’s case, that of the

King of England in the case of Van Dyck — feel entirely free,
live like a nobleman, and actually be granted a title, but that was
hardly more than what the French and Burgundian Valets de
Chambre and Titian had enjoyed.
The institution of an academy did not come about at Antwerp

until more than twenty years after Rubens’s death, a time when
his pupils had already reached old age. The initiative was due
to Teniers, whose pictures, as everybody knows, were mostly
small genre-pieces, and this fact alone suffices to show that one
can scarcely expect a true emulation of the Franco-Italian
examples. And yet the document by which the foundation of the
academy was authorized explicitly speaks of an “Academie...
semblable a celles de Rome et de Paris”. In point of fact the
Antwerp academy was as a social127enterprise the very opposite of
the Academie Royale. While in Paris the scheme was evolved a^
a counter-attack on the guild, it had at Antwerp emanated from
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

the guild itself, and was to form part of it. The scope of the new
annex was life-drawing exclusively, and it was thus hardly more
than an officially recognized continuation of a custom no doubt
in existence already. The deans of the guild were to set the
model, and to get small salaries for this. The academy was
opened in 1665, but does not seem to have been carried on into
the eighteenth century. In 1741 a few artists tried to resuscitate
it by taking over management and teaching without asking a fee.
It was only in 1 749 that the academy, encouraged by the govern¬
ment, came forward again, and this time its aim was separation
from the guild. Only now the old stock arguments of the

“bassesse” of art at Antwerp among craftsmen without “la

moindre connexion avec les beaux arts” were used. No wonder
that the guild eagerly replied. However, by the middle of the
eighteenth century its time was over, and in 1 750 the academy

was reorganized as the “Royal Academy in Antwerp”. This

brings us once more to the date at which we shall have to begin
in the next chapter.1

1 Antwerp: for the early times it will be sufficient to consult J. B. van der Straelen,
Jaerboek der vermaerde en kunstryke Gilde van Sint Lucas binnen de Stad Antwerpen , Antwerp,
1855; for the development of the St Luke’s guild, Ph. Rombouts and Th. von Lerius,
Les Liggeren et autres Archives Historiques, Antwerp, 1864-72. Until 1510 there were
never more than twenty-six masters at a time in the guild; in 1561 the number was
fifty-three. On the chambers of Rhetoricians any history of literature in the Nether¬
lands may be consulted, e.g. the works by Jonckbloet or Kalff, and more specially
P. van Duyse, in Uitgaben der Kon. Vlaamsche Academie, series 5, vol. 7, 1900—2. On
Rubens cf. M. Rooses’s well-known biography. In the German edition (Stuttgart and
Berlin, 1904) the pages in question are 208, 315 seq., 399 seq. Rubens had Flemish,
Spanish, and English titles of nobility. Van Dyck was knighted in London in 1632.
He was married to a member of the aristocracy, and had his coach and four, his
footmen, musicians, singers and jesters (cf. Bellori, Vite, ed. Collezione di ottimi
scrittori italiani, Paris, 1821, vol. 1, p. 269). The data about the Antwerp academy
can be verified by looking up van den Straelen, l.c. pp. 1 17 (foundation), 136, 157 (life¬
drawing: this incidentally was held on the upper floor of the Exchange from 6 to 8 in
the Winter, from 5 to 8 in the morning in the Summer), 237, 239, 240, 252 (attempt
of
1741), 244, 187 seq., 189 seq., 248 seq. (reorganization, and dispute of 1749-50). The
Teniers academy was the earliest academy at Antwerp. It is only by a complete dis¬
tortion of the facts that E. Baes (“La Peinture Flamande et son Enseignement sous le
Regime des Gonfreries de St Luc , Aden, couronnee . . .p. I’Ac. R. des Sciences, des Lettres et
des Beaux Arts de Belgique, vol. 44, 1882) could contend that one Formantel, a lawyer,
had founded an art school under the name of academy in 1510. Baes bases his state¬
ment on J. C. E. Ertborn (Geschiedkundige Aanteekeningen aengaende de Sinte Lucas Gilde,
128
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

If matters stood thus between 1650 and 1750 at Antwerp, one

could hardly expect flourishing academies of art in the minor
centres of Flanders. So far it has not been possible to trace any
reaching back to an earlier date than 1 7 1 1 , although an
attempt at founding one at M alines had been made in 1684. In
1 7 1 1 , at Brussels a drawing-school of the tapestry-weavers,
painters, and sculptors was opened at the town-hall. The rules
of 1737 and 1742 are preserved. A reorganization became neces¬
sary in 1 763. At Bruges an “ Academie de Dessin” was started in
1717, soon discontinued, and replaced by private schools in 1732
and 1739. In 1775 it was made into an Academie Royale.
About that time, i.e. again after 1750, academies were also
opened at Gand, Tournai, Courtrai, and in other Belgian
towns.1
A survey of academies or public art schools in Holland before,
that time does not take much space. Just as in Flanders the
accepted social organization of artists in the seventeenth century
was still the guild, but just as in Flanders it was despite that
realized that painting was on a higher plane than most of the
crafts, and just as in Flanders, this made the guild handle its
jurisdiction mildly. The first academy was not due to the initia¬
tive of Amsterdam, the centre of art and life in seventeenth-
century Holland, but to the effort of painters at The Hague, the
residence of the Stadholders. In 1655, forty-eight artists applied
for exemption from the existing Guild of St Luke, in which they
were together with wood-carvers, embroiderers, and lower grade
painters. After one year they were permitted to establish a
“confrerie” of their own, just as this had been the first step to¬
wards complete liberation in Italy. Adrian Hanneman was the
Antwerp, 1822, p. 15 seq.). The passage there, however, runs as follows (according to

what Dr Denuce, Municipal Recorder of Antwerp, kindly wrote to me) : “Joris de

Foormantel, voorspraeker, stelde dit jaer de derde rederyk-kamer, gezegd van den
Olyftak, in ; het is eggentlyk van dien tyd, dat den vorsprung van de Academie . . .

begint.”
1 Cf. A. Pinchart, “Recherches sur l’histoire et les medailles des Academies et des
ficoles de Dessin... en Belgique”, Revue de12la Numismatique Beige, vol. 4, 1848; and
9
D. van de Casteele, Documents inidits concernants la Ghilde de S. Luc de Bruges, Societe
d' Emulation, Bruges, 1867. On Malines, cf. Br. Libertus M., Lucas Faydherbe, Ant¬
werp, 1938, pp. 42 and 53.
PA 9
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

first dean of the new confraternity, Lairesse and Hoogstraeten

were among the earliest members. Sculptors were also admitted.
The name of the company was Pictura, and its rules were still
entirely shaped on the pattern of medieval guild-rules. No artist
from outside was to be allowed to practise in The Hague, unless
he paid a fee to the company. None but members were to sell
pictures except during fairs, etc. The confraternity was appor¬
tioned rooms in a public building. In the Great Hall a ceiling
painting by Doudijns represented Athene expelling the dyers
from the Temple. Life-drawing was not introduced until 1682.
The initiative came from Doudijns, van der Schuet, Mytens,
A. Terwesten and R. Duval. There does not seem to be any
proof however of this academy ever having given proper courses
to students. It appears to have been only evening-gatherings
of members for the sake of conveniently obtaining models to
draw from (fig. 15). This changed only in 1779, when a reform
took place which amounted almost to a re-foundation. Of other
public drawing-schools in Holland before the middle of the
eighteenth century, we know only two: one at Utrecht in
1696, and one at Amsterdam in 1718.1

1 The Hague: cf. J. van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburgh . . . , vol. 2, The Hague, 1751,
p. 505 seq.; J. Gram, De Schildersconfrerie Pictura en hare Academie. . . 1682-1882,
Rotterdam, 1882 and J. H. Plantenga, De Academie van ’ s Gravenhage, en haar plaats in
de kunst van ons land, The Hague, 1938. The higher standing of painting as against the
majority of crafts was especially stressed by the town council of Nijmegen in 1640. It
called “schilderen ende conterfeyten naar het leven eene frije kunst, ende in geene
plaate eenig Ampt subject” (W. van de Pool, Obreens Archie/ voor Nederl. Kunstge-
schiedenis, vol. 7, 1888-90). An interesting instance of academic ambition amongst
the painters of Amsterdam is the joint entertainment of the St Luke’s Guild and the
Rhetoricians on St Luke’s day, 1653. Its chairman was Joost van Vondel, and its
motto the affinity of Apollo and Apelles (cf. A. Houbraken, Groote Schouburg, Amster¬
dam, 1 718, vol. 3, pp. 32gseqq.). At Utrecht there had been a separate Guild of St Luke
since 1 6 1 1 . It applied in 1 644 for a change of name. With a view to the “ edelmoedig ’ ’
character of the art of painting, it wished to call itself henceforth “ Schilders-College ”.
The revised rules of 1644 remained valid until long after 1750. The “ Tekenschool ”
of 1696 was not a success. It had to be reshaped as early as 1717 (cf. S. Muller,
De Utrechtsche Archieven, vol. 1, Schilders Vereenigingen, Utrecht, 1882). I am unable
to explain the mysterious remark in a document of 1616-17, according to which
a
painter Jacob Willemsz, belonging, it seems, to the Duitsche Huis at Utrecht, received
a payment “voort gaen mit ander Schilders in de acquedemie”. One more instance
of the use of the word academy in connection with Dutch seventeenth-century art
must be discussed. Baldinucci calls “accademia” the collection of Rembrandt’s
I30
 Archives
Royal
Hague,-
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

This list of art schools in the Netherlands has shown that none
was started before the decline of Dutch and Flemish painting
had set in. What reason can there be for this? Why is it that in
Paris the formation and the most vigorous development of the
academy coincides with the classic moment of French art,
whereas in the Netherlands no public art establishment grew up
during the epoch of their highest achievements in painting?
Was there really no need for one? And if so, why then the
establishment of a whole series of municipal or royal art schools
after 1650? In order to find satisfactory answers to these
questions it will be necessary to cast a glance at the fundamentally
different social position and social object of art in France and
the Netherlands.
Flanders affords less difficulties in this connection than Hollands
The situation at Antwerp during the time of Rubens was almost
the same as that at Venice, Genoa, Naples, or Augsburg, a
situation still dominated by a live medieval tradition not at all
out of keeping with the requirements of the day. There was no
room in such a community for an academy with all it stood for
educationally as well as socially. If, despite the broadmindedness
and tolerance of the guilds towards artists who had grown beyond
guild life academies were founded after 1660, they can ade¬
quately be accounted for by pointing to a state of restlessness
understandable amongst artists at the end of a Golden Age. In

this respect the situation in Florence at the end of Michelangelo’s

era, i.e. Vasari’s situation, can well be compared with that in
Antwerp after Rubens’s death. There was France flourishing in
cousin, the art-dealer Uylenborgh, because young artists were allowed to copy
pictures there, which incidentally Uylenborgh then sold. For that reason, Flinck e.g.
and also Ovens lived some time in his house (cf. J. Six, “La famosa Accademia di
Eulenborg”, Jaarb. d. Kon. Ak. van Wetenschapen te Amst. 1925-6). Real private
academies in the Italian sense were held at Amsterdam about 1700 in the studios of
Graat and Lairesse. Lairesse moreover gave public lectures on matters of art (cf. Oud
Holland, vol. 32, 1914, p. 262, and on Graat, according to information kindly supplied
by Dr J. G. van Gelder, M. Pool, Beeldsnijders Kabinet..., 1727; also Houbraken, l.c.

vol. 2, p. 203). On the municipal “School der Teken-Kunst” at Amsterdam cf.

J. Wagenaar, Beschrijving van Amsterdam, vol. 8, Amsterdam, 1765, p. 770 seq. and
J. O. Huslij, Redevoering over de Lotgef alien van de Ak. der Teekenk. te Amst., Amsterdam,
1768.

131
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

art and attracting more and more Flemings, and there was at
Paris this new academy centralizing all artistic efforts in such a
convincing way. No that the question arose whether
wonder
by imitating the academy equally brilliant results might not be
obtained. There is of course a fundamental error in this
reasoning. Not only because the life-school alone was copied
and not the academy as a whole, but because in any case it was
senseless to adopt the academic system without at the same time
adopting that complete political and social entity which the state
of Louis XIV represents. This explanation almost disposes of
the problem for Holland as well. But the contrast between
French and Dutch art in the seventeenth century, between the
artist in France and in Holland, is so much profounder than
that between Antwerp and Paris, and furthermore this contrast
is so decisive for the understanding of the social history of art up
to the present day that it must here be commented upon in some
detail.
First of all the political structure into which Rembrandt was

born was completely opposed to that which ruled Lebrun’s life.

An absolutist kingdom stands against a bourgeois republic,
which means King, court, nobility and civil servants as patrons
on the one hand and merchants and tradespeople on the other.
Art which was in demand was likewise of opposite kind. The
number of prospective customers in France was not very big, but
most of them had considerable means at their command, derived
mainly from ground-rent. It was regarded as a social obligation
to spend lavishly for luxury and display, and the mercantilists
proved that this was also economically sound. As moreover the
aristocracy was brought up in a fenced orbit of conventions and
under the rule of an accepted taste, there were plenty of com¬
missions, but commissions to satisfy a precisely defined demand.
An artist would not be much good to such a society, unless he
could carry out large decorative jobs quickly and at the same
time in such a way that their meaning and formal qualities
would be accessible and palatable to the members of this society.
In Holland the artist could reckon on a much wider clientele in
132
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

proportion to the size of the country. But the large number of

consumers was counterbalanced by their less developed tradition
in matters of art, their less trained judgment and taste, and their
generally smaller resources. For even a very wealthy merchant
would not usually spend his hard-earned money so profusely as
a ground-landlord living at Louis XIV’s or Louis XV’s court.
This implies that the demand for art was wider in Holland than
in France, but directed towards less costly individual products
and not always products of particularly high cultural standard.
Consequently the grand style could develop in Holland but to a
very limited extent, and did develop only where commissions
were placed by the Stadholder himself or the official representa¬
tives of powerful city councils.1 As, furthermore, Calvinism had
discredited the painting of altar-pieces and all church decoration,
the Dutch school found itself limited to small pictures for use in
private houses.
It should not be necessary, but may in present-day conditions
be advisable, to emphasize that by explaining this relation be¬
tween social life, a specific religious creed, and art, no causality
is intended to be suggested. It is not the social system that is
responsible for religion or for art; it is in this case chiefly the
relatively constant factor of national character which brought
about this bourgeois republic, this brand of Calvinism, and this
style in art. Since, however, the problem under discussion in
this book is not one of general “ Geistesgeschichte” but one of
professional history, the social and economic points of view
have to be placed in the centre of the picture. So now we

must pass on from the opposed structures of the artist’s clientele

in France and in Holland to the social position of the artists
themselves.

i In connection with the natural relationship between official art and academic
taste as here maintained, and in connection with the application of this rule to post¬
war developments in Europe it may be worth pointing out that the most important
research into this official, governmental style of painting in Holland all belongs to the
133
last fifteen years: H. Schneider, Oud Holland, vol. 33, 1915, Jb. d. preuss. Kunstsamml.
vol. 47, 1926; K. Bauch, J. A. Backer, Berlin, 1926; F. W. Hudig, Frederik Hendrik en de
Kunst van Hjn tijd, Inaugural Lecture, held in the University of Amsterdam in 1928.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

In France during the age of Louis XIV and Louis XV the

artist was a social necessity for the governing class, as indis¬
pensable as the weaver in the royal tapestry workshops and the
cabinet-maker in the Manufacture des Meubles de la Couronne,
and in fact no less indispensable than in the Middle Ages. His
patrons were only too willing to assist him if he conformed with
their requirements. But the possibilities of assistance from the
individual patron were by no means unlimited. Just as the
aristocracy culminated in the narrower circle of the court, and
the court in the King, so effective furtherance of art could only
come from the King and from the court (including the highest
range of civil servants) . Recognizing the necessity of the artist
thus became tantamount to binding him firmly into that system
of organization which ruled with such hitherto unparalleled
totality the State of Louis XIV. The method of doing this was
the grant of the title of Peintres and Sculpteurs du Roi to suitable
artists, with all the social consequences that a title of this kind had
in a Baroque State. But in attaining this welcome honour, they
had to give up their freedom, and not only externally, although
they were just then trying to establish freedom from the guilds,
but also internally, which means freedom of expression in art.
In this respect, the artist in Holland was much better off. He
was virtually free, since the guild, provided that the annual tax
was paid, did not interfere with his external life, and nobody had
the power nor the conscious intention of interfering with his
style. So he painted what he liked, and as he liked it. Conditions
being as they were, it was out of the question for the painter to
wait for the customer who would order a picture for his drawing¬
room. Paintings were done in the artist’s studio in ignorance of
who would buy them and where they would go. Art dealing
flourished, the link between producer and consumer was broken.
There were two alternatives open to the painter in this situation.
He could make up his mind to work for the market, or he could
in the absence of personal patrons
*34 forget about the consumer
entirely and regard his art as an unconditioned intercourse with
his genius and his conscience. The first of these two attitudes is
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

responsible for that typical quality of Dutch seventeenth-century

painting, the formation of the specialist. If a painter were success¬
ful in peasant scenes, he would henceforth produce peasant scenes
only. Were his landscapes with moonlight effects in demand,
concentration upon these was the policy to be followed. For by
this method alone could he secure a fairly steady market.
There was, however, another more dangerous aspect of the
Dutch freedom. Where patrons order, the natural balance be¬
tween production and consumption is guaranteed; competitive
production for the open market remains in the dark as to the
purchasing power on the other side and the willingness to buy.
For the first time in the history of art one is faced with an over¬
supply of artists. As long as guilds controlled the entrance into
the trade and the progress made by the individual member in it,
nothing of the kind could happen. Now a proletariat of unsuc¬
cessful painters arose, painters e.g. who for a monthly wage had
to supply an art dealer with just so many original pictures or
copies. And even artists of recognized reputation preferred to
have a second job besides painting. Jan Steen and Aert van der
Neer were innkeepers, van Goyen ventured upon the lucrative
but risky trade in tulips, van de Cappelle owned a dyeing busi¬
ness, Philips Koninck bought a canal-shipping privilege, Hob¬
bema a privilege on the excise on wine.1 This system cannot be
regarded as satisfactory. For otherwise would an artist as great
as Hobbema have been prepared
to give up painting almost
entirely at the age of about thirty? There are only very few
dated works known from the forty-nine years between his start
on the other job and his death, and the supreme beauty of the
late Avenue of Middel harms rules out the explanation, that he
himself was afraid his powers were failing him.

i On the social conditions of art in Holland cf. H. Floerke, Studien zur Nieder-
landischen Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, Munich and Leipzig, 1905; K. Martin, Burlington
1,
Magazine , vols. 7, 8, 10, 11, 1905-7, and K. Martin, Monatsh. f. Kunstwiss. vol.
part 2, 13enjoying
1908. I have also been fortunate in 5 Dr H. Gerson’s assistance with
regard to information on Dutch painting. In Floerke’s book the case of J. Porcellis is
quoted, who made an agreement with a cooper in 1615 according to which he had to
supply for 158. two pictures each week.
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

The danger underlying this was increased by the taste of the

art dealer’s clientele. It has been said before that these Dutch
merchants only rarely had a trained taste, although very often
a real collecting passion. Otherwise art dealers and other
traders dabbling in art could not have piled up such surprising
numbers of pictures. It is recorded that a certain painter and art
dealer at Rotterdam left 200 pictures, and that the owner of
a slop-shop when he died possessed 1500 pictures. To satisfy
the taste of such amateurs a painter had to adapt himself to their
powers of comprehension. The more exacting an artist was, the
less likely would
it be that his works would meet with response in
so amorphous a market. In Roman Catholic countries the artist
who wanted to express deeper feeling would enshrine the best of
his genius in altar-pictures. That was barred in Holland, and if
Rembrandt felt driven to express his philosophy in paintings
from the Gospels, there was no steady demand for works of this
kind, and he had to wait for the appreciative patron who would
see such a picture and buy it. In France, where at all times the
national genius prevails over the individual, this situation might
have appeared tolerable, in the Germanic country it was bound
to end in tragedy. Rembrandt, the greatest genius that Holland
ever produced, was its victim. As long as his art was compre¬
hensible to the wealthy bourgeois of Amsterdam, he was admired.
When he grew in spiritual intensity, when his speech became
more and more the intimate meditation of a recluse, success
deserted him.
You may consider this fortunate for the development of his art
and welcome his tragic isolation, if you are a supporter of the
Impressionists. In the conflict between the great artist and the
bourgeois public, they always took sides with the artist, and
most people to-day who have kept a live interest in art would be
prepared to adopt their arguments. And yet it should not be
forgotten that in the Middle Ages it seems as though, for what¬
ever reason, the great men really were in charge of the great
tasks. The masters of Chartres, and Reims, and Naumburg,
Giovanni Pisano, and Giotto and Duccio were not outcasts, nor

136
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

cranks. And even at a later date the most uncompromising of the

great geniuses of Italian painting were never without patrons,
never without adequate work. This applies to Michelangelo as
well as to Tintoretto and Caravaggio. So it is equally justifiable
— and we should to-day perhaps say: more justifiable — to regard
Rembrandt’s case as a warning of most immediate urgency.
Leonardo and Michelangelo had destroyed the oneness of art as
a craft and art as a profession. By this they had torn the artist
out of the natural soil that had fed him until then. He remained
uprooted, until the France of Louis XIV found new bonds to
bring him back into the system of society. If the French system
was to collapse, what would happen to the artist? What would
be the consequence of the disappearance of all the educated and
generous patrons of the Ancien Regime? Where would art go
for support?
Holland answers these questions. Artists were by no means
without work. But while their numbers — not sifted out by the
elaborate process of selection which the academies had worked
out — grew out of all proportion, their success was no longer
determined by the value of their art as recognized by a class of
trained dilettanti, but depended on the verdict of a middle-class
mass. Great genius was left to destitution and disdain.
These considerations, which for their contemporary import¬
ance have been allowed more space than would be immediately
necessary, can now easily be applied to the field of education.
The training of the artist in France and Holland was bound to
pursue different aims and to proceed along different lines. The
Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture proves now to be
the only instructional form congruous with the system of
absolutism. By forcing all Peintres du Roi into the academy the
King made sure that the prevailing style would be that of the
artists whom he had chosen to represent his ideas. By granting a
life-drawing monopoly to the academy, no young artist who
aspired to the grand style at all1 could any longer hope to find
37
adequate teaching outside. By thus bringing the young genera¬
tion under the exclusive influence of the court artists no other
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

than the accepted style could be propagated. By letting the

student pass through the hands of twelve different teachers in one
year, it was even made impossible for any one personality within
the academy to exert a preponderant influence. And by pre¬
venting any outsider from making headway, the breaking out
of anti-academic talents was strongly discouraged and in fact
reduced almost to nullity. An admirably compact and un¬
assailable system, though one which could never have been
developed nor successfully carried through but in a country
whose national character was in accordance with it. This
character enabled the French to create during the Classic phase
of their art such perfect entireties as Vaux and Versailles, works
at first sight unimpeachably complete like a Gothic cathedral.
There is, however, one fundamental difference between the
thirteenth and the seventeenth century, between Pre-Renais¬
sance and Post-Renaissance art, and this is most strikingly illus¬
trated by the introduction of academies. What in the Middle
Ages had been the result of natural growth now became the
object of conscious reasoning and methodical endeavour.
As for Holland, a few words will be enough. The formation of
academies was impossible as long as Dutch art flourished. Im¬
possible, because it went against the nature of the country, and
also because only tolerance gives your market sufficient variety.
So there was no need to reform an educational system which
although still medieval had in fact of late been much loosened.
If a man was popular, as Rembrandt was in the thirties, he
might have as many private pupils as he liked, in fact so many
that it amounted to a private academy1 (fig. 8) — did he lose his
popularity, he was alone, without commissions or pupils.
If we now try to sum up what the social history of art created
i Sandrart tells (ed. Peltzer, l.c. p. 203): “his house at Amsterdam was crowded
with almost innumerable young gentlemen who came for instruction and teaching.”
Each of them paid 100 fl. a year. It can be proved that life-drawing in common was
part of the training. The pupils were separated from each other by partition walls
(cf. Hofstede de Groot in Feest-Bundel Dr A. Bredius aangeboden (1915) and in Die
Urkunden iiber Rembrandt, The Hague, 1906, No. 186). However, Sandrart was not
prepared to accept this as academic education. In fact he blames Rembrandt violently
for his hostility “wider die unserer Profession hochst notigen Academien”.
138
 BAROQUE AND ROCOCO

during the seventeenth century, it must be said that at its end

three types of artists stood side by side. First, there was the
master in the medieval sense, who supplied from his workshop
both private customers and clerical or secular authorities. This
was still the most usual type in Italy, in Flanders, in England,
and in Germany. Secondly, there was the academician, as he
existed only in Paris. He also usually worked for individual
clients or public bodies, with whom he had direct dealings. His
social position was higher than that of most of his foreign col¬
leagues, but he had become so much of a servant to the court
that he was less free in his art than they. And thirdly there was
the Dutch painter who enjoyed complete freedom, and worked
in his studio for nobody in particular. The first of these three
types was doomed when the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution destroyed the guilds and the last remains of the
medieval style of life; the other two, however, both created by
the seventeenth century, represent the fundamental social
polarity which determines the attitude of the artist up to the
present day.

139
 Chapter IV
CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND
ACADEMIES OF ART

If the account given in the previous chapter of the foundation

and development of art academies in the seventeenth century is
correct and complete, there existed in 1 720 nineteen in the whole
of Europe, of which, however, only three or four can be regarded
ds academies proper. In Paris and Rome, and also in Florence
and Bologna, academies fulfilled or endeavoured to fulfill tasks
very much like those of present-day academies of art. Similar
aims were pursued on a small scale by the academies of Vienna
and Dresden, of Nancy and, as far as we can make out, of
Lucca, Perugia and Modena. Contemporary records prove that
the academies of Berlin, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Turin, Antwerp,
Brussels and The Hague were almost obsolete. As for Bruges
and Utrecht, no information at all can be obtained on the
first half of the eighteenth century; and in any case the two insti¬
tutions never mattered very much.
Between 1720 and 1740, six academies of art were opened,
mostly small establishments hardly worth their name. At
St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy, founded by Peter the
Great in 1724, had a class of Fine Art which, however, did not
develop satisfactorily.1 At Toulouse, an Academy was started in
1 726, but got into full swing only after 1 750. 2 At Edinburgh, a
private School of St Luke had existed since 1 729. 3 At Stockholm,
a Picturae et Sculpturae Academia connected with the building
of the castle is first mentioned in 1735.4 1737 is the year of the
foundation of the Accademia della Pittura, Scoltura, Architettura,
detta del Disegno at Ferrara,5 1 738 that of the establishment of a
1 Cf. Hasselblatt, l.c. p. 33. 2 Cf. Chennevi^res, l.c.
3 Cf. MacKay, l.c. 4 Cf. Loostrom, l.c.
5 Cf. Codice Faustini, l.c.

I40
 ACADEMIES OF ART

small Academy of Painting and Drawing at Copenhagen.1 Al¬

though one seems thus entitled to say that in 1740 twenty-five
academies of art were active, this number must be reduced to
ten or less, if one wants to limit the term academy to institu¬
tions of the character first worked out in Florence and Rome,
then accomplished in Paris, and later in the eighteenth century
adopted everywhere.
For if we now cast a glance at conditions as they were in 1 790,
we see that well over one hundred academies of art or public
schools of art were flourishing. The following is a survey of
those which it has been possible to trace and which may well be
incomplete in more than one respect. Of the leading Royal
(or Imperial) institutions, that at Vienna was entirely re¬
modelled in 1770. A similar reorganization was carried out at
Dresden in 1 762 and at Berlin in 1 786. A revision of programme
took place at Copenhagen in 1754, at Stockholm in 1768, at
St Petersburg in 1757. The Academia de S. Fernando at Madrid
was founded in 1752. Moreover, most of the small German
princes opened schools of drawing — usually called academies —
in their capitals. Thus we find new establishments at Dusseldorf
(founded in 1767), Mainz(1757), Frankfort (1779), Hanau
(1772), Zweibrucken (1773), Mannheim (1752), Karlsruhe
(1786), Ohringen (1771), Stuttgart (1762 as a ducal institution,
after having been a private academy since 1753), Augsburg
(reorganization 1779), Munich (1770), Bayreuth (1756), Leipzig
(1764), Halle (about 1780), Weimar (1774), Erfurt (after 1772),
Gotha (before 1787), Cassel (1777).
In no other country is the harvest quite as plentiful, but Italy
and France do not remain far behind. The dates for Italy are:
1748, Lucca (first regulations); 1751, opening Genoa; 1752,
Mantua (Accademia Teresiana, founded by Giovanni Cadioli,
the painter and architect); 1 754., foundation of Benedict XIV s
Accademia Capitolina, which meant the introduction of public
life-classes into the old Accademia of S. Luca; 1755? foundation
of the Royal Academy at Naples; 1756, Venice (a Republican
1 Cf. Meldahl and Johansen, l.c.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

enterprise); 1757, Parma (founded by the Duke); 1763, Verona

(Accademia Cignaroli — a private institution) ; 1 769, the special
school for sculptors and architects at Carrara; 1776, the Imperial
Academy at Milan; 1778, reorganization Turin; 1784, reorgani¬
zation Florence; 1786, reorganization Modena.
Whereas a great variety characterizes Italy — here as every¬
where — strict unity of organization was maintained in France,
where all art schools, even if they had been started privately or
through municipal enterprise, were incorporated by the central
government and carried on as provincial schools. The idea of a
wide network of such regional establishments can, as was men¬
tioned before, be traced back to Colbert, although only one
branch academy had actually been opened during the seven¬
teenth century [vide p. 102). Now, however, the following
schools were set up: Montpellier 1738 (governmental 1771),
Rouen 1741, Reims 1748 (governmental 1752), Beauvais 1750,
Toulouse 1750, Marseille 1752, Lille 1755, Lyon 1757, Nantes
1757, Le Mans 1757, Amiens 1758, Tours 1760 (1781), Grenoble
1762, Aix 1765, St Omer 1767, Dijon 1767, Arras 1770, Douai
1770, Poitiers 1771, Troyes 1773, Besangon 1773, Bayonne 1779,
Chatellerault 1782, Langres 1782, Macon 1783, St Quentin
1783, Valenciennes 1783, Toulon 1786, Orleans 1786.1
Absolutism was also responsible for the foundation of new art
schools in Spain. The academies of Valencia (1753), Barcelona
(1775), Saragossa (1778), Valladolid (1779) and Cadiz (1789)
were all dependent on the central academy at Madrid. In
Britain , on the other hand, governmental enterprise was of little
importance. The Royal Academy in London, opened in 1768,
was, as will be shown later, in spite of its charter a private insti¬
tution. No state-aided art school existed in England until the
second third of the nineteenth century. In Scotland the Foulis
Academy in Glasgow (1753) was private, whereas the so-called
Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh (1760) was endowed by an
1 Cf. P.-V., J. Locquin, La Peinture d’Histoire en France de 1747 a 1785, Paris, 1912,
pp. 1 1 2 seqq., and L. Courajod, Histoire de I'Bcole des Beaux Arts au X VII Ie siicle, Paris,
1874, PP- kc se99-
I42
 ACADEMIES OF ART

official body, the Board of Manufactures. The art school of the

Dublin Society was again private. In the Netherlands most of the
new art schools were municipal. The following can be enu¬
merated: Reorganization Antwerp 1750-55, Amsterdam 1758,
Brussels 1763, The Hague 1778-80. Foundation of drawing
schools: Rotterdam 1773, Middelburg 1778, Gand 1748 (at first
private school, since 1771 as Academie Royale), Tournai 1756,
Courtrai 1760, Malines 1761, Oudenaarde 1773, Ath 1773,
Liege 1773, Ypres 1778, Mons 1781. In Switzerland Geneva
seems to have had the earliest drawing school: 1751. A similar
institution was established in Zurich in 1773.
America did not start later than Europe. In 1785 the Real
Academia de S. Carlos de Nueva Espana was opened at Mexico,
and in 1791 a private school began to work at Philadelphia
which was made into an official Academy of the Fine Arts in
1805.
This finishes a survey which may seem tedious in its length,
but which is necessary in order to convey a sufficiently vivid
impression of the way in which new academies sprang up every¬
where during the second half of the eighteenth century. Strong
powers, whether of a more spiritual or a more material nature,
must have been at work to cause this sudden development. It is
a particularly important task in our connection to trace these
powers, for without a clear knowledge of their nature no under¬
standing is possible of the conception of art education which
ruled not only the eighteenth but also the nineteenth and the
first decades of our own century. The most conspicuous change
in matters of art which took place during the eighteenth century
is without doubt that from the Rococo to the Neo-Classic style,
a change too well known to be discussed here at any length. A
list of dates, mostly referring to books published between 1745
and 1 775, may be enough to give an idea of this : The excavations
at Herculaneum were started in 17385 those at Pompeii in 1748.
It was also in 1 748 that Stuart brought out his Proposals for
publishing an accurate Description of the Antiquities of Athens. In 1752
the Recueil d’Antiquites by Comte de Caylus began to appear, in
M3
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

1 753 Wood’s volume on Palmyra. In 1 755 Winckelmann wrote

his first book, Uber die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke ; and in
the same year the Accademia Ercolanense for the publication of
the finds at Herculaneum was established at Naples. 1757 is the

year of publication of Wood’s volume on Balbek, 1 758 that of

Le Roi’s Ruines de la Grece. In 1761 Mengs painted his Parnassus
at the Villa Albani in Rome, 1 762 saw the first volume of Stuart

and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens , 1763 Robert Adam’s publica¬

tion of Spalato and Winckelmann’s chef-d’oeuvre, the Geschichte
der Kunst des Altertums. Equivalent in other fields of art are

Lessing’s Laokoon (1766) and — less known but equally significant

— Gluck’s introduction to his Alceste (1769), in which he pleaded
for “a noble simplicity” and “correct and well-composed
design”, condemned “superfluous ornament”, and stated that
in his opera he had “avoided parading difficulties at the expense
of clearness”.1 A wider view of the change in question may be
gained by comparisons between Voltaire, the author of the

Rucelle d> Orleans (1739) and Voltaire the defender of Calas (1763),
Frederick the Great as Crown Prince and as King, Kant in his

“pre-critical” writings and in his Kritik der Reinen Vernunft.

While it is easy to define at what style or philosophy the attacks
of all these artists and thinkers were aimed, it would not be
possible to define in a few words the positive contents of the new
movement. Rococo was what they all opposed, if one under¬
stands the term in a sufficiently wide sense— but what did they
intend to substitute for it? As far as the sudden growth of art
academies is concerned it will be enough to stress one aspect of
the universal change. The others are either irrelevant in our
connection or even lead to an antagonistic attitude to that
development of art education which we are going to describe
in this chapter. These anti-academic aspects, which became
of more universal importance only in the nineteenth century,
will be dealt with in the next chapter.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann I44was the greatest genius among
the Neo-Classics (fig. 14). His work must therefore be the centre of
1 The quotations are taken from E. Newman, Gluck, 1895, pp. 238-40.
 ACADEMIES OF ART

the following discussion, and the writings of other conte

mporary
antiquarians, theorists and dilettanti will only be quoted as
addi¬
tional evidence. The constitutional foundation of Winckelmann’s
new vision was a strong instinctive nausea of Rococo flippa
ncy,
as he was first faced with it at Dresden in 1748.1 In Engla
nd
at the same time a new and correct Palladianism reached its

acme. Lord Burlington’s publication had come out in 1 730,

and
in the next few years many more editions of Palladio followed.
In Italy Algarotti, also a great admirer of Palladio, called the
architectural style of his day “il sepolcro di Cristo in mano de’
cani .2 In Paris Laugier’s Essai sur V Architecture of 1753 contai
ns
many passages against the artificiality of the Rococo; and only
ten years later the forms of the Rococo seem to have been so
entirely abandoned by those who were interested in new
fashions that Grimm in one of his letters of 1 763 could write :
‘'Tout se fait aujourd’hui a la Grecque”.3
A la Grecque — that was the new ideal. The Rococo — as the
previous chapter has shown — had disputed the infallibility of
Classic art; now once more, and more than ever before, Anti¬
quity was recognized as the one and only example to be followed.
In his first pamphlet,the Gedanken iiber die Nachahmung , a piece of
youthful and passionate writing, Winckelmann exclaimed: “The
only way for us to become great, nay inimitable, if that be
possible, is to imitate Antiquity.” “Eine edle Einfalt und eine
stifle Grosse” was to him the quintessence of Greek beauty.4 And
1 He was incidentally neither the first nor the only exponent of that attitude at
Dresden. The architect Krubsacius
in an article of 1747 strongly blamed “das
Ungereimte des einreissenden Grillen- und Muschelwerkes ” “(Uber den wahren
Geschmack der Alten”, Neuer Buchersaal der schonen Wissenschaften und freien Kiinste,
vol. iv), and somewhat later Hagedorn the distinguished writer and connoisseur
inveighed against the “Collifichet et Coquillages” of the Rococo (cf. K. Wiessner,
l.c. p. 33).
2 Letter to Griscavallo, 5 October 1 758.
3 Corresp. Litter, v, 282.
4 Similar expressions were used by two immediate predecessors of Winckelmann, a
philologist and a painter, both teaching at Leipzig, i.e. quite near Dresden, where
Winckelmann lived. Johann Friedrich Christ in his lectures praised the ideals of
nature, nobility and simplicity in Greek and Roman sculpture (cf. W. Waetzoldt,
Deutsche Kunsthistoriker, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1921); and Adam Oeser, as his later pupil
Goethe tells, pleaded always for “Einfalt und Stille” in the art of painting. It is
PA
H5 10
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

as it was a matter of course for him and the other pioneers of the
Neo-Classic ideal that the creation of beauty, “the highest task
and centre of art”, must always be mainly concerned with
man”,1 that the artist can only express his message by concen¬
e
trating on the human figure. Landscape and portrait, still-lif
and genre are “assunti bassi” to Mengs and low and confined
subjects” to Reynolds.2 “Low” means the lack of worth-while
ideals 5 and “confined” means satisfied with the accidental
the
beauty of individual objects in nature. For it is one of
essential features of this theory that nature left to herself

cannot attain the apogee of perfection. The “apes of nature”,

as Winckelmann once has it, or the “drudging Mimicks of
Nature’s most uncomely coarseness”, as Horace Walpole pre¬
ferred to call them, must of necessity be artists of minor value.

For “a mere copier of nature” — to quote Reynolds too — “can

never produce anything great”.3
Only by selecting from nature and modifying according to
the best standards can a work of high art be achieved. Follow
nature .
nature, recommended Batteux in 1747? but “la belle to
And how do we know what to follow and what avoid?

Winckelmann answers this question: It is “easier to discover

the beauty of Greek statues than the beauty of nature. . ..Imi¬
tating them will teach us how to become wise without loss of
known that Winckelmann in his early days had been greatly impressed by Oeser. In

Reynolds’s third Discourse (ed. Malone, vol. i, 2nd edition, 1798, p. 67) it is also
“the true simplicity of nature” which can only be attained by “recourse to the
Ancients as instructors”.
1 K. Justi, Winckelmann , sein Leben, seine Werke und seine geitgenossen, vol. 3, 2nd
edition, p. 148. Goethe went further and said (Einleitung in die Propylaen, 1798,
Weimarer Ausgabe, vol. 47, p. 12): “Der Mensch ist der hochste, ja der eigentliche
Gegenstand bildender Kunst.”
2 U. Christoffel, Der schriftliche Nachlass des A. R. Mengs, Basel, 1918, p. 53;
land¬
Reynolds, l.c. vol. 1, p. 72. Winckelmann once alluded to “futile and vacant
of
scapes” (Justi, l.c. vol. 3, p. 241), and Lessing used the term of “ Kotmaler ” (painters
mud) for all those who liked to paint “barbers’ shops, dirty workshops, donkeys and
cabbages” (quotations taken from F. Landsberger, Die Kunst der Goethezeit, Leipzig,
1932, p. 88).
3 For Winckelmann cf. Justi, l.c. vol. 1, ist edition, p. 388. For Walpole, Aedes
Walpolianae, 1747; the quotation is taken from J. Steegmann, The Rule of Taste from
George I to George IV, London, 1936, p. 101. For Reynolds cf. l.c. vol. 1, p. 52.
4 Les Beaux Arts reduits a un meme principe, part 1, chap. 3.

146
 ACADEMIES OF ART

time d
This recipe, as it is scarcely necessary to say, is again
not confined to Winckelmann’s writings. It can be found in

seventeenth-century theory.
Beyond these general rules, several more detailed recommen¬
dations are given by Winckelmann and his partisans. Design
should range before colouring in the mind of the artist. It
ReDidero
should,
yn tolaccording
ds1 to Winckelma
2 nn, be given the first and the
as well as in
and
second and the third place in a work ofbe art.
traced
“ E back
l’intellige nza del
to French
Disegno, che dirige tutte le arti” is what Mengs says; and — this
is very important — he adds: “per disegno s’intende principal-
mente il contorno”. This also evidently derives from Winckel¬
mann, who calls the outline “the main task of the artist’’ and
states: “Suchet die edle Einfalt in den Umrissen.”3
Consequently brilliant oil painting was not highly valued by
the promoters of the new movement. Reynolds placed the
Venetian masters in a class inferior to the Roman, the Florentine
and the Bolognese schools ; and Schiller is supposed to have gone
so far as to say about the pictures at the Dresden Gallery: “All
very well; if only the cartoons were not filled with colour....
I cannot get rid of the idea that those colours do not tell me the
truth . . .the pure outline would give me much more faithful an
image”. Kant’s
influence, so essential for the development of
Schiller’s thought, is evident in this remark. A contempt of
mere deftness, a distrust of being taken in by manual skill, is at
the bottom of this. It is the feeling which made Flaxman call

Rysbrack and Scheemaekers “mere workmen”, the feeling

which caused Reynolds’s disparaging remarks about painting as

1 Gedanken iiber die Nachahmung, ed. Eiselein, 1825, P- 21.

2 Diderot: “II me semble qu’il faudrait etudier l’antique pour apprendre k voir la
nature.” Reynolds: “It is from a careful study of [the works of the Ancients] that you
will be able to attain to the real simplicity of nature.” Other theorists to be compared
are Mengs, ed. D’Azara, vol. 1, pp. 39, 48; vol. 2, pp. 38 seqq., and — less known —
Mengs’s pupil Nicolas Guibal, who in his manuscript “Traite sur les Proportions du
Corps Humain” recommends “combinant la nature avec les belles figures antiques”
(R. Bernhardt, N. Guibal, Diss., Erlangen, 11922,
47 annex m, p. 14).
3 Mengs: D’Azara, l.c. vol. 2, pp. 209, 243. Winckelmann: Justi, l.c. vol. 1, 1st
edition, p. 388 and vol. 3, 2nd edition, p. 221.

IO-2
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

a “mechanical trade” and which — as was shown — has played an

important part in all the struggles for achieving a higher social
status of the artist since Leonardo’s days.1 And why should this
argument have been abandoned? Of Spain Mengs said rightly,
when he arrived there in 1761: “La nazione non ha tuttavia
idea giusta delle Arti e della loro nobilta.” In England things
were hardly different in the decades before the foundation of the
Royal Academy. In Germany Anton Graff the portrait-
painter had in 1 759 to fight the guild of painters at Augsburg to
be allowed the free practice of his art. In Holland, J. G.
Ziesenis, the Hanoverian portrait-painter, was forced in 1 768 to

pay to the confraternity Pictura at The Hague the “ meestergeld ”

due from foreign painters exactly as Diirer had to pay his 4 fl.
to the Scuola in Venice 250 years earlier. In Switzerland J. W.
Tischbein received in 1781 a special and exceptional diploma
from the guild of painters at Zurich by which he was permitted

to paint in the town for a year “regardless of the well-established

privileges of the worthy company”.2 But what about France
and the position of the Academicians there? They were certainly
held in high esteem and not regarded as mere craftsmen.
And yet, Neo-Classic theory objected as strongly to their social
status as to that of the humble German or English portrait-
painters. We are here confronted with a new and highly
important argument, the only argument, in point of fact, which
was not taken over by the writers of the eighteenth century from
the stock supplied by French theorists of the age of Louis XIV.
This new argument comes out most clearly in the works of

1 The quotation from Schiller is taken from R. Kopke, L. Tieck, Leipzig, 1885,
vol. 1, p. 250. Kant says in his Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790, 1st part, p. 21: “Die
Farben welche den Abriss illuminieren, gehoren zum Reiz; den Gegenstand an sich
konnen sie zwar fur die Empfindung beliebt, aber nicht ausdauerungswiirdig und
schon machen, vielmehr werden sie durch das, was die schone Form erfordert,
mehrenteils gar sehr eingeschrankt und selbst da, wo der Reiz zugelassen wird, durch
die schone Form allein veredelt.” Flaxman: quoted from K. A. Esdaile’s English
Monumental Sculpture since the Renaissance, London, 1927, p. 21.

2 Mengs: D’Azara, l.c. vol. 2, p. 212. Graff: R. Muther, Leipzig, 1881, p. 12.
Ziesenis: J. Gram, De Schildersconfrerie Pictura, l.c. p. 77. Tischbein: J. H. W. Tischbein,
Aus meinem Leben, Braunschweig, 1861, pp. 21 1 seqq. Diirer: Letter to Pirckheimer,
2 April 1506.

148
 ACADEMIES OF ART

the great German authors of about 1800. It is found in all the

theories of Classicists as well as Romanticists and has attained its

most comprehensive expression in Schiller’s essays on aesthetics

and in his philosophical poems. Art and art only, Schiller says,
can lift man up from his natural into a moral state. Art alone
produces harmony between our sensual instincts and our
“Formtrieb”, between life and order. Consequently the
aesthetic state is the highest state of mind and soul which the
individual can achieve. The artist who brings it about deserves
the greatest veneration from everybody. Artists live “on the
summits of mankind”; “herrschend stellen sie sich den Herr-
schern gleich”.
The artist as the king’s equal — if that was the position which
theorists now assigned to him, he could obviously no longer be
satisfied with the status which the French court painter or
sculptor enjoyed. Sulzer, the originator of aesthetics as an
academic discipline in Germany, was clearly aiming at the Paris

system, when he called the use of the arts “for display and
luxury”, “a complete misunderstanding of their divine power. . .
and their high value”. Goethe’s friend and pupil, Heinrich
Meyer, wrote in stronger terms some twenty-five years later:
“Art must feel free and independent, it must rule, as it were, if
it is to thrive; if it is ruled and mastered, it is bound to decline

and vanish.”1
It is this new faith in the artist’s all-important message, and
the new self-assurance of the artist resulting from it, that are

reflected in Winckelmann’s and his partisans’ recommendations

for the education of artists. Mengs, Winckelmann’s most direct
follower, states: “ In order that the arts may flourish in a nation,
it is necessary that the artists should be honoured.”2 Now the
1 Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie der schonen Kiinste, 1771, vol. 3, p. 88; Meyer, Propylaen,

vol. 2, part 11, 1799, p. 10. Cf. also Fuseli in 1825: “To prosper, the art not only must
feel itself free, it ought to reign. If it be dominated over, if it follow the dictates of

fashion, or a patron’s whims, then is its dissolution at hand” '(Lectures on Painting,

was still connected, just
149 incidentally,
ed. R. N. Wornum, 1848, p. 552). This doctrine,
as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with a wrong conception of the artist’s
personal importance in Greece (cf. e.g. Watelet, s.v. “artiste”, in the Encyclopedie) .
2 Justi, l.c. vol. 3, 2nd edition, p. 221.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

(artist would not be worthy of universal recognition if he were to

remain a craftsman, taught only to handle his brushes or chisels.
The “science of art” should be the real object of his instruction,
which should therefore include geometry, perspective, history,

mythology, anatomy and of course theory of art and philosophy.1

These suggestions for the education of the young artist show again
the close connection between Neo-Classic and French Baroque
theory; and if one goes into more detail, one finds that the
emphasis on the value of drawing and of a thorough study of
ancient sculpture are also identical in the writings of 1660 and of
1760, although no French author of the seventeenth century
would have summed up his intentions in an exclamation as
direct and enthusiastic as Winckelmann’s “Create a Greek

beauty under our Cimbric skies”.2

To achieve such an ambitious programme of instruction
academies were indispensable, and it may scarcely seem neces¬
sary to corroborate Winckelmann’s association with the new
institutions by enumerating his and his friends’ relations with
them. He was made an Honorary Member of the Roman
Academy in 1760, and of that of Dresden in 1765, two years
after Hagedorn, its reorganizer, had suggested calling him on to
its staff.3 His Gedanken fiber die Nachahmung were translated by
the Danish Academy in 1763, his Geschichte der Kunst des Alter-
tums was republished by the Vienna Academy in 1776. Fuseli’s
translation, called Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the
Greeks , came out in 1765. Mengs wrote a Regolamento su U Aca¬
demia delle Belle Arti di Madrid , when appointed its head ; he was
Principe of the Roman Academy from 1771 to 1773, was asked
to reorganize the Naples Academy in 1773, and to give advice on
the reform of the Genoa Academy in 1 782.4 His pupil Wiedewelt
taught at Copenhagen and had amongst his numerous students

1 “Nicht nur Handgriffe der Kunst, sondern auch die Wissenschaft derselben”
(H. Meyer, l.c. p. 151); “instructions claires sur les principes fixes du dessin” (Guibal,
l.c.p, 10) ; “teoria. . . e speculazione delle regole” (Mengs, ed. D’Azara, vol. 2, p. 207).
2 Letter to Wiedewelt; Justi, l.c. vol. 3, 2nd edition, p. 221.
3 Wiessner, l.c. p. 22.

4 D’Azara, vol. 2, pp. 207 seqq. ; Borzalli, l.c. p. 72 ; Staglieno, l.c. p. 36.

I50
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Trippel the sculptor, who later started a popular private

academy in Rome. J. W. Tischbein went there before he be¬
came principal of the Naples Academy, Zauner before he was
called to the Vienna Academy, and Dannecker before the
Stuttgart Academy appointed him. Goethe owed much of his
understanding of ancient art to Trippel. As to other pupils of
Winckelmann, his brother-in-law Maron wrote one of the two
memoranda on which the re-modelling of the Vienna Academy
was based. Of Mengs’s pupils, Pecheux was director at Turin,
Guibal at Stuttgart, Casanova at Dresden, Becker at Karlsruhe.
Fiiger, who later on was made director at Vienna three times,

copied Mengs’s famous Parnassus

ceiling. Meyer, Goethe’s
spokesman in matters of art, was a pupil of Winckelmann’ s
friend J. K. Fiissli, who in Zurich translated Mengs’s Gedanken
iiber die Schonheit and edited Winckelmann’s letters. Fhe first
director of the Leipzig Academy was Oeser, Winckelmann’s
friend and in some ways his example; the first director at
Diisseldorf was Krahe, a pupil of Benehal and Subleyras in
Rome.

In all these schools, and many others which are not in any
demonstrable connection with him or his circle, instruction was

given in Winckelmann’s spirit. The perfection of Greek and

Roman art and the great importance of drawing are amongst the
stock topics of academic discourses. It is unnecessary to point to
of
Sir Joshua and his praise of Antiquity as the “fountain-head”
art. The “simplicity degli antichi” is likewise extolled in a
prize-giving speech of the Accademia di S. Luca by Monsignore
Soderini in 1766 and in the Berlin Academy Monthly in 1788.1
Reynolds’s well-known advice to the student to imitate antiquity
in order to learn what is worth selecting in nature is found
almost identically in the teaching of Guiard, director of th6
is re¬
Parma Academy, and Winckelmann’s faith in drawing
flected in S. L. Dury’s opening speech at the Cassel Academy
(“Drawing is the soul of painting’ , 1777) 5 as as from the
Missirmi, l.c. p. 250;
1 Reynolds, ed. Malone, vol. i, 2nd edition, p. 172; Rome:
Berlin: Monatsschrift, vol. 1, p. 140.

I51
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

foundation documents of the Dublin Academy (“Drawing and

designing ... is the groundwork of painting”, 1746).1 There
would be no difficulty in doubling or trebling the number of
examples adduced to show the conformity of the new academic
theory with the programmes of the new academies. The in¬
stances given will suffice to prove beyond doubt that most
eighteenth-century academies were dependent on the doctrine
of that Neo-Classic style which so profoundly changed the ap¬
pearance, first of architecture and then of sculpture and painting,
in Europe after the middle of the eighteenth century.
However, no change of taste or even of Weltanschauung
would by itself have been strong enough to cause the establish¬
ment of so many new schools. Even if it is admitted that the
foundation of schools in general is one of the characteristic fea¬
tures of the age of Reason, a doubt still remains as to whether so
many princes and municipalities would have been prepared to
allow the sums necessary for the formation and the maintenance
of the new academies for no other purpose than to promote
knowledge and a purified taste. To make the eighteenth century
so wholeheartedly accept the idea of academic art education,
some success of a practical nature must also have been foreseen.
And indeed it can be shown from the foundation or reorganiza¬
tion documents of almost all the new art schools that beyond the
Neo-Classic programme another set of ideas totally antagonistic
to Winckelmann’s was decisive. A number of quotations must
first be given to characterize them.
As early as 1725, when the Vienna Academy was to be re¬
organized, the argument in question was clearly presented:
Reorganization seemed desirable “as a particular recognition of
the arts and no less a promotion of commerce”. The same aim
was set forth in a more detailed way, when in 1770 Count
Kaunitz drew up those rules on which the subsequent develop¬
ment of the Vienna Academy was based.2 Hagedorn, who in
1 Parma: Hautecoeur, l.c. p. 158; Cassel: Knackfuss, l.c. p. 26; Dublin: Strickland,
lx. p. 580.
2 1 725 : v. Liitzow, l.c. p. 1 1 ; 1 770 : l.c. p. 52. The history of the Vienna Academy
up to 1740 was mentioned on pp. 120-22. For its history between 1740 and 1770 the
!52
 ACADEMIES OF ART

1 763 prepared the reopening of the Dresden Academy, developed

the same programme in his memoranda in such a precise and
comprehensive way that it deserves a fuller account: “Art”, he
wrote, “can be looked at from a commercial point of view” ; and
while it redounds to the honour of a country to produce excel¬
lent artists, it is no less useful to raise the demand abroad for

one s industrial products”. It would, he goes on, not have been

possible for France to derive so much benefit from the products
of her arts — Lyons silks e.g. with their floral patterns based on the
designers’ direct studies from nature — if their designers’ taste had
not been so good. An academy should disseminate taste. Therefore
it should extend its activity to the control of industrial branch-
schools — especially in Saxony with a view to the needs of the
Meissen porcelain manufacture and the Leipzig publishing and
printing trades — and of the drawing lessons in schools. More¬
over, in the academy itself not only life-drawing should be taught,
but care should also be taken to include “the minor branches of
art, such as landscape, animals, flowers”. The consequences of
such a programme would be increased circulation of money,
increased influx of foreign visitors and increased export of home
products.1 The intention of the reformers of the third leading
German art academy, that of Berlin, was identical. When the
Building Department tried to interest Frederick the Great in the

following facts must be added: In the fifties instruction was given in a fairly regular
and steady way and under teachers such as M. A. Unterbergher, Troger, Moll,
Messerschmidt, Mytens, Hotzendorf, i.e. the best artists available. In 1759 the whole
of the second floor of the new University building was put at the disposal of the
academy. There were between 150 and 250 students on the registers. In 1766 a
second art school was founded, at first for engravers only. Jacob Schmutzer, trained at
Paris by the most distinguished engravers of the time, was its director. In a surprisingly
short time this school developed into a complete academy with Council, Honorary
Members, exhibitions, anatomy and geometry classes, etc. In 1770, 219 students were
attending. Since besides these two a “ Manufaktur-Schule ” (cf. p. 157) had been
opened in 1758 on Kaunitz’s instigation, and a “ Graveurschule ” in 1767 on Schmut-
zer’s suggestion, the reform of 1770 was mainly a combination of the four institutes.
1 H. A. Fritzsche, l.c., and Wiessner, l.c. pp. 19 seqq. Incidentally the same argu¬
ments had already been used in 1762, when Hutin was asked by the Saxon Govern¬
ment to re-establish the deserted academy: *5the3 new institute should help all arts and
professions which depend on design “which is the goal of all public academies”
(Wiessner, l.c. p. xi).
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

existing academy in 1770, they said in their memorandum: If

only the academy wanted to, it could easily help “commerce and
those craftsmen who work to designs”. The staff should always
think of a possible application of their teaching to trades such as
printing, tapestry-weaving, wallpaper-printing, embroidering,
porcelain-decorating, glass-blowing. This spirit governed the
renewal of the academy, as it was at last so energetically carried
through by Heinitz. In his address to the academy in 1788 he
said: “We pursue no other aim than to enhance national in¬
dustry. Just as France and England in the Western and Italy in
the Southern provinces of Europe have made art an important
source of income, so we intend to make Berlin and the Prussian
State fit to become a store-house of art for the Northerly parts of
our Continent.” In accordance with this programme, Heinitz
asked the academy somewhat later to submit suggestions for the
incorporation of a school “for those who think of devoting them¬
selves to a metier”. The final rules of the renovated institution
came out in 1790 and state as its task “to contribute to the well¬
being of the arts in general as well as to instigate and foster home
industries, and by influencing manufacture and commerce to
improve them to such an extent that the taste of Prussian artists
will no longer be inferior to that of foreigners”.1 Exactly the
same attitude prevails in most of the other academies. When, as
early as 1716, a drawing school was added to the Nuremberg

academy, this measure was explained by pointing to the “great

help which the art of drawing can be to all trades and crafts”.
Likewise at Augsburg, three years after the reopening of the

academy in 1779, a Sunday school for the needs of “factory and

manufacture” was founded. At Stuttgart, when in 1 762 a private
studio academy was taken over by the government, it was said

that art was not only “one of the most important occupations of
human wit and human skill”, but also useful “to make com¬
merce flourish”. In Munich, although in 1770 when the
:54
academy was opened nothing but the “furtherance and pro-
1 Memorandum of 1770: Muller, l.c. p. 1 3 1 ; Heinitz’s address: Monatsschrift der
Akademie der Kiinste und mechanischen Wissenschaften zu Berlin, vol. 1, p. 149.
 ACADEMIES OF ART

motion of the arts” was mentioned, a report of 1801 goes into

more details and emphasizes the importance of the arts for “the
development of our moral sense” as well as for “civic arts and
trades”. At Dessau, in the 1790’s, Erdmannsdorff, one of the
leading Neo-Classic architects, planned the establishment of a
large school to prepare both for trades and art.1
These German examples can be supplemented by an even
greater number of instances taken from the programmes of
academies in other countries. The Petersburg Academy, of
which more will be said later, was founded in 1 757 and greatly
enlarged in 1764. It was then that elementary classes were
added for the benefit of future artists and future craftsmen and

artisans. Similarly, the Copenhagen Academy was first an insti¬

tution modelled on the Paris example. As soon, however, as
Struensee dictatorially began to impose Enlightenment upon
Denmark, new tasks were set for the academy: “L’Academie”,
we read, “est utile a l’Etat et aux Finances des Rois; aux der-
nieres, puisqu’elle forme des artistes dans la nation, qui seront
moins chers que les Etrangers; a l’Etat, puisque les eleves, qui
n’arrivent point a 1’excellence, repondent dans les differents
metiers et fabriques a l’agrement et le gout, surtout si a l’avenir
on dirige leurs etudes vers ce but.” These ideas were incorporated
in the rules of 1771 with their provision for one elementary
drawing school for all artisans, and kept after Struensee had
fallen into disgrace and been beheaded.2 The Danish example
1 Nuremberg: Baader, l.c. p. 266. Augsburg: Welisch, l.c. Stuttgart: Wagner, l.c.
vol. 2, p. 224. Munich: Stieler, l.c. p. 4 and iii. Dessau: W. Hosaus, Mitt. d. Ver.f.
Anhaltische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, vol. 5, 1890. An earlier remark of Erdmanns¬
dorff is recorded which runs as follows: “It seems to me as though a sufficient know¬
ledge of geometry and a good ability to draw greatly contribute to improving all arts
and mechanical crafts” (L. Grote, Mitteldeutsche Lebensbilder, vol. 4, Magdeburg, 1929,
p. 163).
2 Petersburg: Hasselblatt, l.c. p. 75. As for Copenhagen, the early history of the
academy though chronologically belonging to the previous chapter must be added here
from Meldahl and Johansen’s admirably full and well-told account. The first “regu¬
lated society” of artists had been proposed to the King by some Copenhagen artists in
1701. Thomas Quellinus and Jacob Koninck were amongst them. In the petition it
!55
was mentioned that an academy had been started privately already under the
guidance of some noblemen. In 1701 the day of St Luke was solemnly celebrated by
this club which on that occasion called itself “academy”. The connection with
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

was probably decisive when at Stockholm in 1 7 73 the academy

began to consider the addition of special drawing classes “ til alia

Fabriquer och Handwarkerier”. These were opened in 1779 as
“Skola for Ornamentstekening”.1 In the same year, the muni¬
cipal authorities of The Hague applied to the Stadholder for a

reorganization of their academy, pointing out that “in order to

make factories and industries flourish, and increase the prosperity
of the citizens, it is in the first place necessary to promote the art

of drawing as the foundation of all art ”. In Dublin the initiative

for the establishment of a drawing school was due to the Dublin
Society for “improving husbandry, manufactures and the useful
arts and sciences”. Their argument was again that “drawing is
...so useful in manufactures”. Exactly the same reason is to
be found in the opening advertisement of the Foulis Academy in
Glasgow.2 Even in Paris the same argument was now put
forward. In 1777 the King wrote in a declaration that art should
contribute “a l’avantage ainsi qu’a la perfection de la plupart
Holland where St Luke’s day was universally recognized as the great occasion for all
painters’ academies is evident. The patron of the new academy, Graf Ahlefeld, in
whose house all meetings were held, was — characteristically enough — the head of the
recently instituted “College of Commerce” for the promotion of factories and manu¬
factures. The academy must soon have ceased to operate, since in 1738 it was re¬
founded by King Christian VI. It was kept going on a small scale, until it was
enlarged in 1 754 conformably to the Paris programme.
1 The pre-history of the Stockholm Academy has also to be added here. It origi¬
nated with some of the court artists who worked at the new Stockholm castle. And

just as this was architecturally dependent on Paris examples — namely Bernini’s plans
for the new Louvre (H. Rose, Wdlfflin-Festschrift, Munich, 1924) — so was the new
academy organized after the Paris pattern. Nicodemus Tessin, the greatest of
Swedish architects, had as early as 1718 recommended his son to visit the Paris

Academy and to study its rules. In 1735 mention is made of life-drawing “among the
French artists in the academy”. The official name of this establishment was “Kongl.
Ritarakademie ” — an odd mixture of the artists’ studio-academy as usual in the
seventeenth century and the German “Ritterakademie”, the then modern educa¬
tional institution for young noblemen. The confusion between the two terms can be

accounted for by the fact that the “Ritterakademien”, contrary to the old grammar
schools, emphasized science and the arts. Thus the Cassel Academy of Art could
originate from the drawing and architecture classes of a distinguished “Ritter¬
akademie”, the Collegium Carolinum (cf. Knackfuss, l.c. p. 10). At Stockholm, the
academy had worked steadily though not on a large scale since the thirties. In 1 768,
when Larcheveque was called from Paris, new and more ambitious rules were set up —
entirely inspired by those of the Paris Academy.
2 The Hague: Plantenga, l.c. p. 41. Dublin: Strickland, l.c. p. 579. Glasgow:
Evening Times, l.c.

156
 ACADEMIES OF ART

des arts d’industrie et a rendre plusieurs branches de commerce

plus etendues et plus florissantes”.1
All the cases mentioned so far show commercial besides
artistic considerations; there were, however, many art schools,
especially among the smaller ones, which were established with
no other aim in view but to help trades. This was stated in an
unusually explicit way by Pierre Subeyran when he opened the
municipal academy of Geneva in 1751. The first paragraph of
his memorandum says: “I am here not speaking of a school
suitable for the education of architects, sculptors or painters in
the proper sense, but of one that regards it as its task to improve
the work and manufactures most usual in commerce and every¬
day life.” At Naples, King Charles III had ordered in 1741 the
institution of a Scuola di Disegno for the apprentices in his pietra-
dura workshop. The example here was in all probability the
French Ecole des Gobelins, which is to be discussed in another
chapter. The Naples school grew into an Accademia del
Disegno and soon incorporated the life-drawing class of the
Royal Porcelain Manufacture. Thus a purely commercial pro¬
gramme was quite adequate. It was, however, abandoned after
some time, and when J. W. Tischbein was the principal of the
academy in the time of Lord Hamilton and Goethe, the establish¬
ment served almost exclusively artistic purposes. As to other
drawing schools of commercial character, a short chronological

list may be sufficient: 1757 Mainz, “for the improvement of

the art of drawing so necessary for all skilled professions”. 1757
Hanau, “considering the great benefit which science derives
from drawing and also its indispensability for most artists, manu¬
facturers and craftsmen”. 1758 “ Manufaktur-Schule”, Vienna,
incorporated in 177° into the remodelled academy. 1760
Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh, entirely for the promotion of
Scottish manufactures. 1769 Carrara, by the initiative of the
duchess of Massa. Sound professional training was to be given
to architects, stone-cutters and 1 sculptors in order to help the
57
local marble industry. 1770 “Handwerkerschule”, Karlsruhe,
1 Aucoc, l.c. p. cxviii.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

opened at the Town Hall. 1775 Barcelona, Drawing School of

the Chamber of Commerce. About 1780 Frankfort, “for
students who wished to devote themselves to crafts for which the

art of drawing is necessary”.1

Enough examples have now been enumerated to prove beyond
doubt the paramount importance of economic considerations for
the academic movement during the later eighteenth century.
Only some of the oldest foundations with particularly strong
traditions, such as Florence and Rome and a negligibly small
number of new institutions, as London, Madrid, Turin, and
Diisseldorf, were able to keep aloof from this new tendency, a
tendency which was a natural outcome of the theory of Mercan¬
tilism. According to the teachings of mercantilist economists it
was the paramount duty of a State to build up a system of
flourishing manufactures so as to stimulate the circulation of
money, and to strengthen exports of goods and imports of gold.
It has been pointed out before that this economic theory had

been largely responsible for the establishment of Colbert’s

French academies a hundred years earlier. However, there is
one essential difference. Nowhere, as has been emphasized,
neither in the printed rules of the Paris academy nor in its
lectures or reports of meetings, were the doctrines of Mercantil¬
ism ever mentioned before Louis XVI’s reform of 1 777. It is not
difficult to explain the seeming anomaly of this. Up to the last
decades before the Revolution, it had been regarded as com¬
mercially sufficient to train artists in the best taste so as to secure
satisfactory designs, not only for pictures and statues, but also
for tapestries and china. The execution of these designs by com¬
petent craftsmen could still be left out of consideration, although
academic theories had already begun to undermine the soundness
of the craftsman’s education. When the manufacture
% of the

1 Geneva: J. C. Fiissli, Geschichte der besten Kiinstler in der Schweiz, vol. 4, Zurich,
1 774, p. xvi. Naples: Jaricci, l.c. Mainz: Meusel’s Miscellaneen, vol. 22, p. 235.
Hanau: Stiftungsbrief, l.c. Vienna: note 2, p. 153 and von Liitzow, l.c. p. 475. Edin¬
burgh: McKay, l.c. pp. 33, 37. Carrara: Lazzoni, l.c. Karlsruhe: A. Valdenaire,
Fr. Weinbrenner. 2nd edition, Karlsruhe, 1926, p. 2. Barcelona: Caveda, l.c. vol. 2,
p. 399. Frankfort: Starck, l.c.

158
 ACADEMIES OF ART

“ Gobelins” was founded in 1663, a “ Seminaire” was introduced,

where a master was to give to sixty students courses in academic
life-drawing. Likewise a special permit to draw at the academy
was granted to the students of the Manufacture des Meubles de la
Couronne, a royal institution opened in 1667.1
However, these new courses were only supplementary and
served a very small number of students. Generally speaking the
medieval system of purely technical instruction for the craftsman
was still in full force. The academy stood aside, concerned with
the Fine Arts exclusively.
Only now, after 1750, the attitude changed, and royal or
municipal endeavour was directed towards improving the taste
of the small private manufacturer, the independent craftsman,
and the worker in private factories or workshops. Pierre
Subeyran in his programme of 1751 for the Geneva drawing
school put it as follows: “Some knowledge and even some
practice in the art of drawing is no less necessary for the em¬
ployer than for the workman.” 2 This is of course true, although
it remains a strange fact that everybody argued along such lines
now, whereas no one had done so a hundred years before. It
should, however, not be forgotten that the sudden change of
taste and the sudden demand for correct classic ornament made
a new method of instruction necessary. Moreover, active govern¬
mental interest in the seventeenth century had been mainly con¬
fined to government enterprise. Training methods for private
industry had interested Colbert much less, for the simple reason
that in his day there was so little private industry proper to be
looked after. Also — and this is certainly another important
argument — a significant change had taken place between the
seventeenth century and the latter part of the eighteenth in the
general outlook on education and in educational theories.
In the Middle Ages instruction in specific learned subjects
was confined to clerical schools maintained to prepare for church
1 Notices des Gobelins, Paris, 1861 ; L. Courajod, Histoire de I’licole des Beaux Arts au
XVIII sidle, Paris, 1874, p. lxiii; H. Jouin,15Lebrun,
9 Paris, 1889, pp. i58seqq.; Prods-
Verbaux, l.c. vol. 1, p. 308.
2 L.c. p. xvii.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

careers. A chivalrous education of a wider and less methodical

kind was given to the sons of the nobility. The Renaissance, in
the writings of Italian humanists, of Rabelais and Montaigne,
tried to adapt this system to a new age, while at the same time
the new grammar schools of the Protestant countries began to
replace the old church schools, and to widen their scope with a
view to the needs of future scholars and civil servants. The
artisan class was still entirely passed over. The children of a
painter would learn the elements of reading, writing and

arithmetic at home and in some private “ petty school ” . Luther

was the first to think of organized education for all, and
in fact some of the Protestant States of Germany worked out
systems of universal education during the second half of the
sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries (Bruns¬
wick 1528, Wiirttemberg 1559, Saxony 1580, Weimar 1619,
Gotha 1642). Most of these early efforts remained, however,
ephemeral, and it was not until the religious revival of the
eighteenth century joined forces with the ideas of the Enlighten¬
ment that a further development set in. The Enlightenment was
bound to take a most active interest in educational matters. As
soon as the step from acquiescing in a revealed truth to pursuing
a truth provable by experiments was taken, truth became
teachable, and knowledge of Nature and her ways and laws
was considered tantamount to power. Spreading knowledge,
therefore, implied to an enlightened monarch a material ser¬
vice to the political as well as economic interests of his State.

This is why Frederick the Great in an essay of 1772 said: “The

true wellbeing, advantage and glory of a State require that the

people be as well educated and as enlightened as possible.” In

actual practice these theories primarily resulted in a strong
emphasis on more natural and more practical teaching methods
than those of the old pedantic grammar-schools. Comenius
stands at the beginning of the movement. His Didactica Magna
dates from 1627. Milton in his tract On Education (1644) em¬
phatically stressed the importance of science and modern
languages besides classics. So did — for different reasons —
160
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Hobbes in his Leviathan of 1651; and Locke in his Thoughts on

Education (1693) developed on the basis of such theories a system
sometimes surprisingly closely related to that of the Renaissance

writers. Thus originated the Dissenters’ academies in England, the

early colonial schools in the United States, and in Germany the
first of the Realschulen. Prussia was especially progressive. Here
Frederick William I had introduced compulsory school education
as early as 1716, and here A. H. Francke (1663-1727), one of the
leaders of the Pietist movement, conceived the scheme of a Padago-
gium for those children of the middle classes who did not intend to
go to universities later. The first Realschule was actually founded
in direct pursuance of this plan by Semler at Halle in 1 708. More
renowned was the “Economic- Mathematic Realschule” which
J.J. Hecker opened in Berlin in 1 747. Another outcome of the same
spirit of enlightened absolutism was the Austrian reform of Ele-
mentarschulen according to the plan of Johann Ignazvon Felbiger
(1774) and of Mittelschulen according to the Denis- Marx Plan.
It is this interaction of a religious movement anxious to em¬
brace all classes, a philosophic movement glorifying reason and
everything learnable, and a social movement seriously concerned
with the conditions of the middle class, that in the field of art
education diverted the thought of princes and municipalities
from provisions for the painter and sculptor towards a more ap¬
propriate system of training the craftsman and the worker. And
as the rulers of the small German States had been pioneers in the
organization of Realschulen and Biirgerschulen, the greater
number of the new academies and drawing schools were now to
be found in their territories. In France, on the other hand,
where the government took little notice of the new ideas of
universal education, the corresponding initiative towards the
institution of drawing schools for the needs of the artisan re¬
mained entirely private. Thus, while the academic programmes
all over Europe were obviously modelled on the pattern of
Paris, a suitable combination of provisions for arts and for trades
in one school had to be found without the guidance of official
French programmes or measures.
PA 161 11
 MERCANTILISM AND
CLASSIC REVIVAL,

know what
None the less is it important for our purpose to
in which instruction
those private French institutions were like
or manufacturer. The
was imparted to the future craftsman
drawing schools in
first proposal for the institution of free
de Monthelon and
France came from one J. Phil. Ferrand
to have come of it.
dates back to 1710 or 1 715.1 Nothing seems
in so many cases
The great break of 1 750 was necessary here, as
tive change. The
mentioned before, to bring about a more effec
lier, flower
decisive step was taken in 1763 by Jean Jacques Bache
on at the Sevres
painter and head of the porcelain decorati
ntendant his pro¬
manufactory, when he submitted to the Suri
n en faceur des
gramme for an “ Ecole Elementaire du Dessi
was read in
metiers relatifs aux arts”. An Expose of his plan
er. He found a
1766 to the academy of which he was a memb
la Police, M. de
strong supporter in the Lieutenant-General de
the King in
Sartines, who apparently succeeded in interesting
ice,
Bachelier’s plans. Thus they could be translated into pract
1767.
and the Ecole Royale Gratuite de Dessin was opened in
Each of these
There were 1500 pupils from the beginning.
ns each
attended two afternoons a week and received two lesso
afternoon. Three groups of subjects were taught: geometry and
ls,
architecture, figure-drawing and the drawing of anima
in¬
flowers and ornament. It is hardly necessary to say that all
ings or
struction given was confined to copying from draw
s and
prints. The school was on friendly terms with both guild
ed the
academy. Several guilds instituted scholarships and allow
ficates
Ecole Gratuite to pay for the master or journeyman certi
of those students who had won prizes in the school; and the
over the Ecole
academy enjoyed a pro forma right of supervision
ed
Gratuite and took it as a compliment when Bachelier introduc
to be
a rule by which the drawing-masters of his school had
holders of academy prizes.2
des Beaux Arts,
1 L. Paris, Catalogue of the Reims Museum, 1845; P. Mantz, Gazette
Lacroix, Revue Universell e des Arts, vol. 23, 1866.
vol. 18, 1865; P.
^95
2 L. Courajod, Histoire de l' f cole des Beaux Arts au A 1 III slide, Pans, 1894? PP*
p. 330. It may be
seqq.; and Legons professes d I'ftcole du Louvre, vol. 3, Paris, 1903,
Bachelier (Courajod, l.c. p. 201) emphasized the importance
interesting to note that
162
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Bachelier s school, which incidentally still exists under the

name of Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs, must have been
much discussed right from its start. In 1 766 the Academie des
Arts et des Sciences of Rouen offered a prize for a treatise on
free drawing schools and their probable effects on trades. An
essay on the subject published according to Courajod in the same
year by one M. de Rosoy may be connected with this. At any
rate it is known that a pamphlet by J. D. Descamps, brought out
in 1767, was written for the competition and won the prize.
In 1774 one Picardet l’Aine at Dijon wrote a paper called Con¬
siderations sur les ecole s ou Von enseigne Vart du dessin et sur Vutilite d’un
pareil etablissement en faveur des metiers. As early as 1 768 a German
translation of Descamps’s study came out, and when Austria
made drawing lessons compulsory in the principal schools of her
various provinces, the rules were set up “nach der Methode des
Direktors Bachelier in Paris’’.1 In all these essays the same
arguments are put forward which we have found in dealing with
the new and reformed academies of the late eighteenth century.
Two quotations from Descamps may be given: “One single
individual formed the minds of us all: Colbert”; and: “It is true
that the most skilful artists govern [the Sevres manufacture] and
direct the hands of those employed. But what results may we not
hope for, if these workers themselves are trained in the free

schools?”
While the general trend was thus identical inside and outside
France, it must once more be strongly underlined that in France
a powerful academy with branch schools in the country carried
on without taking notice of the requirements of the trades,
whereas in most other European countries, and in Germany in
particular, new trade classes were grafted upon existing academic
institutions, or new establishments were from the beginning so

of geometry for the new symmetrical ornament which had replaced the free curves of
the Rococo.
1 Rosoy: Courajod, l.c. p. 330; Picardet: P. Milsand, Notes et Documents pour servir d
163
Vhistoire de V Academie de Dijon, Paris, 1871, 2nd edition, p. 14; German translation of
Descamps, Neue Bibliothek der Schonen Wissenschaften und der Freien Kiinste, vol. 6, part 1 ;
Austria: von Ltitzow, l.c. p. 70.

1 1-2
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

organized as to serve both artistic and commercial purposes.

disad¬
Each of the two systems had advantages as well as
come to
vantages, although most of the disadvantages did not
dis¬
the fore until the nineteenth century, and will therefore be
cussed later. It should, however, be mentioned at once that with
the German system conflicts were inevitable between the Mer¬
cantilist and the Neo-Classic aims. What of all the great hopes
in a reborn free art leading mankind to the highest goal, what of
the artist as a priest of truth and virtue, looking down on every¬
day life and its needs — if the academy is to be a free drawing
school for commerce and manufacture? Strangely enough, this
incongruity seems only rarely to have been noticed. In Vienna,
Fiiger, a distinguished painter and director of the academy,
warned it in 1 788 not to lose sight of that foremost task of an
academy, the grand style ; and Count Kaunitz in spite of what
he had said about the commercial utility of art schools also called

sculpture and the painting of historical and mythological sub¬

jects “the essential part of the academy”. For similar reasons
the great Wilhelm von Humboldt, since 1809 chief of the new
“ Kultus” department of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior,
had cancelled in the name of the Berlin “Royal Academy of
Arts and Mechanic Sciences” the words “Mechanic Sciences”.
Humboldt, as is known, was strongly influenced by Goethe and
the Weimar circle, and it is in this context significant that
Goethe’s friend Heinrich Meyer suggested in Goethe’s magazine,
the Propylaen, that academies of art proper should be left to
“Kings and Emperors”. The capitals of smaller States ought to
think of trades and industries. It would be possible in drawing
schools of this kind to discover talent and to prepare students of
exceptional ability for future studies in an academy of the

highest standard.1
1 Fiiger and Kaunitz: von Liitzow, l.c. p. 79; Humboldt: A. Amersdorffer, Der
Akademiegedanke in der Entwicklung der Preussischen Akademie der Kiinste , Berlin, 1928;
Meyer: Propylaen, vol. 2, part 2, pp. 14116 seqq. Similar ideas were developed by
4
Bertuch the Weimar painter and director of the academy in 1799 (Monatsschrift der
Akademie der Kiinste und Mechanischen Wissenschaften zu Berlin, vol. 2, pp. 35 seqq.), and
as early as 1 756 by Mengs, when he heard of the plan of founding an academy at
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Such suggestions, sound as they seem, were not adopted in

Central Europe. As a rule academies about 1800 consisted of
elementary classes for trade requirements and of advanced
courses for artists. It was entirely a nineteenth-century develop¬
ment which led to that cleavage between Kunstakademie,
Kunstgewerbeschule, Gewerbeschule and Technische Hoch-
schule, now characteristic of all Central European countries and
so different from England, where the question of art education
and industry was hardly mentioned before 1835. But the course of
action followed in England was as usual at variance with that on
the Continent, so that it must be described in another place and
after Continental methods and programmes have been ade¬
quately discussed.
It would be tiresome and moreover unnecessary to treat all
the rules and activities of the new academies in the same full and
detailed way as has been done in the case of the earliest establish¬
ments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tiresome —
because of their vast number; and unnecessary — because of the
striking uniformity of their character. In trying to apprehend
at one glance the totality of their programmes, one feature is
immediately evident: the dependence on Paris. And why should
the ideas of European courts on higher art education not have
followed the French example while all other forms of higher
cultural life were imitations of Versailles? The rules of Fred¬

erick I’s Berlin academy and of Charles Vi’s Vienna academy

have in a foregoing chapter been shown to be almost literal
copies of the rules of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de
Sculpture. The same is stated and proved by the authors of the
histories of the Copenhagen, Stockholm and St Petersburg aca¬
demies. The academies of Madrid, Naples and Parma were due

Bayreuth. He warned the authorities that an art school in such a small town would
soon run short of money, teachers and students (F. H. Hofmann, l.c.). In fact the
Bayreuth academy was discontinued after only seven years, and several similar cases
are known, in which small academies proved
165 unsuccessful, because they were court
enterprises throughout and had no connection with municipal needs. Thus e.g. at
Mannheim the academy collapsed as soon as the court had moved to Munich
(Beringer, l.c.).
 REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND
CLASSIC

and it is
to the initiative of the great-grandsons of Louis XIV,
tions.
known that the court-life of Paris inspired all their innova
van
The first director of the revived Vienna academy was
first director
Schuppen, a member of the Paris academy; the
academi-
after the reform at Dresden was the Frenchman and
l van
cien, Louis de Silvestre. The same is true of Louis Miche
or at
Loo, the first director at Madrid, of Saly, the first direct
burg,
Copenhagen, of Le Lorrain, the first director at St Peters
and of Larcheveque, the first director at Stockholm. Baldrighi,
the first director at Parma, was also a member of the Academie
those
Royale, and it would be futile to attempt a list of all
re¬
European academicians between 1750 and 1800 who had
ceived all or some of their training in France.1
What then can be regarded as the normal structure of one of
those new academies? There was first of all a Protector , the King
as in London and Berlin, the Prince as e.g. at Cassel, the Stad-
holder as at The Hague, the head of the building department,
or an influential minister such as Struensee at Copenhagen,
Carvajal y Lancaster at Madrid, Kaunitz at Vienna. There were
Honorary Members taken from the nobility, the dilettanti and con¬
noisseurs. Conseillers Honoraires they were called in Paris,
Accademici in Rome.
d’ Onore Accordingly their name was
Consigliari in Venice, Amateurs Honoraires in St Petersburg,

Academicos de Honor in Madrid, members of the “Extra¬

ordinaire Raad” at The Hague. Then there was the teaching
staff., occasionally but not frequently (Berlin, St Petersburg)
divided into rectors and professors as in Paris, and there were the
members , called Academiciens and Agrees in France, Academi¬
cians and Associates in England. The numbers of members were
unlimited — which again was in harmony with the Paris example
_ except in one case, London, where forty was the fixed limit.
But this figure is also derived from France. For forty were the
Officiers of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
1 Copenhagen: Meldahl and Johansen, l.c. p. 54. Stockholm: Loostrom, l.c. p. 131,

and Voyage de deux Frangais of 1796, vol. 11, p. 89 (“Les reglements de cette Academie
sont, k peu de choses pr£s, les memes qu’£ Paris”). Petersburg: Hasselblatt, l.c. p. 65.
Madrid: Estatutos de la Real Academia de S. Fernando, Madrid, 1757.
l66
 ACADEMIES OF ART

to whom alone all the privileges of the forty members of the

Academie Fran^aise were granted.
An explicit exemption of academicians from all professional
restrictions of the guilds often formed part of the rules. We have
seen that in most Continental countries this essential issue of the
original Paris programme became really topical only now. Thus
e.g. the Secretary to the Vienna academy wrote in 1773 to its

protector Count Kaunitz : “ It must not only be deeply degrading

in general but also detrimental to the impression which foreign
visitors receive from the national mentality of a State, if skill in

art is restricted by the rules of guilds.”1 Accordingly, the mem¬

bers of the academies in Vienna and Berlin, Copenhagen and
Stockholm, Madrid and the Netherlands were solemnly released
from any obligations towards guilds. Even in some small draw¬
ing schools, as e.g. at Mainz and Hanau, it was stated that
only their members should enjoy professional freedom.
Another French feature frequently imitated was that of
branch academies in other towns. As early as 1763 Hagedorn had
proposed to attach to the Dresden academy the Meissen porce¬
lain school, the Leipzig school for the printing trades and the
Realschulen of the country. Likewise the Vienna academy con¬
trolled the drawing classes of the Austrian Normalschulen. More
similar still to the French organization was the system in Spain,
conceived in 1 752 and carried out in the eighties of the eighteenth
century (cf. p. 142), and the system brought into operation in
Prussia between 1790 and 1810. The following provincial draw¬
ing schools were founded and superintended by the Berlin
academy: Konigsberg 1790, Halle 1791, Breslau 1791, Magde¬
burg 1793, Danzig 1803, Erfurt 1804, Frankfurt an der Oder and
Halberstadt between 1805 and 1810. 2
The curriculum of most of the new schools was also formed on
the Paris model. The copying of drawings came first. Then

followed drawing from plaster casts and then life-drawing

167
1 Von Liitzow, l.c. p. 69.
2 K. Levetzow, Geschichte der Koniglichen Akademie der bildenden Kiinste, Stettin und
Leipzig, 1808 and Fiorillo, l.c.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

(figs. 9-12). In addition lectures on anatomy, geometry and

perspective were held. In rare cases (Maron and Kaunitz at
Vienna) the importance of discussions on theories of art was
emphasized. Sometimes permission was obtained to copy pic¬
tures in the private .collections of the princes in whose capitals
the academies worked. This was considered a useful addition to
academic programmes, which as a rule did not include any
methodical instruction in oil-painting.1 Surprising as this lack
may appear to-day, one should not forget that in France as well
as in other countries the medieval system of learning the craft of
painting privately from a master was still customary. It cannot
be too strongly emphasized that the public art school as the
one and only establishment for the education of the artist is a
nineteenth-century innovation.
Whereas private tuition was naturally always subject to the
payment of fees, public academies aimed at supplying free in¬
struction. Such, as was shown before, had been the plan at Paris
too, although it had
not been possible to put it into practice
except for short periods. Another of the characteristics of even
the smallest of the new art schools was competitions with prizes. All
grades can be found between a medal being bestowed upon the
student who has done the best drawing in class and the pompous
solemnity of a Grand Prix conferred after sundry examinations
and long preparations. As to subject-matter in these competi¬
tions, the same type is usually chosen, equally in keeping with
French seventeenth-century traditions and Neo-Classic desires.
At Parma — to quote just one instance (though one which is
exceptional in that it refers to competitions open to artists from
all countries) — the following subjects were set: Hannibal looking
down on the Italian plain, the death of Socrates, Albinus and
the Vestal, Papirius and his mother, Alexander and Apelles, the
Death of Caesar, Achilles and Thetis, Achilles and the daughters
of Lycomedes. Parma was in especially close dependence on
Paris — but here are the subjects for which Goethe was mainly
1 At Cassel and Diisseldorf this connection between academy and gallery was
established right from the time of the foundation.
l68
 ACADEMIES OF ART

responsible (“ Weimarer Kunstfreunde”) : Venus leading Helena

to Paris, Hector leaving Andromache, Ulysses and Diomede

carrying away the horses of Rhesos, Achilles’s fight with the

rivers, Achilles and the daughters of Lycomedes. As at Paris
travelling scholarships to Rome were often granted to the most
successful students to crown their academic education, although
it is highly characteristic that in a good many cases these
scholarships were now extended to cover a period at Paris, and
in some even given for studies at Paris exclusively. A last feature
to be found everywhere, and clearly derived from France, is that
of academic exhibitions held at regular intervals. In most capitals
these academy exhibitions were the first exhibitions ever held.
This applies to Berlin (1 786) , Dresden (1 764) , Copenhagen (1 769) ,
Stockholm (1784), etc. What a success could be made of an art
exhibition at that time is illustrated by the number of visitors at
the first pre-academic exhibition in London which took place in
1760: 6582 catalogues were sold in a fortnight.1 It would be
interesting to investigate the reasons leading to this universal
demand for art shows at that juncture, but to write a history of
art exhibitions, tempting and promising as it may be, is not a
task that can be tackled by the way in a book on another
subject.
To sum up the course of academic training in the late eigh¬
teenth century, the development of one of the great Neo-Classic
artists shall be taken. Thorwaldsen was admitted to the ele¬
mentary class at the Copenhagen academy in 1781, he was pro¬
moted into the second class in 1782, reached the standard of the
antique or plaster class in 1785 and started on life-drawing in
1786. In 1787 he won the small silver medal, in 1789 the large
silver medal, in 1791 the small gold medal, in 1 793 the large gold
medal. From 1795 to 1798 he stayed in Rome, and then in 1805
was elected a professor of his native academy.2
The foregoing pages have shown point by point the depend¬
ence of the new academies on the Academie Royale de Peinture
169
1 W. T. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England, i 700- 1 799, London, 1928, p. 163.
2 J. M. Thiele, Thorwaldsen, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1852.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

et de Sculpture. It will now be necessary to prove that in spite of

all these obvious similarities the new institutions yet express a
new age. As to the various classes of members, they seem at first
sight to have changed very little. But the fact that the first
honorary members of the London academy were Dr Johnson and
Oliver Goldsmith, and that amongst the first of the new Berlin
academy there were Goethe, Herder, Wieland, will convey a
first indication of a new atmosphere. All these men were not
elected for their titles’ and connections’ sake but as representa¬
tives of an aristocracy of art and thought. Amongst architects,
painters and sculptors it was chiefly the dignitaries of a Neo-
Classic style who appeared to answer to the new conception of

the artist as a superior being, “den Herrschern gleich”. There¬

fore a feature of the eighteenth-century academies unknown to
the times of Colbert was the great number of their external
members. Whereas until 1750 it was sufficient to admit a com¬
paratively narrow circle of artists and patrons directly and
closely connected with the academy, it was now considered a
desirable and almost necessary enrichment of the reputation of
an art school to show as many as possible of the accredited leaders
of academic art amongst its members. Thus, to give one ex¬
ample, Copenhagen between 1770 and 1830 elected thirty-one
foreign artists. Of architects, Percier and Fontaine, Schinkel,
Klenze and Gartner are the most characteristic names; of
sculptors, Canova, Sergei, Schadow, Rauch and Dannecker; of
painters, Camuccini and Benvenuti, Gerard and Isabey, Cor¬
nelius, Matthai, Vogel von Vogelstein, and Sir Thomas Law¬
rence, and of engravers Morghen and Longhi. The one quality
common to almost all these is the leading part they played in the
academic life of their countries. And as a good deal of corre¬
spondence was constantly going to and fro between the various
academies, it was quite understandable that the directors and
heads of departments got to know each other and started electing
each other. The result in the nineteenth century was that a
caste of academicians existed in all countries proud of the titles
conferred upon them by institutions in other cities or other
 ACADEMIES OF ART

countries, and anxious to fill vacancies with colleagues belonging

to their own set. The contrast is evident between this system
and the self-contained aloofness of the old Paris academy, which
never elected foreign members unless they applied of their own
free will and in an apposite form.
Another contrast is disclosed when the conflicts between
guilds and academies in 1650 and in 1750 are examined more
closely. In Paris at the time of Lebrun the aim was to sever once
for all the artist from the artisan. This attitude was now given
up in most Continental countries. In some cases the zeal to
help trades by means of art went so far as to lead to a system by
which the academy established a complete supervision of the guild.
At Copenhagen e.g. a rule was made in 1771 by which all
masterpieces executed to gain the freedom of the guild must be
submitted to the academy. This cumbersome function was
established and not given up until 1885. A similar method was
followed for a time at Vienna and Berlin, where a number of
especially competent craftsmen were encouraged to widen their
knowledge of taste and style at the academy and then given
the title of academic citizens (Vienna) or academic artists

(Berlin).1
With regard to branch schools, another difference between Col¬
bert’s plans and late eighteenth-century practice can be shown.
In France branch schools were primarily intended to be a means
of controlling from one centre a wide orbit of art activity. As
such they were actually proposed as early as 1664, at least in the
form of suburban “succursales” within Paris.2 The Prussian
branch schools of 1790 to 1810 were instituted “chiefly in those
parts of the country, where considerable manufactures” existed
so that journeymen and apprentices could be trained in the
schools, which clearly indicates what aim they were pursuing.
The curriculum of an art-cum-trade school of this kind had also

1 Copenhagen: Meldahl and Johansen, l.c. pp. xxvi, 251. Vienna: von Liitzow,
lx. p. 69. Berlin: Rules of 1790, p. 25. At Vienna, incidentally, a rule was introduced
in 1 783 by which a craftsman had to undergo an examination in one of the classes of
the academy to obtain the title of master in a guild (cf. Dreger, l.c. p. 9).
2 Procis-Verbawc, vol. 1, pp. 281, 283.

171
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

to take on quite a new complexion now, although it would be

utterly wrong to assume that consideration of the requirements
of industry was in 1800 in any way comparable to what would
to-day be understood by that expression. No questions of material
and working process were dealt with. Academic courses remained
pure drawing lessons whether administered to future painters or
future craftsmen. And this was by no means due only to a mental
laziness which prevented the organizers of new academies from
seeing a new problem, but to the conscious and well-considered
conviction of the theorists of those days that the activity of the
industrial artist is nothing but the translation of drawings into
different materials with the aid of different tools. It is in this

spirit that Subeyran wrote: “Drawing is representing the shape

of objects; to engrave, to carve, to paint is to represent the same
shapes with a burin, or a chisel, or a brush ... so that hardly any¬
thing remains to be learnt but the use of those different tools.”
A complete academy of art at the end of the eighteenth cen¬
tury was still a drawing school exclusively. Its normal structure,
as everywhere confirmed by rules and records, is described by
Sulzer, the most popular German writer on matters of aesthetics at
that time. In his Allgemeine Theorie der bildenden Kiinste 1 he says:
The academy must be well supplied with objects necessary for learning
the art of drawing. These consist chiefly of the following in sufficient variety:
Books of drawings showing firstly separate parts of figures, form and propor¬
tion of heads, of noses, ears, lips, eyes, etc.; then larger parts of figures and
complete figures. To copy these is the first task to be set to the beginner.
They are to be followed by drawings of figures taken from the most out¬
standing works of art, correct drawings of classic sculpture, selected figures
by the greatest masters, by Raphael, Michael Angelo, the Carracci, etc. In
copying these the student receives a first insight into the higher spheres of art.
Besides the stock of drawings a stock of plaster casts is necessary, representing
the noblest works of Antiquity and some more recent works, in parts as well as
in complete figures and groups. Students will have to. draw from these
assiduously, because this not only helps them to develop a just eye and an
appreciation of beautiful forms, but also a knowledge of light and shade,
of variations of attitudes and of foreshortenings. Furthermore, the academy
must have models, men of beautiful form to pose on a raised platform or

i 2nd edition, vol. i, 1792, p. 12 seq.

172
 ACADEMIES OF ART

table in different attitudes according to the instruction of one of the leading

teachers.... This will enable the teachers to explain almost everything that
refers to the observation of light and shade on single figures. For the equip¬
ment of the room where life-drawing is to be held must be so that it can be
used both by day-light and by artificial light.

Sulzer also recommends a good supply of engravings and

paintings and easy access to a picture-gallery, if there is one
available. He admits that an academy of this kind “requires an
expenditure which would be only at the disposal of great and

powerful princes”, but he adds that “an academy can also be

established and maintained at moderate cost”. He distinctly
separates what he usually calls academies, namely “public in¬
stitutions in which young students are trained in everything
connected with drawing”, from “associations of especially
competent men” made academicians by princes in order to
encourage “investigations into important aspects of art”. The
way in which this short reference to the original chief aim of art
academies is added as an appendix to a long article on art
schools proves clearly that now the academy as a social institution
was defeated by the academy as a school, although there still
remained and remain exceptions. These, however, have to be
discussed later.
Looking back from the epoch with which we are concerned
here to the method of instruction described as characteristic of Paris
and further back to that suggested by Leonardo da Vinci, it will
seem as if very little change had occurred between the Cinque-
cento and the eighteenth century. Drawing from drawings,
drawing from the cast, life-drawing, these three steps are the
same with Leonardo, Zuccari, Lebrun and the Neo-Classics
(figs. 9-12). There is, however, a difference of degree which in
point of fact is amongst the most significant features distinguishing
the second from the first stage in the development of art
academies. Whereas teaching at the Academie Royale was
always of a purely supplementary 17character, confined to drawing
3
from plaster and life-drawing during two hours of the evening,
the most telling expression of the spirit of the Neo-Classic move-
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

ment is what Mengs wrote in his Regolamento for the Madrid

academy : An academy, he said, should “ praticar . . . tutto quello,

che un vigilante e buon maestro deve fare privatamente co’ suoi
Discepoli”, so that the student can learn in the school every¬
thing, “come se studiasse sotto un solo maestro”.1 Though this
programme was not translated into practice at once, there are

some attempts at a new and more “modern” solution which

were made before 1800, and must be mentioned here. At
Dresden and Diisseldorf members of the academy were under
obligation to train students in their houses; at Naples the most
promising students were sent as pupils and apprentices into the
workshops of the best local artists with royal scholarships ; and in
Berlin a department called the Institute of Remunerated Pupils
— an imitation incidentally of the then most recent Paris reform
which will be discussed presently — was established, the members
of which were allowed to spend the whole day in the classrooms
of the academy and the studios of the professors.2 Interesting as
these experiments may be, they were, as has been said before,
still quite exceptional.
But the feature which chiefly made the appearance and
everyday life of complete eighteenth-century academies so dif¬
ferent from that of the Paris academy was the introduction of the
elementary and trade classes. At Vienna or Berlin or Stockholm
or Copenhagen a division into departments and a full time-table
were necessary, whereas in Paris nothing of this kind was
needed. At Berlin e.g. elementary instruction which preceded
the study of plaster casts, of life-drawing and of anatomy, per¬
spective, etc. was divided into three stages: (1) First rudiments:

flower, ornament, “ideal foliage” (“idealisch Laub”), parts of

faces; (2) heads, hands, feet, etc.; (3) whole figures. This horri¬
fying syllabus was incidentally not changed at all until after

1 Ed. D’ Azara, l.c. p. 217.

2 Dresden: Wiessner, l.c. p. 58. Diisseldorf: Klapheck, l.c. p. 145. Naples: Jaricci,
l.c. p. 31’ Berlin: Seeger, l.c. p. 97. It may 1also be noted that a Berlin artist and one
74
of the representatives of the most austere Neo-Grecian style, H. Ch. Genelli, in a book
called Idee einer Akademie der Bildenden Kiinste (Braunschweig, 1800), regarded it as a
duty of the academicians to train students in their studios.
 ACADEMIES OF ART

1870. At Vienna, there were four departments: painting and

sculpture, engraving, ornament (“ Verzierungen”), and archi¬
tecture. In these four “schools”, instruction was given “in
different classes”: “the elements of historical drawing ... [which
evidently means drawing from drawings], drawing and modelling
in the round . . . drawing and modelling of the human body from
life” .. .landscape-drawing, and “drawing and painting from
flowers and other ornamentation applicable to all branches of art
industry”. At Stockholm there were five classes: ornament
drawing, figure drawing, drawing from plaster casts, life¬
drawing and architecture.1
To convey a sufficiently vivid impression of the daily routine
of an academy of this kind the Berlin time-table about 1800
may be analysed in detail:
Drapery
Monday : 7-9
8-12
Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery
8-12
2- 4 Modelling: antique (plaster)

Drawing in the trade-school

2-6 Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery
2-6 Modelling: antique

4-7 Modelling in the trade-school

Life-drawing
5-7 Drapery
Tuesday: 7-9
8-12
Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery
2
-5
10-12 Perspective
Architectural drawing

2-6 Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery

2-6 Modelling: antique
Life-drawing
5-7 Drapery
Wednesday: 7-9
8-12
Drawing from the cast
Drawing from drawings, etc.
2-5
9—12
Drawing from plaster ornaments
2-5
9— 12 Drawing from drawings, etc.

Drawing from plaster ornaments

2-6 Drawing from the cast
5-7 Life-drawing
175
1 Berlin : Seeger, l.c. p . 59 and, for 1870, p. 169. Vienna: v. Liitzow, l.c. S
Loostrom, l.c. p. 354.
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND
Drapery
Thursday:
7-9
8-12
8-12 Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery
Modelling: antique
8-12
2-5 Drawing from the cast
10-12 Perspective
Architectural drawing

2-6 Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery

Modelling: antique
2-6
4-7 Modelling in the trade-school
Life-drawing
5-7 Drapery
Friday:
7-9
8-12
8-12 Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery
Modelling: antique
8-12
Modelling from the cast

2-6 Drawing and painting in the picture-gallery

Modelling: antique
2-6
2-6 Drawing from the cast
Life-drawing
5-7
Advanced students who belonged to the Institute
munerated Pupils had to attend the following classes:
Monday : 8-12
Painting in the picture-gallery
Painting in the picture-gallery
2-6
Tuesday: 2-5 Drawing from the cast
10-12
7-10 Perspective
Architectural drawing
5-7 Life-drawing
Drapery
Wednesday : 7-9
2-5
Drawing from drawings, etc.
9-12 Drawing from drawings, etc.
Life-drawing
5-7
Thursday: Drawing from the cast
2-5
10-12
7-10 Perspective
Architectural drawing
Life-drawing
5-7
8-12
Friday : Painting in the picture-gallery
2-6 Painting in the picture-gallery
Drapery
Saturday : 7-9
2-5
Drawing from drawings, etc.
9-12 Drawing from drawings, etc.
5-7 Life-drawing.1
i Seeger, l.c. pp. 104, 78.

176
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Naturally such elaborate time-tables could only be worked out

in the largest and most comprehensive schools. Smaller aca¬
demies or academies which remained unconcerned with com¬
mercial interests such as Rome and London preserved more of
the traditional character of the seventeenth century.1 Yet there
cannot be any doubt that between 1750 and 1800 these schools
were regarded as conservative and those with a wide scope and a
manifold programme as up-to-date and progressive.
To show this no better proof can be adduced than the fact
that even the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was
dragged into a movement for intensified study. I am alluding
to the Ecole des Eleves Proteges founded in 1748 — the example
which later caused the establishment of the Berlin Institute. It
was housed in a building in the old Place du Louvre and its
purpose was to give board and lodging to the six best students of
the academy, winners of the Grand Prix, who had to live in the
Ecole for three years before they went to the Academie de
France in Rome. Their main task during these years was to
work at oil-painting, and it is highly characteristic of the state of
affairs about 1 750 that now at last, in the hey-day of Boucher,

painting was recognized as an essential part of a painter’s train¬

ing. The copying of pictures was taught (up to 1765 in the
Apollo Gallery of the Louvre), and also composition, history
and mythology, perspective and anatomy. We even hear of
monthly outings to study old buildings and picturesque scenery.
1 Of small academies e.g. Karlsruhe: 4 hours a week drawing from drawings, etc.
and 2 hours a week drawing from the cast (Kircher, l.c. p. 25); Hanau: one-third
of the students 8 — 1 1 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, the second third 2 — 5 on
Wednesdays and Saturdays, the third 5—8 on Saturdays (Stiftungs brief, l.c.) ; Antwerp:
2 hours a day drawing from the cast Summer and Winter, and during the Summer terms
2 hours of drapery, during the Winter 2 hours of life-drawing (Rules of 1796, van der
di
Straelen, l.c.). Of large academies without trade courses e.g. Rome: Accademia
S. Luca where apart from life-drawing there was no class-instruction at all up to 1814.
and 1810
Missirini says, quite unmistakably, that the academy was between Zuccari
a <l mero istituto di nome, e non di fatto . . . , piu specioso, che utile , without formali

scuole di buone Arti” and “fisse classi di pubblico insegnamento ” (l.c. p. 376).
Accordingly, J. G. Keyssler in his Reisen durch Deutschland, Bohmen, Ungarn... 1776
177 meetings of
(vol. 1, p. 513) describes the Accademia di S. Luca only as a place where
artists are held. In London there were only the Antique School and the Life School,
12
by the Visitors.
supervised by the Keeper, while the poses of the model were set
PA
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

Here then is all at once a full syllabus of post-graduate work, and

the question arises how this surprisingly novel programme can
be explained.1
The responsibility, it appears, lay entirely with Mme de Pom¬
padour and her brother, M. de Marigny, Surintendant, and the
Ecole was not the only innovation pressed by them. There was,
a first sign of an intended change of policy, the acceptance of the
protectorship of the academy by the King himself in 1 747 5 there
was the revival of the academic exhibitions which now became a
regular feature under the name of Salons, and there was the
foundation of all those provincial branch schools which have been
enumerated at the beginning of this chapter. In 1777 they were
again proclaimed to be under the command of the Paris
Academy; and in the same year as a consequence of the abolition
or in some cases reform of the French guilds the guild academy
of St Luke was closed. In 1 776 the academy had already opened
a second life-drawing course in order to cope with the growing
number of students. All these measures should be understood as

an expression of that pre-Revolution sentiment in favour of

liberal reforms which is noticeable in so many ways during the
decades before 1789. In this particular case it certainly led to a
new interest in art and its promotion, but by no means to a
benevolent interest in the Academie Royale. On the contrary,
it seems as if the measures mentioned were up to a point aimed
against the academy in the shape it had assumed about 1750.
To prove that this interpretation of the reforms is correct it is

sufficient to point to one sign of the King’s dissatisfaction: the

creation in 1 748 of a jury for the Salon exhibitions at his explicit
request. The Ecole des Eleves Proteges was in all probability

another criticism of the academy’s teaching methods and results.

No wonder, therefore, that academy officers were strongly
against the new establishment from its very start. As long as
Mme de Pompadour was in power, this opposition remained
below the surface, but immediately after her death (1764),
and then after the death of the tactful and diplomatic director
1 L. Courajod, Histoire de V Ecole des Beaux Arts au XVIII siecle, Paris, 1874.

178
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Carle van Loo (1765), the academy succeeded in destroying the

Ecole and regaining the King’s favour. Its budget was increased
to £10,000 in 1764. In 1765 the Ecole had to leave the Galerie
d’ Apollon, which now became part of the academy. In 1771 a
new instruction was brought out by which in future only two
students a year could be received in the Ecole and only for a
one-year course, the amount of money thus saved to go to the
academy. This badly curtailed activity of the Ecole was, how¬
ever, but a short reprieve. The academy did not stop persecuting
it, and was at last fully successful. The Ecole was closed in 1775
and replaced in 1777 by a kind of Royal Hostel for twelve
students whose training was, however, to be private in the studios
of the best artists. The new arrangement thus entirely lacked
the most characteristic and progressive qualities of the old Ecole,
and the Paris academy was again reduced to what it had been
at its beginning. In this shape it appeared to the young French
artists of the Revolution.
in¬
Owing to the extension of the new academies under the
or
fluence of the Enlightenment or the Neo-Classic Movement
the rising middle classes, two more alterations became necessary,
the
which must in conclusion be mentioned. One refers to
rooms
number of students enrolled, the other to the number of
ts
required. The academy at Vienna had in 1 783 about 40 studen
about
in the Elementary course, about 4° in the Antique class,
class. The
30 in the Life class and about 30 in the Landscape
138 Elemen¬
corresponding figures at Copenhagen in 1784 are:
e drawing
tary course, 70 Ornament drawing, but only 20 Antiqu
the pro¬
and 29 Life drawing. And at Stockholm (about 1800)
ced students
portion seems even more staggering: 10 advan
It is evident that aca¬
against 390 in the elementary classes. ion equalling or
demies of this size called for accom modat
generous in the
exceeding that which had been extremely
an art school were
seventeenth century in Paris. Six rooms for
then quite unique, now they were179 the rule for an academy of
ition of rooms at
moderate means and importance. The dispos
discussed in earlier
the Berlin academy about 1700 has been

12-2
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

pages (figs. 10-12). At Dresden there had been since 1768 one
meeting room, one room for drawing from drawings, one for the
antique class, one for life-drawing, one for modelling, one for
engraving and one for geometry and architecture. In London
the great room, the inner room, the ante-room, the antique
school, library, model academy and council room are men¬
tioned. At Leipzig, to look at a smaller art school, we find one
large room and smaller rooms for drawing, antique drawing,
life-drawing and painting. At Copenhagen the academy had
spacious accommodation in the Palace of Charlottenborg. The
palace contained besides the Royal
Lottery, the Institute of
Natural History and other Scientific Societies, the flats of the
academy professors and the court artists, and the following rooms
for the purposes of the academy : the great hall, the meeting room,
two rooms for the elementary classes, two rooms for architecture,
one for the antique school, one for the life-class, and two for the
painting school. By far the largest premises of an art academy
in the eighteenth century, and an exception no doubt in that
respect, were those of the Vienna school after 1786. The whole
of the St Annen Gebaude which had belonged to the Jesuits was
assigned to it. On the ground-floor the collection of casts with a
plaster-casting shop, a painting school with six rooms and some
small flats were fitted up, on the first floor the library and the
lecture theatre, on the second floor the picture gallery, the en¬
graving and model-stamping schools with eight rooms and the
school of architecture with six rooms, on the third floor several
painting classes, the copper-engraving and etching school (four
rooms), the landscape school (three rooms), the school of sculp¬
ture, the general drawing school and the life-class. If we com¬
pare this elaborate plan with the simple accommodation at
Paris, the disappointment of a former Viennese student, Veit
Schnorr, is understandable, who, in 1803, saw the Paris academy
and particularly objected to the narrowness of its staircase and
the unsightliness of the life-room.1
1 Neuer Teutscher Merkur, vol. i, 1803, p. 91. Groundplans, Vienna: von Lutzow,
l.c. Before the academy moved into the St Annen Gebaude it had on the second floor
l8o
 ACADEMIES OF ART

In calling the academy of Vienna the largest in the eighteenth

century, one art school has been left out of consideration which
was in fact housed in a much more extensive building, namely
the St Petersburg academy, a building of 500 by
for which
400 feet had been specially erected on the Neva. But this was
in many respects so different from all academies of art discussed
so far that it should not be treated as one of them.

However, as it can now be assumed that an adequate impres¬

sion has been given of the normal art academy of the later
eighteenth century, a few more pages may be devoted to varieties
and anomalies so far as represented by academies of importance,
and the St Petersburg establishment is well suited to stand at the
beginning of this survey.
It will not seem surprising that the first efforts for introducing
date
academic art teaching of Western character into Russia
held
back to Peter the Great. He arranged for a life-class to be
for engravers on the premises of the Imperial printing press.
of the
Some years later he founded a class of fine art as part
y of art
newly established Academy of Science. But an academ
ve had been
proper was not opened until 1 75 7j when the initiati
hy
taken by the minister Schuvalov who was strongly in sympat
also
with France and the Enlightenment and was incidentally
From the
responsible for the foundation of Moscow University.
more school-like
first sessions of the academy training was much
(as Russian
than anywhere else. The students wore uniforms
of thirty-one hours a
university students also did). A time-table
to drawing, four
week was set out, of which sixteen were devoted
es, and six to
to mathematics, two to geography, three to languag
life-drawing were added
history and mythology. Anatomy and
by Chamberlain
in 1760. When in 1764 new rules were given
and had personally
Betzkoi, who had lived for some time at Paris
school character of
known several of the “Encyclopaedists”, the
t. The institution was
the academy became even more eviden
antique class, life-class, class of elementary
of the old University a meeting room,
re. or
rooms for the school of architectu
drawing, landscape class and three g: Niepe r, .c. p. ,
n: Leslie , l.c. p. 7; Leipzi
Dresden cf. Wiessner, l.c. 79; Londo
Copenhagen: “ Charlottenborg ”, l.c.
l8l
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

now divided into a College d’ Education and an Academie des

Arts. The college was started with sixty boys of six years. They
received a schooling far beyond the then usual Russian standard,
and very similar to what the most modern schools of the time,

namely those of the “Realschul”-type, gave. For nine years

a boy was kept at the school, although before entering the
higher forms a decision was reached as to whether he had shown
signs of artistic abilities, in which case he was moved on to the
academy. Those boys who remained in the College were trained
for trades. For this purpose there were workshops for bronze and
iron founding, medal and coin stamping, cabinet-making,
gilding and instrument-making. At the end of their college-time
they were made masters or “submasters” in the various guilds.
Two features above all of this system are worth recording as
being entirely out of the ordinary. One is the combination of
secondary school, trade school and art academy under one roof.
This suggested itself in a country where public education of all
kinds was still undeveloped. Neither for artists of Western taste
nor for craftsmen with knowledge of Western ideas could one
draw on existing institutions. In harmony with the spirit of the
Enlightenment it was taken as one of the most obvious reasons
for this lack that general education was not up to European
standards. Hence a system which, looked at from this angle,
must be recognized as appropriate. The second distinguishing
feature of the St Petersburg academy is the amount of State
interference exercised. It is unparalleled in the eighteenth and,
it may be added, also the nineteenth centuries. To seize a boy
at the age of six, put him through a State-controlled school and
State-controlled workshops or a State-controlled academy and
not release him until he is fit to become a court-artist or a master
in a trade — the invention of this ingenious procedure can be
accounted for only by the particular coincidence of a nation
grown up outside Western civilization being suddenly forced
into it, and an epoch in Western history in which absolutism and
its commercial corollary, mercantilism, were ruling. To all
Western nations which had gone through Renaissance and
182
 ACADEMIES OF ART

Reformation, had experienced the evolution of individualism and

liberalism, and had developed a cultured and educated middle
class, such a system was out of the question in the eighteenth as
well as the nineteenth century. It is only now that with the

growth of “totalitarian States” similar systems of State-con¬

trolled education are coming to the fore, and this will concern us
only at the end of the present work. As far as the century here in
question goes, St Petersburg is unique.1
To throw into relief the contrast between West and East so
distinct in the eighteenth century, it may be useful to take as the
second of the “anomalous” academies the leading academy in
the westernmost country of Western civilization: the Royal
Academy in London, in every respect the opposite extreme. This
body — and how could it have been otherwise in England —
managed almost from its start to be entirely private and is so
up to the present day. Its origins are only loosely connected
with royal and not connected at all with governmental initiative.
In tracing back the pre-history of the Royal Academy one is led
to Sir James Thornhill’s plan of an academy on the French mode
which, as we said in the foregoing chapter, remained on paper.
The next project to be mentioned dates from 1753 and was
worked out by the Society of Dilettanti, that remarkable club of

1 Hasselblatt, l.c. pp. 1-67, “Privileges et Reglements de l’Academie Imperiale des

Beaux Arts”, St Petersburg, 1765. In Hesselblatt’s book there are also views and
ground-plans of the building of the academy. The only school comparable to St
Petersburg was the Hohe Karlsschule at Stuttgart. This odd conglomeration of dis¬
connected departments combined a private studio-academy founded by a theatrical
artist to the court, and in 1 762 made a Ducal Academy, with a school established in
the ducal maison de plaisance of the “Solitude” in 1770 to train the sons of soldiers
into gardeners and stucco-decorators, and with a military academy opened in 1 773
on the same estate of the “Solitude”. In consequence of the contrasting origins of the
Karlsschule it was found necessary to divide students into a socially higher and a
socially lower group. Different education was given to the sons of noblemen and to
commoners. Artists were of course only among commoners, the group consisting of
musicians, dancers, huntsmen, gardeners and
also architects, sculptors, painters,
engravers and stucco-decorators. All students lived in the school under strict military
discipline. Descriptions of this can be found in biographies of Schiller, who was a
pupil of the Karlsschule, and also of J. A. Koch, the leader of German Neo-Classic
landscape painting. The school was transferred to Stuttgart in 1776, and made a
Hochschule by the Emperor in 1781. Soon after that, however, it ceased to exist
(H. Wagner: Geschichte der Hohen Karls Schule, 2 vols. Wurzburg, 1857).
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

gentlemen travellers which was founded in 1734- The scheme

was to erect a building on the south side of Cavendish Square
where galleries of plaster casts and other works of art should be
linked up with an art school. Discussions between the society
and those artists who used to draw at their own private academy
in St Martin’s Lane were started but came to a deadlock, be¬
cause it appears that the artists did not want the Society of
Dilettanti to have a share in the management of the academy.

Thus the artists themselves called a meeting at the Turk’s Head

in Soho, where the staff of a future academy was to be elected.
The attempt appears to have failed. But the project was now
launched and more and more voices expressed the necessity of a
proper art academy in England. Two pamphlets on the subject
appeared in 1755, one by Nesbitt called Essay on the Necessity of
a Royal Academy , the other by the St Martin’s group, called The
Plan of an Academy for the better cultivation ...of Painting , Sculpture ,
Architecture, and the Arts of Design in General. It was the same
group which a few years later arranged the first public art
exhibition in England. This was held in the building of the
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce in Great Britain, the society now known as the
Royal Society of Arts. Since its foundation in 1 754, the society
awarded prizes to children under the age of sixteen for good
drawings. Of an art school, however, they did not think; and
the ultimate and at last successful steps for the foundation of an
art academy were once more due to the group of artists whom
the society had allowed to exhibit in its rooms. The group left
the society in 1761 owing to altercations and started exhibitions
of its own under the name of Society of Artists of Great Britain.
In 1765 a Royal Charter was granted to them, and the society
no doubt deserved the honour. We find among its members all
the best artists then working in England: Ramsay, Reynolds,
Gainsborough, Romney, Sandby, Hudson, Stubbs, Zoffany,
184
Zuccarelli, Coates, Kettle, R. Wilson, Wright of Derby, etc. In
1767 the Society of Artists again resolved to found an academy,
but gave up their plan as soon as they heard that the King had
 ACADEMIES OF ART

been graciously pleased to declare his Royal intention of taking

the Academy under his protection”. Another year elapsed, and
on 28 November 1768 a memorandum on the matter was sent

by twenty- two artists to the King. Thus the “Royal Academy

of Arts in London, for the Purpose of Cultivating and Improving
the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture” was founded
by an instrument of 10 December 1 768. Its rules were not in any
noteworthy respect different from the usual ones. The King was
the protector of the academy and kept a right of approval of new
members. Teaching was given free of charge, members did not
receive a remuneration either, and the King contributed only
partly to the upkeep of the institution. After twelve years the
royal contribution could be dispensed with entirely.
This demands an explanation and in fact leads to the essential
difference between London and all the other academies discussed
so far. In the memorandum of the 28 November the artists had

explicitly described as “the two principal objects” of the future

academy “the establishing a well-regulated School or Academy
of Design, for the use of students in the Arts, and an Annual

Exhibition, open to all artists of distinguished merit”. Un¬

questionably exhibitions had been of importance in Paris and in
other European capitals too, but nowhere were they given such
a central place in the structure of an academy. The English
artists knew very well why they emphasized this point so strongly.
The exhibitions of the Society of Artists of Great Britain yielded
£524 in 1762, £560 in 1763, £762 in 1764, £826 in 1765 and
£874 in 1766. Hence the academy could be sure of an income
sufficiently large for its needs and the charitable plans which
they had also taken over from the Society of Artists. Economic
independence facilitated the preservation of political inde¬
pendence, and so the two most characteristic features of the
Royal Academy to-day and a hundred and fifty years ago were
logically interrelated. But for the prominence of the academy
exhibitions, there wouldnot have185been enough funds, and with¬
out funds the academy would have had to rely on the govern¬
ment. Or, to put it the other way round, if private enterprise
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

had not seemed so much preferable to State interference, no

reason would have existed for regarding art exhibitions as a
business proposition. National characteristics are as clearly
expressed here as we have found them expressed in the St Peters¬
burg academy.
Of the history of the Royal Academy in the eighteenth century
not much need be said. The exhibitions grew fast in size and
attendance. In 1740,489 works were on show, in 1792, 780, in
1801, 1037. The annual savings amounted to £400 a year
between 1 785 and 1 795. The school on the other hand remained
small. On an average there were not more than thirty students
enrolled each year. Classes were first held in the old Somerset
House and then allotted larger accommodation by the King at
the completion of the new Somerset House in 1780. The rooms
looked on to the Strand. No changes of any importance are to
be noted in the organization of the academy. In 1769 it was
decided to add a group of associates to the members. In
1770 Sir Joshua Reynolds as president of the academy began
to deliver his discourses at the prize-giving celebrations every
second year. Enough quotations from these have been given in
earlier pages to show that they are in almost all their essential
qualities a direct outcome of French art theories of the siecle de
Louis XIV. Accordingly the Royal Academy remained un¬
swervingly faithful to the ideals of the grand style and did not
consider any provisions for applied art. The earliest sign of a
certain commercial interest dates from 1792 and occurs in

Benjamin West’s first presidential address. He said: “Here in¬

genious youths are instructed in the art of design, and the instruc¬
tion acquired in this place has spread itself through the various

manufactures of the country.” Nothing beyond this vague

remark can be found. The Royal Academy remained a small
and conservative institution, and were it not for the social
glamour of its exhibitions and annual dinners, its role would be
negligible. That this glamour, which does not seem to have lost
all its attraction even to-day, could be brought about by a private
body without any official interference from court or nobility,
186
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 ACADEMIES OF ART

stands as the most memorable English contribution to the

history of art academies (fig. 17).1
To the same degree as the peculiarities of the Royal Academy
are English, the few especially memorable features of the
Academia de S. Fernando in Madrid are Spanish. Two of these
especially should be noted. No doubt a tendency to stress the
high social standing of the artist by academic means goes
through all the new foundations of the seventeenth and eigh¬
teenth centuries. But it was left to Spain to demonstrate this by
conferring titles of nobility on all academicians. And it appears

to be* equally Spanish, that only well over thirty years after the
opening of the academy was life-drawing from the nude model
introduced. In London the academy as a private enterprise

had stated among its first rules that “there shall be a Winter
Academy of Living Models, men and women of different
characters”.2 Female models were usual in studio academies
everywhere, but to have them in public art schools was still an
exception, as will be shown in the chapter on the nineteenth
century. Male models, on the other hand, were universally con¬
sidered necessary for complete instruction, and the Royal
Spanish Academy appears to be the only one in which the fear
of the sin of nakedness was carried so far as to exclude them.

The three academies which were singled out as being “ano¬

malous” in some respect are geographically placed in the Far
East or the Far West of European civilization. Its centre,
this
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Scandinavia
of
should be remembered — evolved a system of art education
Mercantilism
surprising uniformity. Dependence on Paris and
What
have been proved as the decisive causes of this uniformity.
seqq. (cf. also L. Cust and S.
1 Sandby, l.c. passim, e.g. Dilettanti, vol. i, pp. 24
London, 1898), St Martin s Lane, p. 26,
Colvin, The History of the Society of Dilettanti,
H. T. Wood, A History of the Royal
Society for the Encouragement, p. 31 (cf. also
(cf. also A. Graves, T^e °f
Society of Arts, London, 1913), Society of Artists, p. 36
of British Art, London, 1845; W. T. Whitley ,
Artists, London, 1907) ; J. Pye, Patronage 187
, 1928; Art in England,
Artists and their Friends in England, 1700-1799, London
1800-1820, Cambridge, 1928.
l.c. vol. 1, p. 54.
2 Madrid: Caveda, l.c. vol. 1, p. 293. London: Sandby,
 CLASSIC REVIVAL, MERCANTILISM AND

did the system of the eighteenth century mean to producers of

art and what to consumers of art? The academies helped the
artist to gain a social status long desired, and the craftsman to
gain a certain knowledge of that classic taste so alien to him and
yet so widely in demand. At the same time they secured to the
potential patron easy supplies of the kind of art and decoration
which appealed to him.
None of these advantages, however, does not equally apply to
France in the seventeenth century. In spite of Winckelmann
and his original conception of style, the new art academies are in
fact only an outcome of the Paris system. And after all, if
there are any forerunners of Winckelmann’s philosophy of art,
are they not to be found amongst men such as Bellori and his
French followers? It should not be forgotten that Winckelmann

admired Lebrun’s ceiling paintings, the pictures of Reni and

Albani, the poetry of Guidi and Gravina. The connection of his
“ Ideal-Schone” with Bellori’s “Idea” is evident.1 To show the
greatness of Antiquity he praised the Apollo of Belvedere, the
Laocoon, the Torso. Reynolds’s panegyrics of the Torso and of
Michelangelo are known well enough. Mengs regarded Cor¬
reggio as one of the greatest painters, and preferred Praxiteles to
Phidias. All this smacks more of Baroque than of a true under¬
standing of Antiquity or High Renaissance. And in fact, how
far removed are the paintings of Angelica Kauffmann and
Mengs, of Benjamin West and Oeser from the vigour and
directness of genuine Greek art. All this is still Baroque, it is
Pseudo-Classicism or Late Baroque Classicism as the German
art historians S. Giedion and P. F. Schmidt have appropri¬
ately called it. The same irresolute, undetermined character
is peculiar to the academies of art of the late eighteenth century.
Although they incorporate certain new ideas of the century,
they are essentially Ancien Regime. When the French Revo¬
lution terminated the Ancien Regime politically, and those
philosophical and artistic movements which are comprised
i Justi, l.c. vol. 2, 2nd edition, p. 321. Cf. also L. Courajod, Legons professees d
I’lZcole du Louvre, vol. 3, 1903, p. 234, and E. Panofsky, Idea, p. 117.
188
 ACADEMIES OF ART

under the general term of Romanticism finished it spiritually,

the existing system of art education was also doomed. The
citoyen of 1 789 was as strongly opposed to it because it prepared
artists chiefly for the requirements of the court and nobility, as
was the Romantic artist and writer because he rejected any
system of regulated education.
It will be left to the next chapter of this book to discuss the
origins of the new social and philosophical conceptions in so far
as they affected public art education and to follow their develop¬
ment through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries.

189
 Chapter V

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

In the same year in which Winckelmann’s chef-d' oeuvre , his

Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums appear ed, Haman n, whose work

marks the rise of German Sturm und Drang, wrote: “O ye

heralds of universal rules! How little do you understand Art, and
how little do you possess of the genius which has created the
they
pattern upon which you want to build Art.”1 This is what
Ger¬
felt, Young in England, Rousseau in France, Hamann in
many. In 1759 Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition had
come out; since 1760 Ossian; in 1761 Rousseau’s Nouvelle
n’s
Heloise, in 1762 his Emile , his Contrat Social and Haman
Aesthetica in Nuce. In 1767 Herder’s Fragmente followed; in 1769
his Kritische Walder , in 1773 Goethe’s panegyric on Strassburg
Cathedral, in 1774 Werthers Leiden, in 1777 Heinse’s letters on
the Diisseldorf pictures. The most important plays of the Sturm
und Drang appeared between 1768 and 1781.
The contemporaneity of these dates with those which as an
illustration of the development of the Neo-Classic movement
were enumerated at the beginning of the last chapter, is of con¬
siderable importance, although at first the Romantic or Sturm
und Drang tendency affected only a small circle of enthusiastic
young writers and readers, whereas the Classic Revival suc¬
ceeded almost immediately in changing the taste in architecture
and ornament, in sculpture and painting, all over Europe.
Genius is the magic word of the young generation, and it is

known how strongly Reynolds objected to the “inflated lan¬

guage” by which the new writers praised “inspiration” and a
“kind of magick...out of the reach of the rules of art”. These
and similar pronouncements in Reynolds’s discourse of 1774 are
1 The quotation is taken from R. Unger, Hamann und die Aufklarung, vol. i, Jena,
1911, p. 298.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

evidently aimed at Young, to whom genius is the faculty of

creating “unprescribed beauties”. This elan, Young says,
distinguishes genius from mere reason. The original artist is as
different from the artist following rules “as a magician from a
good architect”. And after Young, Herder: “The spreading of
a scientific spirit can but thwart art, just as poetics poetry”
(1764). A good work of art must be “mehr gefuhlt als gemessen”
(Goethe, 1772). “Whosoever tries to deprive fine art of arbi¬
trariness and fancy, is attacking its honour and its life like an

assassin” (Hamann, 1762).1

The few to whom such was the meaning of art could but
loathe all that was done in their day for organizing art and art

education. “Do you expect enthusiasm where the spirit of the

academies rules? ” This was written by Schiller in a letter of
1 783. The first indictments of academies of art are contained in

Heinse’s Letters on the Diisseldorf Gallery. But neither his con¬

demnation nor the outbreaks of other young writers found any
response among the artists themselves, a fact which corresponds
to the almost complete lack in painting, sculpture and archi¬
tecture of any movement reflecting the mood of Sturm und
Drang. An anti-academic campaign amongst artists did not set
in until 1790 and did not grow until after 1800.
There was, however, another ally who joined from the start

in the Sturm und Drang’s hatred against academies — an ally

who came from the camp of the very enemy. Voltaire and the
Encyclopaedists questioned the value of academic organization
with all the cold brilliancy and malicious poignancy of their
scepticism. They did not fail to point out how academies are

bound to foster pedestrian talent and to harm genius. “Nous

n’avons pas un grand peintre, depuis que nous avons une
Academie de Peinture, pas un grand philosophe, forme par
l’Academie des Sciences.” Voltaire’s pupil, Frederick the Great,
was in a position to translate these teachings into practice. Only

1 Young, Works, edition of 1767, vol. 1, p. 128; Herder, Abhandlung iiber die Ode ;
Goethe, Von deutscher Baukunst; Hamann, Leser und Kunstrichter (Unger, l.c. vol. 1,
p. 294).

I91
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

a few years before his death he refused to do anything for the

Berlin academy, because he “had not seen one student who had
left it as a passable artist”. Some of the arguments set forth by
Voltaire and Diderot are strongly reminiscent of those used
by Sturm und Drang writers. This can perhaps be accounted for
by the one conception they had in common: their faith in the
rights of the individual against any restrictions interfering with

his subjective sphere. “Aucun ouvrage qu’on appelle acade-

mique, n’a ete en aucun genre un ouvrage de genie”, said Vol¬
taire. The reason for this is according to Diderot that “les
academies etouffent presque les hommes de cette trempe [i.e. of

genius] en les assujettissant a une tache reglee”. And objections

of this kind were by no means limited to the leaders of Enlighten¬
ment. Henry Bate, when he wished to praise his friend Gains¬
borough in the Morning Herald of 1 788, made an unmistakable hit

at the Royal Academy: “This great genius, schooled in nature’s

extensive study, and not in academies.”1
However, at bottom the meaning of Voltaire’s and Young’s
attacks differed greatly. The writers of the Enlightenment used
their weapons with a brilliant and superior lightness, fighting
for the fun of the fight, whereas the preachers of the Sturm und
Drang gospel tried to crush resistance by the use of their fists
and anything they could lay hand on. The intellectual revolu¬
tion grew into a revolution of passionate sentiment, and political
and social revolutions were imminent. The first battles between

young artists and academies were — this is highly characteristic —

fought in Germany in the field of Weltanschauung, in France in
the field of practical policy. In either case it was the most
powerful artist of his nation who challenged the old regime:
Carstens in Germany, David in France. Both belonged to the
same generation, David being born in 1748 and Carstens in
1754. They are thus considerably younger than Winckelmann
and Reynolds and represent exactly the age-group of Goethe.
1 Voltaire: Letter of 30 November 1735, CEuvres computes, vol. 33, Paris, 1880, p. 557.
Frederick the Great, quotation from H. Mackowsky: J. G. Schadow, vol. 1, Berlin,
1927, p. 98. Diderot: Refutation de /’ Ouvrage de Helvetius intituli Id Homme, ed. Assezat,
vol. 2, Paris, 1875, p. 327. Bate: W. T. Whitley, Gainsborough, London, 1915, p. 355.
I92
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

David1 was introduced by his master Vien, the French Mengs,

into the world of what we have tried to define as Pseudo-
Classicism or Late Baroque Classicism. He attended the Aca¬
demic Royale for several years, gained a Rome scholarship,
devoted his time in Italy to a careful study of classic sculpture
and of the great painters of the seventeenth century — Caravaggio,
the Carracci and their school, and Poussin — and was received as
an Agree of the Paris academy in 1783. In 1784 he painted his

“Oath of the Horatii” which, although (or because) it was

obviously influenced by Classic French tragedies of the seven¬
teenth century and Classic painting of the Baroque, met with
unanimous applause. Connoisseurs of the Ancien Regime were
deceived by its competent handling of the apparatus of the past
and overlooked the real meaning of this credo of republicanism
and the stern formal expression which David had found for it,
until they found him one day as Citoyen David, member of the
Convention.
Character and circumstances were extremely different in the
case of Carstens.2 In spite of his burning desire to become an
artist, he refused at the age of fifteen to go as an apprentice to
Johann Heinrich Tischbein at Cassel, because he was told that
he would also have to be a valet to the famous academician. And
yet, as he was without any private means— his father had been a
miller up in Sleswick and had died when Carstens was still a
small child — he knew that his refusal would put an end to his
hopes. For five years he was apprenticed by his guardians to a
cooper, and he was twenty-two before he succeeded in entering
the Copenhagen academy. When he went, in 1776, he was full
of fervour to make up for what he had missed. But almost at 13

once he saw that the established system of instruction could not

satisfy him. He read with passion; Ossian, Milton, Klopstock,
the Sagas of the Edda inflamed him. He longed to start at once
on large compositions — technical competence seemed irrelevant.
!
1 Cf. M. E. J. Delecluze, Louis David , son 93
ecole et son temps, Paris, 1855.
2 K. L. Fernow, Carstens, Leben und Werke, ed. Riegel, Hanover, 1861. Cf. also
A. Kuhn, J. A. Carstens, Bibliothek der Kunstgeschichte, vol. 78, Leipzig, 1924.

PA
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Only hesitatingly did he make up his mind to attend drawing

classes, and declined stubbornly to draw from plaster casts. A

“disintegrating” method (“zerstiickelnd”) he called this. But

he liked to be locked in with those copies from the masterpieces
of antiquity and silently to imbibe their beauty for hours and
days. It will be remembered that oil-painting was not at that
time taught in academies, but Garstens also refused to learn
this in the usual routine way, and set out with mad fervour
to grasp the whole at one blow by hiding in the workshop of
Abildgaard, the academician and admirer of Winckelmann.
Several years later, when Carstens had finished his studies
and was living in poverty at Berlin, he accepted a position in
the Berlin academy which was offered to him by Heinitz its
reorganizer, a generous man of true appreciation and taste who
recognized Carstens’s unusual and forceful art and wished to
help him. So Carstens started in 1 790 as teacher in the plaster
class, and despite his gratefulness to Heinitz began almost at
once to insist on changes. He claimed to come under Heinitz
personally and not under the Senate; this, though unusual, was
granted. Then he tried to prevent the Rectors from paying their
weekly visits to his class, although these were an integral part of the
academic programme. So Heinitz procured a Rome scholarship
for him, and Carstens left to see the fulfilment of his life’s dream.
Yet a Rome scholar had certain, though not many, duties to¬
wards his home academy, and when Carstens once more refused
to comply with them, a breach could no longer be prevented.
The correspondence between Heinitz and Carstens is of such
profound psychological bearing upon the relation of State and
artist in the nineteenth century that it must be quoted here in
detail. First of all Carstens in his passionate zeal to acquaint
himself with the great art of Rome had omitted to send reports
and examples of his work to Berlin. Heinitz reprimanded him
for this, but in the same letter extended his scholarship for
another year. To Carstens’s art T9this
4 year meant much. At the
end of it he felt himself a mature artist, conscious of his master¬
ship. He had now conceived and drawn the cartoons of The
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Destinies, The Birth of Light, and The Night, and looking at

them he considered himself entitled to write to Berlin and ask for
a gallery in the Royal Palace to be painted entirely by himself.
The request appeared strange to Heinitz, who incidentally knew
nothing of the development of Carstens’s art between 1 792 and
1795. His reply sounds detached and non-committal, though by
no means unkind. However, it seems to have contained enough
of that academic and official attitude which Carstens had detested
for so many years to justify a blunt reply. The artist now
insisted on being allowed to stay on in Rome, and he added all
there was to be said against Berlin, the academy and academies
in general. These letters of Carstens are the first comprehensive
criticism put forward by an artist against the academic system.
Carstens set out from the same point as the writers of Sturm und

Drang and the Enlightenment. “ When there were no academies

great artists lived and were encouraged by the powers of their
time to use their genius on great works, whereas academies have
caused Art to deteriorate until it has become content with

working at head- and tail-pieces in books.” There can be no

doubt, he continued, “that in all countries academies of art do
harm in many directions”. In a similar spirit, incidentally,
Fuseli, like Carstens one of the painters whose work exhibits
characteristics of Sturm und Drang, observed in his twelfth

Lecture on Painting: “All schools of painters, whether public

or private, supported by patronage or individual contribution
were, and are, symptoms of art in distress, monuments of public
dereliction and decay of taste.” The fault, according to Carstens,
and here for once he comes near to the French conception of the

case, lies with the governing political system. “When is the

tyranny to end which turns so many men into bad citizens,
which cripples all talent in its cradle, and turns taste to ridicule
whenever it pleases?” “Outward display” he calls the fault of
all academies with their useless array of “ Directores, Rectores,
Professores”, and imputes to 1them
9
— in a letter to a Royal
5
Minister — that they only serve “to satisfy the vanity of princes”.
Their elaborate organization and their established staff hierarchy

13-2
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

is bound to lead to the mechanical system of instruction with the

fatal method of copying from drawings and the equally perni¬

cious method of life-classes under monthly changing supervision.
Had Carstens read Rousseau? We do not know, and it may
not be necessary to assume a connection between his arguments
and Rousseau’s remark that Emile should not have a drawing-
master “qui ne lui donnerait a imiter que des imitations et ne le
ferait dessiner que sur des dessins”. Carstens had seen enough
both at Berlin and Copenhagen to develop his ideas on his own.

Art is a “language of invention ”, a real work of art, “an organic

entity”. But art of this kind can only be created by genius; and
Carstens was not prepared to recognize as true academic students
any of the apprentices and pupils who formed the majority at
the Berlin academy. So why should there be an academy at
all? Two masters would be enough to teach all students worth
that name. And as to himself, work of his conceived and carried
out in Rome and then sent to Berlin would be of far more
practical value than any remarks he could make in class.
It is difficult to imagine the effect on Heinitz of these violent,
self-possessed and hastily written letters — some of which were
headed “al caffe greco”, i.e. written at the most popular of
artists’ coffee-houses in Rome. No doubt Heinitz was ready
to put up with some grandiloquence on the part of a young
artist of such exceptional qualities. But he could not go beyond
a certain limit. When Carstens requested to remain in Italy for
good, Heinitz answered in a restrained yet sincerely indignant
way:
I am not going to remind you of the lack of gratitude which you show
towards a board that has supported you to the utmost extent both here and
in Rome, although you are a foreigner and although academic funds were
small — I only wish to make this point: Nowhere, and in Prussia less than any¬
where, is it customary to cancel mutual liabilities arbitrarily and on one’s
own authority. — Answer now for yourself [his letter ends] how you have met
the benefits bestowed upon you and what useful service you have rendered to
the academy in return for the considerable sum of money spent?

Carstens’s answer of 20 February 1796 is the last of the corre¬

spondence. Its standard is not lower than that of Heinitz’s letter.
196
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Carstens too did not enlarge on the financial side of the matter.
He tried in a few lines to renderan account, inadequately it
must be said, and then passed at once to the moral aspect of the
case.

I wish to tell your Excellency that I do not belong to the Berlin academy
but to mankind. ... I can develop myself only here, amongst the best works of
art that exist in the world, and shall continue to the best of my powers to
justify myself to the world by my work. ...My faculties have been entrusted
to me by God; I must be a conscientious steward, so that, when the day
comes when I shall be called upon to render the account of my stewardship I
need not say : Lord, the talent that thou hadst entrusted to me I have buried
in Berlin.1

With the last two letters two positions were defined with
ultimate precision, so incompatible with each other that no
reconciliation was possible — nor could there be any possible
reconciliation in our century. He who is prepared to follow
Schiller and Carstens and to place the ideal of art far above the

ideal of social life, of nation and State, will read Carstens’s truly
epoch-making letters with unstinted pleasure. But those who are
not willing to concede to a good artist one-sided rights towards
the community, those who are not afraid of admitting that
public encouragement of art is not primarily aimed at self-
sufficient genius but at public welfare, will admire in Heinitz an
exemplary civil servant of understanding and generosity but also
of loyalty and conscientiousness.
The individual of to-day may take sides in this controversy as
he pleases. Historically speaking, that is looked at from the
point of view of 1800, Carstens was right. The immediate future
belonged to his revolutionary individualism. His hatred, one
might argue, remained a dead letter, or only inspired a small,
though in the long run not uninfluential, set of young artists in
Rome — but at the very moment when he annihilated the aca¬
demic principle on paper, David translated his theory into
1 Fernow-Riegel, l.c. pp. 1 14-41, 241-58. Fuseli: Lectures on Painting, by the Royal
Academicians Barry, Opie and Fuseli. Edited197 by R. N. Wornum, London, 1848,
p. 559. Rousseau: £mile. (Euvres Completes, Nouvelle Edition (edited by L. S.
Mercier and G. Brizard), vol. 10, Paris, 1791, p. 352.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

practice. The Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture had

survived the attempted reforms of the Pompadour era without
injury. Malicious pamphlets, such as one of 1748 speaking of
the “decadence totale de 1’Academie” and another of 1779 in
which Fragonard and Greuze are praised up to the skies because
“tous les deux ne sont pas de 1’Academie” could not trouble its
self-confidence. A students’ riot in 1768 over an objectionable
distribution of prizes was not regarded as particularly alarming.
And when in the early years of Louis XVI public opinion grew
more menacing and some more liberal measures of legislation
could not longer be delayed, the Academy tried to meet such
requests by mere internal amendments of certain rules.1 The
proposals came of course from those members who were not
officers of any kind. When discussion of the proposals began the
Bastille had already fallen — not a favourable moment for
haggling over details. The plan was to extend the rights of
members into the sphere of the officers. The leader of the reform
party was a painter: Jacques Louis David. In a memorandum
of July 1790 to the National Assembly, he called himself Presi¬
dent of the Academy, meaning thereby the wider circle of
Academiciens. Various reforms were suggested, and it was stated

that, unless they were accepted, the Academy “ne peut subsister
avec liberte”. While this quarrel between Ofhciers and Acade¬
miciens went on, David seceded from the protesting group,
which to his mind was not drastic enough in its requests. He
formed a club of revolutionary artists called the Commune des
Arts. During its first meeting on 29 September 1 790 a memoran¬
dum was drafted. It was handed to the National Assembly and
demanded the dissolution of the Academy. At first no more than
one point was granted : the Salon of 1791 was thrown open to all
artists, Academicians and non-Academicians. The position was
now such that the Ofhciers had to defend themselves against
Academiciens and Commune, while David and his friends,
1 Cf., also for the following pages, Prods-Verbaux, passim, e.g. pamphlets of 1749,
vol. 6, p. 181 (for pamphlet of 1779, cf. Dresdner, l.c. pp. 192, 330); students’ riot,
vol. 7, p. 399. H. Delaborde, L’ Academie des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1891; H. Lapauze,
Prods-Verbaux de la Commune des Arts, Paris, 1903; Delecluze, l.c.

198
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

especially Quatremere de Quinzy in his Considerations sur les Arts

du Dessin of 1 79 1 » fought both Officiers and Academiciens. But
nowhere do we find arguments comparable in purity and nobility
with those of Carstens. It seems at bottom all a matter of
organization.
The National Assembly was replaced by the Constituante.
No decisive step was yet taken in the matter of art education. On
7 July 1792 David was elected Adjoint- Professeur and did not
refuse. On 10 August the Tuileries were assaulted and taken, on
17 October David entered the National Convention as a deputy.
1 1 November saw a new application to close down all academies.
It was sponsored by David. On 17 January 1793 he voted for
the execution of the King. When on 27 April the Officiers of the
Academy, unsuspecting civil servants of a past era, asked David
to start his month of supervision at the life-class, his answer was :
“Je fus autrefois de l’academie.” Directly he had broken with
the Academy, it became to him a “tribunal autocratique”, its*
meeting-room the “bastille”, its member “l’animal qu’on
nomme academicien”. He managed to arrange that on
4 July the Commune des Arts was recognized as the only
official association of artists, and he had to wait but another
month to see the abolition of all existing academies.
Does this not mean infinitely more than a mere exchange of
letters between a representative of the old time and a repre¬
sentative of the new? Yes and no. For the lack of a philosophical
foundation to the struggle in France is surprising. Thus only
could it come about that a decree of 28 September ordered the
reopening of the academic courses and that these were, except
for short intervals, carried on without any relevant reforms right
through the reign of terror. As early as 1 793 the Convention was
compelled to dissolve the Commune des Arts as being a recon¬
structed academy, and as soon as the terror abated, the Societe
Populaire des Arts which had succeeded the Commune des Arts
considered it advisable to get 19into touch with the surviving
9
members of the Academie Royale with the intention of forming a
new academy. In fact, the Institut de France solemnly opened on>
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

25 October 1795 was but the restitution of the old academies

under a new name. Its section of Fine Arts took over the social
tasks of the Academie Royale, while academic instruction was
separated (as requested by Quatremere de Quinzy in 1 79 1 ) an<^
assigned to a special Ecole des Beaux Arts. The election of its
teaching staff was the only privilege that connected the school
with the Academie des Beaux Arts , as the section of Fine Arts was
renamed by Louis XVIII in 1816. As far as organization was
concerned, this was unquestionably new, but the methods of

education were affected neither by the revolution nor by David’s

later art dictatorship. The system of private teaching in the
studios of distinguished artists also remained almost exactly as it
had been during the Ancien Regime. We shall have to refer to
this later.
The standstill in France, in spite of the revolution and the
abolition of the old academies, is in surprising opposition to the
rapid development in Germany which, only about a quarter of a
century after the French upheaval, culminated in what seemed
a constructive reorganization of art education. For the next
fifty years Germany was undoubtedly leading in the evolution
of the problem; it must therefore be discussed at the same length
as Italy of the sixteenth and France of the seventeenth centuries.

Carstens’s fury against Berlin and academies in general can

have known no bounds after his breach with Heinitz. For it was
from the circle of his friends in Rome that the most violent
attacks were issued. There was Joseph Anton Koch, leader of
the heroic school of German Romantic landscape painting, once
a pupil of the Stuttgart Karlsschule like Schiller, then a staunch
supporter of the French Revolution, who in his boorish and
picturesque manner compared an art academy with an in¬

firmary for incurables (“ Siechenanstalt”), a poor house, and,

more and more inebriated by his own words, with a “rotting
cheese” from which “an innumerable host of artists” creeps —
“like a myriad of maggots”. There was Eberhard Wachter, who
had lived in Rome from 1793 to 1798 and been strongly in¬
fluenced by Carstens. He declined a position on the staff of the

200
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Stuttgart academy by more soberly remarking: “There is too

much misery in art already; I do not want to increase it.” And
there is Gottfried Schick, one of the best German representatives
of that generation, who in a letter to Schelling, the philosopher,
called an academy of art “a goose-pen, a hospital of sickly art”,
or rather not of live art at all but of “mummified art”. Whether
Schick had been instilled with this repugnance by the Garstens
circle or by someone in Paris, where he had studied under David,
cannot be decided. It is a fact anyhow that similarly disparaging
sentences are not entirely missing in France either. Girodet-
Trioson e.g. has spoken of the Academie de France in Rome as
of a fold for twelve sheep. In Germany this attitude remained
unaltered among all the early Romanticists. Two more instances
may suffice: Overbeck, the head of the Nazarenes in Rome, said

that in the academies “every noble feeling, every valuable

thought is being suppressed and scared away”, and his closest
friend Pforr inveighed against “the slavish studies” pursued in
these “seminaries of bad taste”.1 But enough of mere invectives
has been quoted. Are there no reasons given anywhere to

justify such an immoderate hatred? There are; in Carstens’s

letters we have found a number of them; similar, and in some
cases better arguments are contained in the writings of several
German contemporaries of his. These must
be discussed, now
beginning with isolated criticisms of details by various artists.
Christian von Mannlich , director of the Munich galleries and an
adversary of the academicians there, objects in his memoirs to
the way in which, when he was a student at the small Mannheim
academy about 1760, the professor visited his class only oc¬
casionally and taught him “ nothing ... but the unpolished rudi¬
ments” of art. The first of these two complaints is repeated by
Wilhelm von Kiigelgen with regard to the Dresden academy of

1 Koch: Moderne Kunstchronik . . . oder die Rumfordische Suppe, Karlsruhe, 1834 (dedi¬
cated to Wachter), p. 33 seq. Wachter: ib. p. 36. Schick: K. Simon, G. Schick, Leipzig,
1914, p. 148. Girodet-Trioson: the quotation is from W. Friedlander, Hauptstromungen
der franzosischen Malerei von David bis Cezanne, vol. 1, Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1930, p. 48.
Pforr: F. H. Lehr, Franz Pforr, Marburg, 1 924, P* 64. Overbeck: C. von Liitzow,
Geschichte d. K. K. Akad. d. Bild. Kiinste, Wien, 1877, p. 87.

201
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

about 1820, and by F. Pecht with regard to the one at Munich in

its newly reformed state of 1830 to 1835, the second we meet
everywhere. Caspar David Friedrich , greatest of German Ro¬

mantic painters, calls it “Praktik” or “machine-like practising”

or even the art of “ whisking your brush”. Especially instructive
is the account given in his Recollections by Ludwig Richter 3 the
popular sentimental illustrator and painter of the fifties and
sixties.

Drawing at the academy [he refers to Dresden about 1820-25] first from
originals, then from plaster casts... was done very mechanically — You just
learned contours and pretty hatching. That the real object of this was to
acquire a thorough knowledge of the human body and an increased suscepti¬
bility to the beauty of its forms, and that for this reason the strictest, most
exact reproduction was necessary, I did not understand, and perhaps only a
few did. It was all mechanical copying, and both the gestures of ancient
sculptures and of the model were reduced by a professor to conventional
forms, in a way rather similar to that which Zingg used with landscape motifs.

Zingg’s aim was “ to teach us the mechanical means of drawing

in the scalloped oak-leaf manner and the rounded lime-leaf
manner so that we should be able to do such things easily”. In
order to demonstrate his method he used to take “a slip of paper,
fold it up so that it formed many jags, turn it fan-wise, and there
was the foliage”. Another equally slick way of painting foliage
seems to have been used in England, at the time of Morland, who

mocks at the method of “making leaves like silver pennies”.

Goethe knew of three set types of rendering foliage which Philipp
Hackaert used. Even anatomy could be taught that way. It is

again Richter who describes that: “As a landscape-painter must

also study animals, he gave me beautifully executed life-size
chalk-drawings of the bones of a horse and asked me to copy
them at home. This took me much time and effort, and the
only drawback was that I did not know where the bones be¬
longed, because I never got the complete skeleton.” This last
remark above all shows up the fundamental mistake of the system.
The curriculum of academies at that time was, as we have seen,
planned so that a student during his first year was kept occupied
202
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

with “disiecta membra” only, “eyes, muzzles, noses, ears and

faces; and hands, and feet, according to regulations”, as Heinse
in his Ardinghello put it in 1785, or, according to Massimo

D’Azeglio’s equally apposite description: “la solita fricassea

d5 orecchie, di nasi, di bocche ecc.” Likewise, advanced
students built their figures as assortments of gestures adopted
from famous sources, and their compositions as assortments of
complete figures adopted from the same. That is what Runge,
when a pupil at Copenhagen, meant by calling the training
there “piece-meal”, and Carstens, by speaking of a “disinte¬
grating” method.1
To appreciate this antagonism between
the academies, as thej
Age of Reason had instituted them, and the artists and writers
of Sturm und Drang and Romanticism it may be well to recall
the different philosophy and theory of art of the two ages.
Schelling, perhaps the greatest philosopher of his generation,
tried to comprehend Nature not scientifically by analysing one
individual part after another, but by experiencing a totality of
creative impetus. Similarly, Heinse aims at making us feel the
totality of a Rubens picture, whereas Winckelmann produces a
vision of the head of the Apollo in his readers, by most intensely
describing it feature by feature. Consequently the artist of 1 760
literally composes his picture by adding gesture to gesture, and
figure to figure, while the Romanticist wishes to beget his work

as “an organically formed integer” (Carstens); and conse¬

quently the academician was in teaching chiefly concerned with
parts out of which the whole could be made, while Heinse as a
spokesman of the new style insists that “no one can completely

1 Mannlich: Ein deutscher Maler und Hofmann, edited by E. Stollreither, Berlin, 1910,
en sich
p. 14. Kilgelgen: “Die mit der Korrektur betrauten Professoren bekummert
nur wenig um uns ” (ed. Langewiesc he, 1919, p. 370). Pecht: Aus meiner Zeit, Munich,
quoted from W. Wolfradt, C. D. Friedrich, Berlin,
1894, vol. 1, p. 102 seq. Friedrich:
Morland:
1924’ p. 90; also Bekenntnisse, edited by K. K. Eberlein, Leipzig, 1924, p. 188.
B. L. K. Henderson, Morland and Ibbetson, London, 1923, p. 58 seq. Goethe: Weimar
eines deutschen Malers,
edition, section I, vol. 46, p. 362 seq. Richter: Lebenserinnerungen
2 0 3 Schuddekopf, Leipzig, 1902, p. 21;
Dachau, 1918, pp. 33, 36> 37- Heinse: ed.
Hamburg,
D’Azeglio, I miei Ricordi, chap. 10. Runge: Hinterlassene Schriften, vol. 2,
1841, p. 30. Carstens: cf. p. 194.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

understand a part without having a notion of the whole before¬

hand No compromise between these two theories was possible.

The young generation could not recognize any raison d'etre for
academies. For to genius any teaching must be superfluous, and
in suitable training methods for minor talents and artisans the
Romanticist was not interested at all. He considered Art only;
those who did not feel themselves great artists, should not meddle
with drawing, modelling, or painting at all. That is why Car-
stens regarded full-grown art schools as altogether unnecessary.
These men, even Friedrich who was so conscientious a painter,
had lost all understanding of a time when art was first of all a
craft to be learned. Hardly more than thirty years before all this
insulting of art schools, there had still been fresco-painters in
Southern Germany and Austria who were able to paint large
ceilings of Rococo churches, thanks to the medieval training

through which they had gone in their masters’ workshops. Many

of them were not great men, but they all knew their jobs.
Friedrich now exclaimed: “Does it really mean rendering a
service to art, if our academicians toil to force nothingness up

to mediocrity? I think, not.”1

And as none of the young artists were interested in the teach¬
able aspects of art, they could not justly judge of the acade¬
mician. It seems a strange whim of history that all those denuncia¬
tions — trade, not art; compulsion, not freedom; routine, not
genius — which the first academicians and their forerunners had
poured out over the guilds were now heaped upon academies.
For the second time in the history of European art, the artist con¬
demned his ancestors and his native soil in order to obtain full
emancipation. He had first denounced the relation of art to
craft; he now also parted with service to the State, the ruling
class, the public in general — and the last roots connecting his
work with actual needs were cut. Proud of his feat, no fore-

i Schelling: cf. especially Uber das Verhaltnis der bildenden Kiinste zu der JVatur, Munich,
20
1807. Heinse: l.c. p. 10. A similar sentence in 4Wackenroder’s famous book: “O blinder
Glaube des Zeitalters, dass man jede Art der Schonheit . . . zusammensetzen . . . konne.”
Friedrich: Bekenntnisse, l.c. p. 123; cf. also p. 146.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

bodings made him see its pernicious effects, from which we are
still suffering to-day.
However, as far as art education was concerned, the new
theories did not stop at entirely rejecting academies. Amongst
the invectives, suggestions for reforms are not wholly wanting.
They all come down to Kleist’s memorable advice to a young
painter: “Don’t spend much time on copying; try inventing, *
that beatific play.” But could art schools be of any use, if this
method were to be followed? The Romantic school abhorred
hard-and-fast rules. And is a school possible without rules?
“He whobelieves in a system, has torn from his heart all uni¬
versal love”, preaches Wackenroder in his Herzensergiessungen ,
and Friedrich adds: “No one can lay down a rule for all, every¬
body only for himself. . ..Beware of imposing your rules and
doctrines tyrannically upon everybody.” If the great German
dramatist of Romanticism writes “Jeder Busen ist, der fiihlt, ein
Ratsel” (Kleist, Penthesilea )— how can you draw a programme to
teach Art? “You can’t learn that like sums; it’s free art, not
subject to any teacher” (Heinse). And yet, was there really
nothing that could be found beyond this anarchism? We get a
first glimpse of the ultimate answer from Friedrich: “Let every r
body have his manner, and his way of expressing himself, and
help the student with your advice, instead of laying down the

law.”1
This new conception of a friendly and intimate relation be^
tween teacher and pupil forms the centre-piece of the reform
which the Nazar enes have achieved. Its character can only be
understood from the history of the Nazarene Movement. This
started, as is known, from the violent opposition of the two
friends Franz Pforr and Friedrich Overbeck to the Vienna
academy. They had arrived in Vienna in 1805 and 1806,
seventeen years old, and unhesitatingly trusting in all that the
famous academy would teach them, the academy in which

1 Heinse: Uber die herkommliche Ausbildung

2 der Maler. Diisseldorfer Gemaldebriefe
05
(1777), ed. A. Winkler, 2nd edition, 1914, p. 158. Friedrich: Bekenntnisse, l.c. pp. 104,
195-
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Zauner, the Neo-Hellenic sculptor, and Fiiger, the anglophile

portrait-painter, dominated. The two friends soon found them¬

selves disappointed, but Vienna had a revelation of quite a
different kind in store for them. This revelation came to them
while they were painting in the Imperial Collection, then at the
Belvedere Palace. There, looking in amazement at the works of
the German Primitives, they felt themselves all of a sudden in
the presence of that loving care and devotion which they missed
in the facile productions of their professors. This was the
origin of the Brotherhood of St Luke or, as they called it, when a
few other less important young artists had joined, the Order of

St Luke. The first principle was “Truth” as opposed to “aca¬

demic manner”, truth in nature and religion. The great
examples were the masters of the Middle Ages, and the German
and Italian Primitives. To get nearer to the aim after which
they aspired, common drawing was considered more valuable
than the attendance at academic classes. The academy, teachers
and students, regarded them as unbearably conceited. We know
of a kind of tin-kettle serenade performed by fellow-students one
night under Pforr’s windows. When after the time of the
French occupation of 1809 the academy reopened temporarily
in only two rooms, Pforr, Overbeck and a third member of the
little community were not admitted. They were not expelled;
but the staff of the academy was certainly glad when their plan
to visit Italy became known. Only one of the foundation
members, a Swiss called Sutter, stayed on, and on him, in 1811,
the wrath of the academicians descended. When asked to defend

himself, he referred to Eberhard Wachter, Carstens’s friend, who

at that time lived in Vienna. That supplies a welcome hint, con¬

necting up the anti-academic attitude of the St Luke’s brethren

with Carstens and his ideas. It is unnecessary to add that they
also knew the writings of Wackenroder, Tieck, and perhaps
Friedrich Schlegel.
In Rome, the Nazarenes — this nick-name had been given to
them for their devout life — settled down in a deserted monastery,
S. Isidoro on the Pincio. There they practised life-drawing in

206
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

the evenings, and called this “the academy”, consciously or un-<

consciously adopting the earlier Italian use of the term.1 Amongst
their friends we find Koch and Schick, two of the most convinced
adversaries of academies. The Brotherhood itself later admitted
as members the two Veits, step-sons of Friedrich Schlegel,
Wilhelm Schadow, and above all Peter Cornelius. Cornelius had
left the Diisseldorf Academy during the years when the Order of
St Luke was formed in Vienna, and with some friends had also
founded a small community in the medieval German spirit. The
place in which they had discovered the German (and Flemish)
Primitives was the famous private collection of the Boisserees.
A parallel to Pforr’s and Overbeck’s secession even exists in
Cornelius’s friend Mosler’s leaving of the academy, “because he
had discovered in the national art of the Middle Ages a spirit
entirely incompatible with the spirit of the academy”. Cornelius
had followed him in 1809 and then lived for some years at
Frankfort, before he set out for Rome. There he was, after

Pforr’s premature death, unquestionably the strongest character

in the Nazarene circle. His theory is known from a letter which
he wrote to the great Catholic publicist Gorres on 3 November
1814. Just like Carstens he blamed Art for having become, in

spite of its divine descent, “the mercenary servant of the pro¬

fligate great ” . But it is new that Cornelius now, after the rise of the
nation in 1813, felt that this odious state of affairs should come
to an end, and that the time was ripe for a new start. Not artists,
he urged, but appreciative patrons are lacking. At the courts

the “spirit of falsehood ... with its negative eclecticism” is still

ruling, and “the fatal academies of art and their dry and dull
directors”. It would first be necessary “to apply just a few
stones (ein Steinlein) ” to the foreheads “of these Philistines”,
before a new art could make itself felt. The new art which
Cornelius meant was monumental fresco-painting in the style
1 On Overbeck, cf. M. Howitt, Fr. Overbeck, Freiburg, 1 886 ; on Pforr, F. H. Lehr,
l.c. “The academy”: Lehr, l.c. p. 167. On the Order of St Luke and the Nazarene
community-ideal in its various historic 2aspects 07 cf. N. Pevsner, “ Gemeinschafts-
ideale unter den bildenden Kunstlern des 19. Jahrhunderts”, Deutsche Viertel-
jahrsschriftf Liter aturwiss. und Geistesgeschichte, vol. 9, 1931.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

of the Italians. For this had rapidly — and unnoticed by anybody

— replaced the style of the German Primitives in the minds of the
Nazarenes.

Cornelius was very fortunate in finding an understanding

patron almost at once in the Prussian consul Bartholdy, who
gave the Nazarenes their first chance to show what they were
able to do. The stories of Joseph, once in the Casa Bartholdy
and now in the National Gallery in Berlin, were commissioned
in 1815, and executed in a true spirit of brotherhood. They were
completed when the two men arrived in Rome to whom
Cornelius owed it that he could transfer into practice his
theories on art education. The Prussian minister, Baron von
Niebuhr, was the one, the crown prince of Bavaria, later King
Ludwig I, the other.
Niebuhr, probably the most inspired German historian of his
time, belonged to the circle of the early years of the new Berlin
University. National enthusiasm stimulated him and, although
he was not specifically susceptible to art, made him recognize at
once the great mission which the Nazarenes, and above all
Cornelius and Schadow, might have for the foundation of a
Neo-German art. Soon after he had come to Rome, in 1816, he
wrote about this to Berlin. But nothing ensued, and he was com¬
pelled to look on idly, while the Bavarian crown prince arranged
for Cornelius’s appointment at Munich. Ludwig I was as a young
man equally enthralled by the national cause and by Antiquity.
As early as 1808 he began his purchases of Greek and Roman
sculpture, and at the same time conceived the idea of a German
Valhalla, which he carried out much later near Regensburg in
the shape of a Classical temple. He arrived in Rome early in
1818, and at once made friends with the young German artists.
The Glyptothek, which was to house his collection, was just
being erected at Munich, in that year. He chose Cornelius as
the leading painter for the decoration of the building. That was
in 1819, just when Niebuhr’s remonstrations in Berlin had at
last been successful. The first Prussian minister of education,
Altenstein, planned to appoint Cornelius director of the academy
208
 Fig. 1 8.
PETER CORNELIUS

Drawing by Karl Philipp

Fohr. Heidelberg, Museum

Fig. 19.
WILHELM von SCHADOW

Self-portrait. Drawing in the

National Gallery, Berlin
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

at Diisseldorf which, together with the whole of the Rhineland,

had meanwhile been incorporated into Prussia. Niebuhr was
asked for a testimonial, and this, dated 5 June 1819, became the
first document embodying the programme of reformed art
education, as the Nazarenes had gradually evolved it amongst
themselves.1 Niebuhr’s starting-point is again the fact that the
existing academies “are no good”. The reason seems to him,
in harmony with the liberal view, that artists, instead of trusting
the “spirit of their own activity”, have “voluntarily accepted a
guardianship over their art, as if they were not of age yet”. To
re-establish a sounder state of affairs, only one way appears open :

to appoint a real genius as principal of an academy (and Cor¬

nelius was to Niebuhr as great as Goethe), a man “whose calling
it would be to found a true school”. A true school with one
great master and an intimate personal relation between him and
his pupils — that was the new ideal.
In order to realize this ideal Cornelius left Italy in 1819. His
intention was to live at Diisseldorf, and to spend the Summer
months at Munich painting in the Glyptothek. What were the
conditions which he met, when he arrived in the two German
towns? Not much need be said about Diisseldorf. An academy
of art had been founded in 1767. Its first director was one
L. Krahe, a mediocre pupil of Benefial and Subleyras, two of the
early Classicists in Rome. The one advantage of the school was
its close connection with the Diisseldorf collection, then one of
the foremost picture collections in Germany. When the court
(and the pictures) left Diisseldorf for Munich, the academy went
down rapidly. During the time when Cornelius was a student, it
was of no importance whatever. When the Rhineland had been 14

taken over by Prussia in 1815, plans were made for restoring to

the academy some of its old distinction. Should it be augmented
by a Polytechnic, or should it be raised to the status of a Provincial
Art College? One of the only two teachers was asked to submit

2 09 456 seqq. Cornelius’s

1 Cf. E. Forster, P. von Cornelius, ist part, Berlin 1874, pp. ichartz Jahrb. vol. 5,
letter to Gorres: ib. Mosler, 1806: K. K. Eberlein, Wallraf-R
1928-9, p. 1 10.
PA
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

a report, and it is most remarkable, and shows how much the

ideas of the Nazarenes were in the air, that this man, an artist
now completely forgotten, suggested, just as Cornelius would
have done, the introduction of a personal relation between
teacher and student “after the manner of the old masters”.
There should be “fatherly care”, and not “academic routine”.
This report was sent to Berlin in 1817* One year later
Altenstein received a memorandum from the highest Prussian
architectural official, Schinkel, who was — as is known — the
greatest among Neo-Classic architects in Germany. Schinkel
recommended that the routine of the academic classes be replaced

by workshops , where masters would teach their pupils.1 Another

year went by, and the ministry appointed Cornelius. So the
ground was not entirely unprepared when Cornelius arrived.
However, the first appearance in Prussia of the educational ideas
of the Romantic Movement, as reflected by the two memoranda
quoted just now, seems late when compared with that in
Munich.
The Munich academy had been founded in 1770. It was a
small affair with two teachers and forty students drawing from
plaster casts and life. When the elector of the Palatinate had
ascended the throne of Bavaria, and the Diisseldorf collections
were transferred to Munich, the Diisseldorf director whose name
was mentioned above pleaded for a reform of the Munich school
on the pattern of that of Diisseldorf. But nothing was done, and
it was not until 1800 that the government invited the newly
appointed director of the picture collections, Christian von
Mannlich, to write a report on the decline of the arts in Bavaria
and the reasons therefor. In 1801 the academy also submitted a
memorandum, and Mannlich drew up ’a second and more com¬
prehensive report. In this and in a memorandum by Freiherr
Georg von Stengel, a high official in the Ministry of Finance,
dated 1804, a new attitude becomes visible. Whereas in the earlier
report the old argument of the economic utility of an art school

1 Diisseldorf: R. Wiegmann, l.c. ; Klapheck, l.c. ; L. Bund, l.c. (Schaeffer’s report,

p. 4). Schinkel’s memorandum: F. Eggers in Deutsches Kunstblatt, vol. 2, 1851, p. 242.

210
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

had prevailed, the decisive passage is now: “The cultivation of

beauty must be regarded as an aim in itself.” There is even a
remark against restrictions of the “genialische Freiheit des
Kiinstlers”. No doubt, we are here face to face with a very early
effect of the new Classic-Romantic theory of art. Indeed only a
few years later, in 1806, Schelling was called to Munich and
appointed chief secretary to the academy of letters. At the same
time, a new director came to reform the art academy — Peter
Langer, who had been Cornelius’s teacher at Diisseldorf. The
new constitution of the academy was Schelling’s own work; and
there one could read, as early as 1808: “The teacher shall not
suffer any uniform mechanism, but leave to the pupil as much
freedom as possible to show his particular talent and the special
qualities of his manner of looking at objects and imitating them.”
The aim of the academy is to be “ the studying of the arts in their
highest and most rigid sense”. To those who know about the
evolution of German educational ideas in general, the similarity
of this programme with that of Humboldt and Hirt in Prussia
leading at the same time to the foundation of the Berlin Univer¬
sity, is evident. It is the spirit of Weimar (and Jena) which in¬
spired them both. As a proof of this, it may be mentioned in passing
that the Munich Constitution provides for an academic library

containing the works “of old and new Classics”. However,

despite this revolutionary programme, the details of the re¬
organization still belong to the Ancien Regime. The school was

to be linked up with a “ Kunstgesellschaft”, whose task was “to

spread the appreciation of noble forms amongst all classes”.
The structure of the courses, and features such as competitions,
classes for apprentices, etc., academic titles for meritorious
craftsmen, interest in provincial branch schools — all this is very
much like the Berlin programme of 1790. The only noteworthy
innovations were a special class for instruction in the use of
colour — a memorable departure from the exclusive drawing in the
old academies — and a special advanced class for composition.
The new director opened the reformed establishment in 1809
with a surprisingly bracing address. The Munich academy, he

21 1

14-2
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

so far
says, is to be “different from all academies of the past , in
not
as it will “primarily consider studying from nature and
This,
“the imitation of Antiquity and other existing models”.
, is accord ing to Lange r
namely the closest adherence to nature
the secret of Raphael’s art which he grasped while working
under Perugino and Giovanni Santi.1
A liberal appreciation of the individual student s talents, art
st
in its highest and most rigid sense, nature as the foremo
example — what was all this to look like in practice? The
Munich academy under Langer yields no satisfactory answer.
His appointment soon proved to have been a mistake. Although
the new ideas had taken his fancy, he was unable to transfer

them into reality. Instruction remained “academic”, although

it must be admitted that Langer abolished drawing from draw¬
ings of “eyes, muzzles, ears, and noses” and started his students
direct on complete heads taken from Italian fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century pictures. He also allowed them to attend life-
classes after a relatively short time. But the most modern-
minded artists in Munich — the circle around Mannlich and that

surprisingly advanced landscape-painter Dillis — still regarded the

academy as old-fashioned. Their ideal was the Dutch masters and
their modest yet competent technique. To them Langer and his
son remained the c ‘ Kunstbestien ” .2 In 1 8 1 6 the Munich academy
even had its little secession — though a one-man secession— just as
the Vienna academy in 1810. Karl Philipp Fohr, one of the most
exquisite draughtsmen of the Romantic school, felt so weary of
academic pedantry that he planned to withdraw his name from the
registers. Langer heard of this intention just in time to expel him.

1 Munich: E. von Stieler, l.c., and also R. Oldenburg, Die Munchner Malerei im

19. Jahrhundert, 2nd part, Munich, 1922. In one of Mannlich’s letters (12 October
1 804) one finds incidentally once more the old stock argument of the decline of art as
a consequence of academies. In 1812 the Munich academy made Goethe an honorary
member, and it is characteristic of the coming change that Goethe, and with him
Humboldt, Heyne, Schelling, Hirt, were given the same honour by the Vienna academy
(Liitzow, l.c. p. 98). Provincial branch schools : in 1816 the old Nuremberg academy
was incorporated, in 1820, the Augsburg academy. Langer’s address: M. Stern, J. P.
Langer, Bonn, 1930, pp. 46 seqq.
2 Cf. Oldenburg, l.c. p. 80.

212
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

So much of conditions as Cornelius found them when he

returned to Germany. As we have seen, his ideas were not entirely
new either at Munich or at Diisseldorf, but before he came all,
or almost all, had remained on paper. It was now Cornelius’s
task to put into practice what he, Niebuhr, Schelling, and others
had pictured. Early in 1820 he sent the minister a programme
for the reorganization of the Diisseldorf academy, composed by
him and his friend, the painter and critic Mosler. He wanted to
run three classes. The first should be of an elementary character
dealing with drawing, geometry and perspective. The second
should deal with plaster casts and life, without either an excess

of antique drawing as usual “since Mengs” or an excess of life¬

drawing after the manner of David in Paris. “To avoid manner¬
ism” it was proposed not to have one permanently appointed
model but many models. Painting should be started in this
second class. So far Cornelius’s programme does not go beyond
that of Schelling and Langer. Its most important part is that
dealing with the third class, where it was his intention, according
to the ideas of the Nazarenes and the Romantic Movement in

general, to lead his pupils back “to the simple manner of the
great periods of art” by introducing a “liberal teaching method
similar to that of the old schools ”. There should be no “choking
and intimidating of the spirit”, every student should be able to
keep his “natural, unaffected, freely developed peculiarity and
independence”. These advanced students should carry out
their own compositions in their own studios close to that of the
master, whom they should also assist in his own works. Com¬
missions should be procured for them from secular and clerical
bodies. 1
Had this programme really been carried out, it would have
meant the introduction of Meisterklassen, the most important
innovation in the history of art academies during the nineteenth

century. But, for various reasons, Cornelius’s high-sounding

1 Cf. A. Kuhn, P. Cornelius, Berlin, 1921,21p.
3 252, and Bund, l.c. p. 33 seq. The idea
of the changing of models is to be found already in Quatrem^re de Quinzy’s Con¬
siderations sur les Arts du Dessin, l.c. p. 12.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

plans never came to anything. The ministry suddenly held up

the reform for a year. Meanwhile Cornelius painted at Munich
surrounded by some pupils from Diisseldorf to whom he really
tried to be a master in the medieval sense. Not until the end of
1821 were alterations in the building started, and courses begun

according to the new rules. But Cornelius’s personal interest

remained confined to his closest pupils, and it did not worry him
that the old routine went on unchanged in the other classes. So,
when he was called to Munich as Langer’s successor in 1824, he
had in actual fact made but slight improvements at Diisseldorf.
The Munich academy under Langer had been to him — so he
said to Ludwig — “a dead mechanism which, like a machine,
punctually and by a most exactly calculated process, removes
every impulse of life”. One might have expected him to take
more energetic steps here. This, however, he failed once more to
do. We find in the Recollections of Fr. Pecht, a well-known nine¬
teenth-century journalist, bitter complaints of his indifference
and the slackness of the school under him. Pecht’s professor in
the antique class, he writes, came to look round only once or
twice during a whole winter.1 The appointment of two more
members of the Nazarene group, H. Hess and Julius Schnorr von
Carolsfeld, and the publication of new rules in 1828, were the
only progressive measures, and these new rules — after such long
and promising preparation — contained nothing remarkable ex¬
cept the abolishment of the elementary class. Students were not
accepted unless they had acquired a sufficient knowledge of
drawing outside the academy — probably in one of the gradually
developing trade schools or technical schools. By this alteration,
the three classes of the academy were now engaged on drawing
from plaster casts and life, painting, and composition. Schnorr
taught the most advanced class ; Cornelius had his own pupils for
whose sake mainly he had been commissioned to paint the
frescoes of the arcades round the Hofgarten. He had originally
asked for special studios for them; for this, however, there was
214
not enough space in the academy. A great deal of Cornelius’s
x L.c. p. 102 seq. Cornelius’s remark: Kuhn, l.c. p. 269.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

plans thus remained unexecuted. He was — and this accounts for

his failure — by nature not an organizer at all. His “fervent and
austere ” personality strongly fascinated those whom he admitted
to his intimacy. But, although his cartoons show him well able to
develop final and very generalized formulas for what he wanted
to express, he had no real interest in an equally defined structure
of his teaching institution.
The organizer amongst the Nazarenes was Wilhelm
Schadow.
He was an artist of little importance as compared with Cornelius,
but by establishing the educational system which, to a varying
degree, gradually modified the majority of European academies,
he has left as strong an impression on the history of nineteenth-
century art as his greater and less adaptable friend. Schadow
was appointed Cornelius’s successor at Diisseldorf in 1826. He
accepted, although this meant leaving a successful private
teaching practice in Berlin. It is necessary to know about his
private school, in order to understand the sources of his Diissel-
dorf reform. At the Berlin academy the rules of 1790 were still in
force — entirely Ancien Regime as they were — but the govern¬
ment had begun to grant studios free of charge to certain
members of the academy who were not professors, in order to
enable them to have more private pupils, a scheme not altogether
new (cf. p. 174) but new to Berlin.1 The most popular of these
“academic studios” were those of Schadow and of Wilhelm
Wach. Now it is interesting to notice that, whereas Schadow’s
ideas can certainly be traced back to impressions received during
the years when he had belonged to the Roman circle of the
Nazarenes and painted with them in the Casa Bartholdy, Wach
had acquired a notion of what effective art teaching could be,
while he was studying in Paris between 1815 and 1817 under
David and Gros.
A few words must in this context be said about the methods of
art training used in Paris during the Napoleonic era. It has been
pointed out before that neither the Revolution nor the re¬
21
organization of the Ecole des 5 Beaux Arts which followed
1 Cf. (Seeger), Zur Jubelfeier..., l.c. pp. io6seqq.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

private
immediately had in any way reduced the importance of
studio tuition. Before the Revolution attemp ts had alread y been

made at “academizing” of the studio, which

the atmosphere
been very
probably even under Boucher or Tiepolo had still
similar to that of medieval workshops. We know e.g. the

“ecole particuliere ” of Vien, David’s master, which was famous

in the fifties, partly because models were permanently, and not

only at a few special hours, at the pupils’ disposal. Such a school

was of course a direct development from the Italian studio
academies of the type flourishing in Rome during the eighteenth
Italy
century (cf. p. 79). The significant difference is that in
life-drawing was a special additional enterprise not interfering
with the otherwise still medieval workshop training, whereas it
now began — under the influence of the public academies to

replace this even in private studios. David’s studio is to be

regarded as the first result of this evolution. It was in fact an
academy, housed first in the Louvre and then in the Institut de
France — and an academy of a higher reputation than the Ecole
des Beaux Arts. While the Ecole was still running on in the old

groove, David made his pupils not only draw but also paint from
plaster casts and life. Elementary tuition was of course excluded,
and in both these respects his studio was as up-to-date as the

most progressive German art schools thirty years later. Life¬

drawing was done with the utmost intensity. Runge was told
that it used to occupy six hours a day. David himself came over

from his private studio and looked at the students’ work every
day about noon. When he was away, much ragging went on
amongst the thirty or forty pupils, but in his presence his
criticism, pronounced quietly but peremptorily, was received
with attention and respect. When David had fled from Paris at
the moment of the Bourbon restoration, his studio was taken over
by Jean Antoine Gros, who succeeded in maintaining its high
reputation. The rush of would-be pupils was so great that a
waiting list had to be introduced. The results of the David-Gros
method were encouraging indeed. This was partly due to the
convincing personalities of the two directors, but partly also to

216
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

the principle of keeping a student under the steady supervision

and influence of one master instead of entrusting his progress in
life-drawing to twelve different professors.1
Wach had intelligently observed where the advantages of the
French method lay, and transferred it to Berlin. Schadow thenj
enhanced its appeal to the German artist by linking it up with
the ideals of the Romantic movement. What had proved
successful in Paris, was now also to be brought into harmony with
the admired tradition of the Middle Ages. There was no in¬

sincerity in Schadow’s wish to achieve this. He was an idealist,

believing in the creed of the Nazarenes, but he was also a born
organizer. Heinitz, whose conception of what an academy
should be was so utterly different from that of Schadow, his god¬
son, could yet, had he still been alive, have looked with pride on
the new development. As soon as Schadow had settled down at
Diisseldorf, he started carrying out his programme; and it
should be emphasized once more that his feat was less his pro¬
gramme than its consistent execution. The new rules of 1831
were in fact closely dependent on those which Cornelius and
Mosler — who was a professor in the academy until his death in
i860 — had drawn up. The establishment remained divided into
three classes. The bottom or elementary form was of a sur¬
prisingly reactionary character. It was to teach children from
the age of twelve upwards to draw from drawings and later from
plaster casts of parts of the human head and body. This class
was in fact the reintroduction of a feature abolished by Langer
in Munich and Cornelius in Diisseldorf. The second form was

called the preparatory class. Students here worked from plaster

casts and life, connecting the two as closely as possible. Painting
in the form of copying from painted heads was also started in this

class. In the top form, or “Klasse der ausiibenden Eleven”,

students carried out their own compositions and participated in

1 Vien’s Ecole Particuliere : F. Aubert, Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. 22, 1867, p. 175
seq. David’s studio: Delecluze, l.c., especially
217 p. 46. Also W. Cohen in Kunst und
Kiinstler, vol. 24, 1926. Runge on six hours’ life-drawing: Hinterlassene Schriften, vol. 2,
Hamburg, 1846, p. 66. Gros, I. B. Delestre, Paris, s.d. p. 261.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

the work of their master. They could belong to this form for five
years, and afterwards pass on into the Meisterklasse, which

meant the small group of the most talented post-graduate

students who were given studios in the academy for a low rent.
Nothing special is to be added with regard to the supplementary
subjects and the sculptural course.
Schadow must have been the ideal director for this new system.
Although very strict in his Roman Catholic faith, he was much
more tolerant than Cornelius with regard to different styles in
art. He must have realized that the immediate future belonged

to the sentimental type of genre-painting which in England is

called Mid-Victorian, and in Germany just Diisseldorfisch. So
instead of opposing this development stubbornly and holding up
the grand style of the religious or historic cartoon as the one and
only ideal, as Cornelius did, Schadow accepted it and gave it its
due place in his school. As a teacher he must have been excellent.
This is not only proved by the success of his studio in Berlin, but
even more by the fact that a series of pupils followed him to
Diisseldorf who later became the leaders of official German

painting. Their names must be given, although they will not mean
much to anybody who has not seen for himself their big canvases
in German nineteenth-century galleries or their wall-paintings in
castles and public buildings. Lessing, Hiibner, Hildebrandt moved
at once to Diisseldorf when Schadow went there, and Bende-
mann, Schroedter, Schirmer went slightly later. They all finished
their studies at Diisseldorf and then stayed on until they were
appointed to the staff of either the Diisseldorf or another academy.
Schadow and this group of pupils succeeded in making Diisseldorf
for a time one of the recognized centres of European art.1
There is one difference, however, between the academic
organization which became typical of the nineteenth century
and that established by Schadow. At Diisseldorf, only he, the
director, had Meisterschiiler. Later on, an academy always had

i On the Diisseldorf school cf. K. Koetschau and others, Rheinische Malerei in der
Biedermeierzeit, Diisseldorf, 1926. On Schadow’s programme Bund, l.c. pp. 245 seqq.,
and Wiegmann, pp. 30 seqq.

2l8
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

several master-classes. This innovation was first introduced in

Munich by Cornelius’s successor, the architect of the Ludwigstrasse,
Friedrich Gartner.
In a memorandum of 1843, he set forth his
plan of encouraging in the education of the advanced students

“that freer development which is produced by the interaction of

different individual faculties and tendencies, as it existed in the

older schools of the Middle Ages 5 ’ . King Ludwig agreed enthusi¬

astically, and soon four master-classes were opened, between
which the students had a choice.1 Only after this step had been
taken was the nineteenth-century system completed.
It began to have its effect on the other German academies
almost at once, and gradually led to the reform of every one of
them. At C as set the necessity of a reorganization which should

be based on the principles of the “old schools of painters” was

emphasized as early as 1840. The new programme was, how¬
ever, not actually introduced until 1867 and, in some points,
1886. Berlin was also amongst the slowest to follow. In spite of

Schinkel’s memorandum quoted above and in spite of suggestions

brought forward in 1823 and 1844, and again, somewhat later,

by Kugler, Jacob Burckhardt’s master, and one of the first of the

great German art historians, nothing material was changed until
1875. Only one of the Nazarene requests was fulfilled by 1829,
the opening of a composition class. Frankfort on the other hand,
where one of the original Nazarenes, Philipp Veit, had become
director in 1830, had already established master-classes in the
forties. Dresden was captured by the Diisseldorf school about
1840. Bendemann and Hiibner were made professors in 1839
and 1842, and Schnorr von Carolsfeld, another Nazarene, came
from Munich in 1846 to fill the vacant post of director. Master¬
classes were introduced during the forties.2 At Vienna two

1 Stieler, l.c. p. 98 seq. Ludwig’s actual words were: “Dass nicht durch Klassen
grosse Kiinstler gezogen werden, durchdrang mich langst. Keine Akademie hat noch
einen solchen hervorgebracht; durch Schulen hoher Meister werden sie gebildet.”
2 Cassel: Knackfuss, l.c. pp. 190 seq., 216, 229 seq. Berlin: F. Eggers in Deutsches
Kunstblatt, vol. 2, 1851, and F. Kugler, Grundbestimmungen
219 fur die Verwaltung der Kunst-
Angelegenheiten im Preussischen Staate, Berlin, 1859, p. 43. Master-classes at Frankfort and
Dresden: Eggers, l.c. pp. 258, 275.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Nazarenes, Kuppelwieser and Fiihrich, had been appointed in

1836 and 1840. Three master-classes were founded in 1852. At

Karlsruhe the young Grand Duke of Baden opened a new art

school in 1854 — it was not an accident that the name of academy

was not applied to this school — and got Schirmer, Lessing,

Schroedter and some others to come over from Diisseldorf.

Outside Germany the system of the master-classes was

triumphant in Belgium. It was established at Antwerp in 1846,
at the very moment when the theatrical and pseudo-realistic

Belgian “grand style” became influential all over Europe. At

Copenhagen attempts at introducing the new system were not
successful. In 1849 and again in 1853 a group of progressive

professors in the academy had demanded amongst other innova¬

tions the opening of master-classes. Their proposals were turned

down, and so an opposition school, the “Frie Studieskole”, was

opened by the leaders of the young generation, Krojer, Tuxen
and Zahrtmann. This so much reduced the demand for a reform

of the official academy that the only move made — at last in 1883
— was the opening of a class for post-graduate students. Of the
Italian academies, Florence must be quoted, where according to

the new rules of i860 the “ insegnamento superiore” for painters

took place “liberamente negli studi degli artisti”. In Paris the
government had, in 1863, provided three studios each for pro¬
fessors of painting, sculpture and architecture in the Ecole and
one each for engraving and chasing (toreutique ). Advanced
students should be able to practise in these studios, instead of

keeping to their private teachers’ studios for all the practical

work, as they had always done up to then. France went
no further than this, but even that was more than what the
Royal Academy in London achieved in the way of reforms during
the second half of the nineteenth century. And yet a genuine
appreciation of Nazarene art had by no means been absent in
England. Holman Hunt once, although at a much later date,

pleaded for a “ bond of interest and affection between the student

and the master”. But the Royal Academy itself, in spite of such
ideas, remained virtually what it had been. It moved from

220
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Somerset House to the new Neo-Classic

building of the National
Gallery in 1836, and to the new Neo-Baroque Burlington House
in 1869. It adopted one after another the small innovations
which could no longer be held up. They will be mentioned later
in this chapter. Distinguished professors were not lacking.
Flaxman was appointed Professor of Sculpture in 1810, Turner
Professor of Perspective (of all subjects!) in 1807, Soane of Archi¬
tecture in 1807, Fuseli of Painting in 1809. But that meant only
lecturing a few times a year, or not even that. The social im¬
portance of the Royal Academy remained centred in its exhibi¬
tions and annual dinners. Educationally it was of little conse¬

quence.1
On the Continent, and especially in Central Europe, including
Italy after 1861, although the educational tasks of the academies
prevailed, their representational aspects were not neglected
either. It was on the contrary only now that that type of
academic dignitary became usual which still haunts our present-
day art. They were all exponents of the “grand style” now no
longer expressing itself in apotheoses of Baroque princes, but
mainly in subjects of national history and literature. They had as
a rule studied in an academy, gone through the Meisterklasse of
an influential professor, and then been appointed to one pro¬
fessorial job after another, gradually climbing grade after grade
of the academic career. A welcome by-product of an acade¬
mician’s growing fame was the honorary membership with which
foreign academies presented him.2 Young artists found them-

1 On Belgium: cf. Meldahl’s report of 1883 in F. Meldahl and P. Johansen, Det Kong.
Akademi for de Skonne Kunster, Copenhagen, 1904, and van den Branden, lx. p. 146.
Copenhagen: Meldahl and Johansen, l.c. Florence: Cavallucci, l.c. p. 83 seq. London:
Sandby, l.c., and G. D. Leslie, The Inner Life of the Royal Academy, London, 1914. Also
the apposite description given by F. Kugler in 1846 [fiber die Anstalten und Einrichtungen
gur Forderung der bildenden Kiinste ..., Berlin, 1846, p. 8). Holman Hunt: Transactions of the
National Association for the Advancement of Art and its Application to Industry, 1st Congress,
Liverpool, 1888, p. 66.
2 A few instances may serve to illustrate this : Canova, Camuccini, Thorwaldsen,
Rauch, Klenze, Schinkel were honorary members at St Petersburg (Hasselblatt,
l.c. p. 130), Thorwaldsen, Schinkel, Klenze, Cornelius, Schnorr and Kaulbach at
Stockholm (Nyblom, l.c. p. 47), Canova, Camuccini, Schinkel, Rauch, Cornelius and
Klenze, as mentioned on p. 170, at Copenhagen. After 1830 the Copenhagen academy

221
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

selves confronted with a powerful caste holding up lofty ideals

and suspecting consciously or unconsciously anything that was
“peinture” pure and simple. It is unnecessary to repeat that this
attitude was ultimately derived from the French aesthetic theories
of Louis XIV’s time, and had developed down into the nine¬
teenth century via Winckelmann, Lessing, Reynolds, Schiller,
and the Romantic school. To give just one example of the way
in which this conception of art now presented itself, Cornelius
said: “True art knows no separate genres. Gattungsmalerei is a
kind of moss or parasitic growth sponging on the great trunk of
Art. . . .Therefore Facheln is no art, and should have no place in

an academy.”1 “Gattungsmalerei” and “Facheln” meant all

specializing in landscape, or genre, or animal life, or even por¬
trait; in short, painting for painting’s sake. At Munich, where
Cornelius made this remark, there was a whole school of modest
and talented artists of this kind (Kobell, Hess, Biirkel, etc.) who

naturally resented such statements. And although Schadow — as

we have seen — was more tolerant, the general outlook of the
academies remained unsympathetic to that irresistible growth
of realism and specialization which characterizes nineteenth-
century life.
Just like the art of the seventeenth century, that of the nine¬
teenth can only be adequately interpreted in terms of a continual
tension between the official and the intimate. Recognized art,
e.g. art of the academies, art of the grand style in its bourgeois
transformation, stood against experimental art of anti-academic
character and no social aim or standing. What a gulf between a
Robert-Fleury and a Daumier in Paris in 1850, between the
PRA and a PRB in London in 1850. The governments sup¬
ported academic artists; and this made academies grow in
%

elected: in 1831 Nobile and Toschi, in 1833 Vernet, in 1839 Schadow, Kraft, Moller,
P. Hess, in 1858 Hittorf, Stiiler, Laves, Cockerell, Eastlake, Kaulbach, Bendemann,
Lessing, Schnorr, Steinle, Rietschel, Landseer. The Paris academy was allowed only
ten foreign members at a time. Amongst them we find : Canova, Camuccini, Schinkel,
Klenze, Thorwaldsen, Rauch, Stiiler, Strack, Overbeck, Cornelius, H. Hess, Schnorr,
Kaulbach, Rietschel, Cockerell, Ferstel, Antolini.
1 Stieler, l.c. p. 79.

222
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

reputation and in numbers of students. This caused an ever-

increasing over-supply of academically trained artists relying on
success with a bourgeois class of indistinct taste. If they went
in for the official style, they hoped for public commissions; if
they preferred genre, or landscape, or still-life, they counted on
selling through exhibitions of some Kunstverein or a similar
institution. But if their genius pushed them far towards the new
and unwanted, they had to wait for enthusiastic patrons. A
proletariat of artists, including hosts of mediocre men and some
of the best, is typical of the nineteenth century.1
How easy had the social position of the artist been a hundred
years before, when most private and public commissions came
from the same class, from a class of people who had plenty of
leisure to enjoy and appreciate art. The French Revolution, the
Napoleonic era, the Industrial Revolution had cleared most of
this away. In Germany the castles of all clerical and many
secular potentates were abandoned, in France only a small
percentage of the nobility survived. It no longer cared for
display. The new classes coming up did not think in terms of
country estates and palaces. A state of affairs developed which
has now become a matter of course everywhere but which was
wholly new then, namely that even the wealthiest patron of art
is a busy man, spending most of his days working, and regarding
art as a recreation, a rest, a pseudo-religious cult, or at any rate
something outside everyday life. It was utterly impossible for
any artist to know what a prospective patron might want. De¬
mand was so complex, taste so varying that the concentration
on the official semi-Classic style was bound to appear absurd to
the students. And while before the end of the eighteenth century
it was comparatively easy for a young artist to neutralize if
necessary an academic influence which after all usually operated

i In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Edwards, secretary to the Venice

academy since 1778, has already seen this fatal consequence of the system: “in venti o
venticinque anni sarebbesi popolato il paese223 d’ infelicissimi pratici” (Dali’ Acqua
Giusti, l.c. p. 25). The same idea was expressed by E. Wachter, cf. p. 201, and also by
Caspar David Friedrich: “The number of students keeps growing, and one cannot
imagine how all these people will find a living later on” (Bekenntnisse , l.c. p. 144).
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

on him only for a few hours a week, he was now much more at
the mercy of the public art school imparting all the available
training.

For it is one of the most important developments in the educa¬

tion of the artist during the nineteenth century that the ‘ ‘ academi-
zation” of his instruction was completely or almost completely
achieved. The roots of this have been discussed in the foregoing
chapter. The steady expansion of academic programmes was
obvious, and various reasons have been given to explain it. One
more must now be added: the abolition of guilds and trade-
companies, and concurrently of a great deal of regulated work¬
shop training. This differed in various countries and various
crafts, and will, in another connection, be discussed later. As far,
however, as painting went, the studio of Corot was probably
more different from that of Tiepolo than Tiepolo’s had been from
Diirer’s. Now only — or as artists said: now at last — art was
really no longer a craft, no longer a trade. And even those who
wished to work as humbly and as well as the Dutch still-life or
landscape-painters could only go to an academy to learn the job,
whether it was a public academy as in Central Europe or a
private academy as in France.
The Nazarenes had been well aware of the dangers of the new
ascendancy of school over workshop. This is exactly what they
had intended to counteract by means of their master-classes. The
results of this measure, however, were of necessity quite different
from what they were meant to be. A revival of the medieval
spirit could not be brought about by one innovation, and an
innovation alien to the ruling social system. The illuminated

manuscripts of the Reichenau, the sculptures of Reims, ofGiotto’s

a live
frescoes were not created because of the existence
workshop tradition, but because of a Zeitgeist expressing itself in
religion, politics and philosophy, in guild and in workshop.
None of the leading Nazarenes was really prepared to regard
himself as a craftsman equal to a highly qualified goldsmith or
2
saddler, and certainly none of the24 students wanted to be treated
as an apprentice in the medieval sense. After all the efforts of
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

artists for three centuries to prove that they were literary men,
scientists, priests and what not, it was impossible for them to
return to the humble life of the Middle Ages which had been the
soil from which the greatest achievements of European art had
grown. Any attempt at this was self-deception as long as artists
were not really ready to serve again, and to serve not art but
society. The academician was now wholly convinced that
Schiller and the Romantic school had done right in establishing
the sacredness of art. He would have been the last to accept a
position of servitude. And this creed he tried to propagate in his
teaching, and could do so much more effectively in the personal
atmosphere of a master-class than had ever been possible in an
eighteenth-century life-room. For the student, when he had
reached a certain standard, now chose the professor under whom
he wanted to work for the following years, and he thus worked,
during the decisive years of his artistic education, under one
individual only, instead of passing through the hands of twelve
visiting professors.
Strange consequence of a step taken for such opposite
reasons ! The Nazarenes dreamt of the spirit of community
and brotherhood in the medieval workshop; this their master¬
classes were intended to restore. But what they were bound
to attain was only the destruction of the last remains of Ancien
Regime collective education and the establishment of a purely
individualistic system; divorce where a new unity had been
desired.

Schadow’s master-class was in no way similar to a workshop

like Memling’s or Ghirlandajo’s. It was in reality a private
course just like that run by any of the French heads of ateliers.
15
No more revealing symptom of the general change between 1660
and i860 could be imagined than the fact that now in Paris, the
city of Colbert and the Academie Royale, private studios sup¬
plied most of what was needed in the way of academic instruc¬
tion, whereas- — to two German experts travelling between 1845
225
and 1850 — the Ecole des Beaux Arts appeared only as “a store¬
house for teaching apparatus of all kinds” or an “auxiliary
PA
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

institution ’ ’ run on the assumption that ‘ ‘ other opportunities for a

real training of artists” were available and that the student could
“spend his day with the master whom he had chosen as his

patron”.
The most famous of the private studios after that of David
and Gros were maintained by Delacroix, Delaroche, Ingres and

Coigniet. In the second half of the nineteenth century Bonnat’s

studio is frequently mentioned, and also the studios of Gleyre,
and of Couture, the Ecole Suisse, and the Academie Julian. The

system of tuition was still more or less that of David’s atelier. Of

Delaroche e.g. we know that he came three times a week and
that the exactness and exactingness of his criticism impressed
even the roughest and noisiest amongst his fifty or a hundred
students. Couture had about twenty-five to thirty pupils and
visited the studio twice a week.1 There was quite a matter-of-
fact atmosphere of plain teaching and learning about the best of
these studios ; the German ideal of master and faithful follower
was absent. It may well be that this was all for the best, for in
Germany the system of the Meisterklassen could not be successful
in the long run either. Liberalism and realism go hand in hand,
and as the nineteenth century was the Golden Age of the one, it
also saw the acme of the other. In spite of Cornelius, the
“Fachler” carried the day, and in spite of the last remarkable
attempt at a Romantic school of painting which England saw in
1848, the great masters of the century were the realists of East
Anglia and Fontainebleau and the Impressionists.
This irresistible development forced academies everywhere to
give in. Though they tried to hold up their ideals, they had
grudgingly to accept one innovation after another. But since
they did it grudgingly, they never did it in time, and so the
history of art academies from 1830 until the twentieth century
1 Private studios and ficole des Beaux Arts, cf. F. Kugler, Uber die Anstalten und
Einrichtungen zur Forderung der bildenden Kiinste..., Berlin, 1846, p. 8, and G. Semper,
Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst, Brunswick, 1852, p. 43. Students under Gleyre were
Renoir, Monet, Sisley; under Couture: Manet, Feuerbach; in the ficole Suisse:
Cezanne. On the Academie Julian, cf. the entertaining description in Sir W.
Rothenstein, Men and Memories, vol. 1, London, 1931, p. 36 seq.

226
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

exactly reflects the history of art during the same period, only
with a time-lag, varying in different countries and different
centres. The remaining pages of this chapter have therefore to
deal with the opposition of the progressive artists to the aca¬
demies, and with the belated changes brought about whenever
a new tendency had succeeded in holding its own against the
disdain of the academies, and could no longer be overlooked.
As for the reforms, enough has been said about the most
important of them, the master-classes. a Before, however,
student could enter a master-class he had to go through a
curriculum all too similar to that of a hundred years earlier.
Of French schools about 1850 we hear that drawing was taught
only once a week, and that the method followed was the copy¬
ing of mediocre drawings. Of the Royal College of Art in
London about 1870, Fred. Brown describes the copying of
“mechanical live engravings of classic ornament” called
“officially free-hand drawing”. Of a German academy of a
slightly earlier date we have a detailed report written by a well-
known German journalist who attended the Berlin academy just
after the middle of the century.1 The future artist had to pass
through three general drawing classes, before he was accepted
into the academic forms proper. In these three classes work was
only done from drawings, first of hands, feet and parts of faces,
then of complete heads, and finally of whole figures. It is not
necessary to repeat that this elementary department was a
reactionary feature of the Berlin academy. No pencils, only red
and white chalk, were allowed. Perspective and optics were
taught, and drawing from illustrations of anatomic details. So
the student gradually made his way into the antique class, and
from there into life-drawing. At Diisseldorf elementary teaching

had been simplified according to Schelling’s, Langer’s and

Cornelius’s ideas, but drawing from drawings of heads and parts
of bodies was still in use. This applied even to the Karlsruhe
school, founded in 1854. It was also, in spite of Carstens and all
227

1 L. de Laborde, De I'Union des Arts et de V Industrie , vol. 2, Paris, 1856, p. 159 seq.;
F. Brown: Art Work, vol. 6, 1930, p. 150. Julius Pietsch: cf. Seeger, l.c. pp. 307 seqq.

15-2
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

his followers, not regarded as antiquated at Diisseldorf to let

changing visiting professors set the model.
This is what time and again surprises the historian to-day who
tries to understand and interpret the development of academic
art education. The Nazarenes, and the Romanticists in general,
had declared war on the old academies. The victory was theirs —
as complete as could be. One after another they had entered the
strongholds of the enemy. And then, when they could have
established a new regime, the spirit of Colbert, if it may be called
that, proved stronger than theirs. How can this be explained?
Largely, it seems, by politics. Germany and Italy, the countries
with the most highly developed academic organization had had
no revolution of the extent of the French. The age of Goethe,
Schiller, and the Romantic school, was soon followed by reac¬
tion; and restoration was also the predominant tendency in
France after 1815. Not that political retrogression had actually
caused the failure of the Nazarene reforms; on the contrary, it
probably helped to spread their medieval ideals. But the Zeit¬
geist which paralysed political development on the Continent just
at that time may also be responsible for the drooping energy of the
art-school reformers. Instead of smashing the eighteenth-century
system entirely, they put up with most of it, and only introduced
innovations where they were personally most interested, i.e. in
the advanced and post-graduate schools .The lower forms, the pre¬
liminary classes, were in any case regarded by the academicians
with indifference or positive dislike. So, where they could not get
rid of them entirely, they did not bother to reform them, and
everything remained virtually as it had been fifty years earlier.
In most cases, however, they succeeded in doing away with
the trade classes. It usually proved quite easy to dispose of
them, because in the meantime, what with the development
of technique and industry, and what with improvements of
general education, it had been found out in most countries (but
not in Britain) that trade schools or technical schools, which were
being opened everywhere, served the purposes of industry more
effectively than trade classes in art schools. A few dates may
228
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

illustrate this move. In Berlin, a special Gewerkschule was

opened in 1809, and a special Academic Drawing School for ele¬
mentary tuition in 1829. At Augsburg, drawing for trade pur¬
poses was transferred to a trade school in 1836. The same change
was made in Vienna in 1849, and in Copenhagen after a long
struggle in 1857. In Florence, the new rules of i860 state that
only students who are conversant with the rudiments of drawing
shall be admitted. Since the Karlsruhe school was founded only
in 1854, it had from the start no trade classes. But in 1877 — after
a discussion which had already begun in 1868 — the existing pre¬
paratory class was also dropped. At St Petersburg the big
Seminary was given up in 1830, and in 1840 the secondary school
classes as well, probably because by then Russian schools had
reached a standard which allowed the academy to draw from
them. The same of course applied in another way to Germany.
Here drawing lessons were gradually introduced into elementary
and secondary schools, and these together with the spreading
trade schools were now in a position to replace the elementary
part of academic art teaching.
However, even this was only shifting, not reforming. The
method of elementary drawing, of which the Romanticists had
strongly disapproved without abolishing it, was not only, as we

have seen, kept unchanged in the a'rt schools, it actually spread

into trade schools and schools in general. How long did children
learn to draw by copying drawings or prints in outline? Right
into our century anyhow. As to my own school experience in
Germany, cubes and spheres in outline were still my models
under an old drawing-master in 1912 and 1913, and the change¬
over to tasks like drawing a country walk was effected by an ad¬
venturous young teacher in 1914, and seemed highly revolution¬
ary. As to a German trade school a few years earlier — in fact one
year after the foundation of the Werkbund — this is what was done
according to the recollections of a post-war painter : I first
I
learned to copy plaster ornaments in exact outline. After that
22this
9 skill had first to be acquired
was allowed to hatch them. But
dream-
by drawing simple cubic or semi-globular shapes without
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

ing of what such celestial bodies would mean to art ten years
later. Then I advanced by the death masks of Leonardo(?)
and Frederick the Great to the plaster-head of the Niobe, and
via the Dying Gaul to the live model.”1
Amongst the innovations in European academies, besides the
dismissal of elementary drawing classes, the following must be
mentioned. In connection with the development towards
university or college standard which we have found everywhere,
the entrance age was put up. It had not been unusual in full-
grown academies of the eighteenth century to admit boys of
twelve. Sixteen to eighteen became now the customary age.
Reception-pieces were given up in most academies, and so were
competitions. London remained an exception to the first, Paris
to the second rule. As to the competitions in Paris, one reason
for this survival was probably that they enabled the Academie to
interfere visibly at least once every year with the affairs of the
Ecole. For it has been mentioned earlier in this chapter that in
France since the beginning of the nineteenth century a complete
separation of academy and school had been effected. Until
1863 the academy elected at least the professors, then this was
dropped too. In many countries, a tendency can be found
to isolate from the fast-growing routine work of the schools the
academic bodies, representational
and advisory as they had
become. In Vienna the step was taken in 1 849,2 and again — and
now finally— in 1872. In Berlin the same had been demanded
by Kugler in 1849, and was at last granted in 1882. Only the
master-classes remained in the hands of academicians. It is
significant in this connection that Diisseldorf, the leading Ger¬
man academy at the middle of the century was but a school.
While thus the average academic programme of the nine¬
teenth century is in some ways narrower than that of the previous
century, these reductions were made up by several additions,
and it is chiefly here that the unwillingness of the academies to

1 Erich Biittner, Velhagen und Klasings Monatshefte, vol.

39, 1924—5.
2 Cf. Grundbestimmungen fur die Verwaltung der Kunst-Angelegenheiten im
Preussischen
Staate, Berlin, 1859, p. igseq.

230
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

follow new tendencies can be demonstrated. The most glaring

case is that of female models. These were still forbidden in al¬
most all public art schools in 1850 and later — a state of affairs
hardly believable. For individual artists had of course drawn
women from the nude since the fourteenth and fifteenth cen¬
turies. The Carracci academy, and other Italian private
academies — we know it e.g. of Bologna and Venice — also used
female models. So in all probability did studio academies in
other countries. It happens to be recorded in the case of the
circle of the Stockholm court artists about 1700, the circle
around the Dutch painter B. Graat, also about 1700, the circle
in which Thorwaldsen used to draw about 1790, and Vanden-
bank’s academy in St Martin’s Lane in 1722 (Vertuejust states:
“a Woman being there the Moddel to draw after”; but Hogarth
shrewdly adds : “ To make it more inviting to subscribers ”) . But
the only official academy which in the eighteenth century seems
to have allowed the female model was London, the reason
perhaps being the unusual non-governmental nature of the
institution. How far we can interpret this as a symptom of
open-mindedness, appears doubtful, if we hear that lady students
were not admitted to life-drawing at all until 1893, and even
then the model had to be “partially draped”. A similar Vic-
torianism in Berlin is described by an old student referring to a
show of a group of models in 1841-42. There you could see the
heroes of classic sculpture with salmon-coloured trunks, and the
Venus de’ Medici with a shawl. Female models in the life-class
were in Berlin introduced in 1875, in Stockholm in 1839, in
Naples — to quote just one Italian example — in 1870. At the
Royal College of Art in London they were not yet allowed in
1 873-75, when Sir G. Clausen was a student.1
1 Female model in Bolognese studio academies : Zanotti, l.c. (Ghislieri academy) ;
Venice: I. G. Keysslers Reisen durch Deutschland, Bohmen, Ungarn, 1776, vol. 2, p. 1 1 19

(“Abzeichnungen nackender Personen beyderley Geschlechts”). Stockholm:

Loostrom, l.c. p. 71. Graat: M. Pool, Beeldsnijders Kabinet . . ., 1727 (“waar men zoo wel
na een vrouws als mans model teekende”). Thorwaldsen : J. M. Thiele, Thorwaldsens
Leben, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1852, p. 15. Vandenbank: quoted from Vertue’s Notebooks, edited
by the Walpole Society, vol. 22, 1934, p. n. Royal Academy: Leslie, l.c. p. 61.
Berlin: Seeger, l.c. p. 333. Royal College: Art Work, vol. 7, 1931, p. 18.

231
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The academies were also late, though not by several centuries,

in adopting some other innovations. Two typical instances are
painting classes and landscape classes. It became obviously im¬
possible to maintain governmental establishments for the training
of artists as mere figure-drawing schools at a time when Delacroix,
Delaroche, and the Belgians, when Turner, Crome, Constable
and Bonington, when Rousseau, Corot and Daubigny, when
Blechen and Wasmann painted. The Romantic school, repre¬
sented by Schelling, Langer, Cornelius, Schadow, had already
pleaded for painting courses. So they were instituted at Copen¬
hagen in 1 8 1 1 , and at the initiative of Lund and Eckersberg
made permanent in 1822. In London 1816 is the date, although
the painting class did nothing but copying from pictures lent by

the Dulwich gallery; in Madrid it was 1823, 'm Genoa 1841 and
again 1851. In Berlin, where the academic studios mentioned in
connection with Schadow and
Wach taught painting quite
adequately, it was only taken over by the academy later in the
fifties.1 As to landscape painting, Schadow at Dusseldorf clearly
saw that it would be no good neglecting it at a moment when
realism was so much in the centre of most young artists’ interest.
So he appointed Schirmer, one of the representatives of ideal
italianizing landscape, as assistant teacher in 1830, and made
him professor in 1839. He may have hoped that by encouraging
heroic landscape, he could keep out the lower manifestations of
realism. The same feeling made him appoint a few genre
painters although a special genre class was not founded until
1874. In any case, Schadow succeeded in gaining for Dussel¬
dorf the reputation of being one of the outposts of realism
in Europe, although the theatrical pseudo-realism of Diissel-
dorf cannot be compared with that of Courbet or Menzel or
Madox Brown. As to landscape classes in other academies,
they had been established in the Austrian academies of Venice
and Milan since 1838, at Modena also in the thirties, at

1 Copenhagen: Meldahl and Johansen, l.c. pp. 145, 196. London: W. T. Whitley,
Art in England, 1800-20, Cambridge, 1928, p. 253. Madrid: Caveda, l.c. vol. 2, p. 90.
Genoa: Staglieno, l.c. p. 123. Berlin: Seeger, l.c. p. 83.

232
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Madrid in the forties, at Cassel in 1867, at St Petersburg in the

seventies.
It is important, however, to stress that all these dates refer to
courses in landscape painting. The tradition of academic land¬
scape drawing is much older. Vienna is a good example to
demonstrate this difference. In the eighteenth century, land¬
scapes, both idealized and treated as “landscape portraits”, had
been very popular. They were commissioned as decoration or as
souvenirs, or as both. So the private Schmutzer academy (cf.
p. 153), and, since Kaunitz, the Imperial Academy had included
landscape drawing as a subject. It was kept in the constitution
of 1800. Of other art schools, Berlin and Dresden e.g. taught
landscape drawing, and it is a sadly significant fact, that at
Berlin, Blechen, one of the few German landscape painters who
can be compared with the contemporary geniuses of East Anglia,
was in charge of a landscape class, where in 1831 he still had to
teach drawing exclusively. We can assume that eighteenth-
century academies regarded landscape in the same matter-of-
fact way as they regarded ornament. There was a demand, and
so courses had to be supplied. It was the Winckelmann-Lessing-
Schiller school of thought that first objected to them on principle.
As we have seen, they, and Cornelius as one of their most power¬
ful spokesmen, despised all “Fachler” as unworthy of the high
task set to the artist by God. So Hirt, Goethe’s admirer and
Humboldt’s friend, proposed in 1808 to dissolve the existing
class in Berlin; and in Paris, when in 1816 a special prize for
Paysage Historique was introduced, the subject was nevertheless
branded as a “ genre secondaire ” . When in the Vienna academy
in 1849-50 the Nazarenes could carry out their long-planned
reform of the constitution, they abolished the “ Spezialschulen”
immediately. However, they were forced to reopen the land¬
scape class in 1865, and this time as a school of landscape paint¬
ing. So the academy had at last to give in— in the year of
Waldmuller’s death, and forty years after the young Romantic
233
landscape painters such as Olivier had created their charming
of
Salzburg pictures, another German parallel to the work
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Crome and Constable. But, then, Constable was not made a

Royal Academician either until he was fifty-two years of age,
and even then the president, Lawrence, emphasized the fact that
this was a special, noteworthy honour for a mere landscape
painter. As for Italian academies Signorini, the great exponent
of the school of “macchiaiuoli”, states in his history of the
Cafe Michelangelo that no instruction in landscape painting

was “ fortunatamente o disgraziatamente” given about 1848.

The symptom of the final acknowledgement of landscape

painting was Palizzi’s appointment to the presidentship at

Naples in 1 878. In Germany the earliest action in favour of land¬
scape painting was taken by the Karlsruhe school which, as was
said before, was founded in 1854 with the explicit aim of being
modern in its methods throughout. So the first thing done was

to call it an “Art School for landscape painters”, and the second

to induce Schirmer to leave Diisseldorf and accept the director¬
ship. Other artists from Diisseldorf followed. The organization
was also modelled on the Diisseldorf pattern, but everything was

intended to be smaller and more personal, less “factory-like”

than it had become at Diisseldorf. Karlsruhe remained ex¬
ceptionally enterprising for some time. When G. Schonleber had
been elected professor of landscape painting in 1880, he was
bold enough to put his students into a room with a skylight and
let them paint “fish from the Rhine, reed, straw, cabbages, the
most incredible bottles and flasks from a grocer’s shop, whole
carriages and boats”. A good deal of progress in academic
teaching had thus been made since the time when Constable,
for the first time a Visitor at the Royal Academy in 1831,
ventured to place the female model as Eve in front of some
evergreens cut from his garden in Hampstead.1 But compared

1 Blechen: Seeger, l.c. pp. 86-7. Hirt: F. Eggers, Deutsches Kunstblatt, vol. 2, 1851;
and W. Waetzoldt, Gedanken zur Kunstschulreform, Leipzig, 1921, p. 63. Paris:
Dela-
roche, l.c. p. 186. Rarlsruhe: Ochelhauser, l.c. pp. 11, 13, go. Signorini: E. Tomard,
Milan, 1926, p. 248. Constable: C. I. Holmes, Constable, London, 1902, p. 98. In
234 1832,
by the way, Etty arranged a more elaborate group with several female models,
fiagments of architecture, termini, tripods with flames of various colours, and fruit
(cf. W. T. Whitley, Art in England, 1821-37, Cambridge, 1930,
p. 227).
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

with what progressive artists — such as he himself — painted in

1830, his feat was as belated as Schonleber’s at a time when
Manet painted Claude Monet with his easel in a boat on the
Seine.

The fact remainedthat even the most self-denying goodwill

could not achieve more for the academies than to keep the time-
lag reasonably small between their methods and the tendencies
which were modern at any given moment; and doubts can hardly
be suppressed as to whether it really was worth keeping up the
race against such odds. Public opinion in the Victorian days
was perhaps convinced that it was, those who had given some
thought to the problems of art education — mainly artists —
were not. There are comparatively few nineteenth-century
pamphlets or books of any constructive value dealing with
the public tuition of artists, and after i860 they seem to grow
fewer and fewer; but there are only too many remarks of
painters and sculptors recorded condemning academies root
and branch. The original love of freedom that characterized
Sturm und Drang and the Romantic school had survived
the pro-academic reaction of the later Nazarenes and their
followers.
Here a few instances first of critical writings between 1830
and i860. There is Waldmuller to begin with, a Viennese Roman¬
ticist, combining something of the sugary taste of his time with
a surprising Pre-Impressionism that sometimes enabled him to
paint as freshly as Bonington. In two pamphlets of 1846 and
1849 he proposed a reduction of the academic curriculum to one
year, and a training method similar to that of the old masters.
That in itself was by no means new, nor were his suggestions as
to details. The human figure should remain in the centre of the
teaching programme. No objection about drawing from draw¬
ings was raised. More violently worded were the attacks which
that tragic figure, Benjamin Hay don, directed against academies

in general — he called them “royal and imperial hot-beds of

235
commonplace” — and against the Royal Academy in particular.
Meanness, fraud, and all kinds of knavery are amongst his accu-
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

sations. He resented especially the mixing-up of educational and

representational tasks, and wanted to reduce the academy to
nothing but a school. This, as we have seen, was also not at all
new, and beyond it he did not go. On the contrary, it is sur¬
prising to see that here a figure-painter believing passionately in
the grand style insulted an academy, because it did not do
enough to foster the grand style. To him the Royal Academy

stood for portraiture, i.e. something smacking of the “Fachler”,

and against the heroic. Even for schools of design he regarded
figure-drawing as the one all-important means of instruction.
And there was thirdly Marchese Pietro Selvatico , secretary of
the Venetian academy and the author of many books and
pamphlets on art, who in 1 842 strongly emphasized the necessity
of the teacher taking a close personal interest in the individual
student. It was the old story of the Romanticists again, new
perhaps to Italy, but not to Europe. Is it possible to find more
original suggestions in the writings of other authors? A German
art historian, Guhl, demanded in 1848 the introduction of
history courses, in order to encourage a national school of
historical painting — an interesting point, but chiefly as an
illustration of a mid-nineteenth-century attitude towards art.
Far more remarkable seems a proposal made in 1859 by another
German art historian, Herman Grimm , author of one of the best
biographies of Michelangelo. He stated with surprising frank¬
ness that art “being altogether unteachable ... should not be
taught in an academy. Its only task can be to give elementary
tuition in painting, modelling and carving, and an introduction
into those subjects of general education without which no great

art is possible.” The second part of this shows that Grimm, who
was the son of Wilhelm Grimm, one of the two Grimm Brothers,
was still connected with the German ideas of the Romantic move¬
ment, the first contains an argument still to be found in discus¬
sions in our century. A convinced impressionist such as Whistler

could say exactly the same: “I don’t teach art; with that I can¬
not interfere ; but I teach the scientific application of paint and

brushes.” This attitude we shall meet again in connection with

236
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

the most promising twentieth-century efforts to reform academic

art training.1
The conclusion usually drawn from the evident deficiencies of
existing art schools and the equally evident dislike of art schools
amongst the young was what is worded diplomatically by Sel-
vatico: “Non sarebbe forse gran male lo smetterle affatto”, and
more bluntly by Edward Lear and Ferdinand Waldmiiller.
Lear: “ I wish the whole thing were abolished, for as it is now it is
disgraceful” ; Waldmiiller: “As it has been found that the purpose
of these institutions has not been achieved, there is not the
slightest reason for retaining what is recognized as utterly useless.
No more academic teaching then; let the State abolish the

academies, and release all art training entirely.”2 The irony of

the position at this juncture should be fully recognized. Here are
the champions of latter-day Romanticism joining hands with the
Realists and the Impressionists in fighting the same academies
that had been triumphantly reorganized by earlier great repre¬
sentatives of Romanticism. In explaining the seemingly para¬
doxical situation, one must consider this: in that most complex
phenomenon, the Romanticism of the late eighteenth and early

1 Waldmiiller: Das Bedilrfnis eines zweckmassigen Unterrichts in der Malerei und plas-
tischen Kunst , 1846, 2nd edition, 1847, and Vorschlage zur Reform der Osterr. Kais. Akad. d.
Bild. Kilnste , 1849, reprinted in Ferd. G. Waldmiiller, ed. by H. Rossler and G. Pisko,
Wien, 1907. Haydon: On Academies of Art (more particularly the Royal Academy ) and their
pernicious effect on the genius of Europe, London, 1839. Also Lectures on Painting and Design,
London, 1844-6. Selvatico: SuW educazione del pittore storico odierno italiano, Padua, 1842;
Intorno alle condizioni presenti dell’ arti del disegno, Venice, 1857; Sull’ insegnamento libero
nelle Arti del disegno, Venice, 1858; Gli ammaestramenti delle arti del disegno nelle accademie,
Venice, 1859 and L’ insegnamento artistico nelle accademie di belle arti, Padua, 1869. Guhl:
Die neuere geschichtliche Malerei und die Akademien, Stuttgart, 1848. Grimm: Die Akademie
der Kilnste und das Verhaltnis der Kiinstler zum Staate, Berlin, 1859. Whistler: E. R. and
J. Pennell, The Life of J. McN. Whistler, vol. 2, London, 1909, p. 232, also p. 242.
2 Selvatico: Sull’ educazione, l.c. p. 32. He incidentally uses in this context the old
argument, already known to us through Voltaire: “Non hanno mai formato niuno
de’ sommi pittori italiani.” Cf. also of the same generation of Italian art critics
Cicognara, the author of the first scholarly compendium of Italian sculpture: “Dal
seno delle Accademie non uscl mai un’ opera di genio” (Storia della Scult. Ital.,
Venice, 1813-18, 2nd edition, 1824, vol. 6, p. 264). Lear: Letters of E. Lear, edited
by Lady Strachey, London, 1907, p. 271. (I learnt of this remark through a letter
of Mr Shane Leslie to The Times.) Waldmiiller: cf. Rossler and Pisko, l.c. Other writers
237
condemning academies completely are e.g. Roberto D’Azeglio, Delle Acc. di B. A.,
Turin, 1859, and Friedrich Pecht, Siiddeutsche feitung, 1862.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

nineteenth centuries, a reflected ideal of medieval community

spirit was linked up with a new cult of unthwarted personality.
The Nazarenes had aimed at embodying both in their reshaped
art schools. However, the century was against this. Liberalism
was progressing at a more and more alarming speed. The victory
of the spirit of Manchester in the thirties showed how far from
the dreams of Shelley things had already moved. So, within the
Romantic movement, individualism prevailed more and more,
an aesthetic individualism of just as little social conscience as the
economic individualism that had built the industrial cities of
England and established the shocking conditions in which most
of their inhabitants lived and worked. Where tendencies can be
pointed out that recall the fullness of Romanticism, such as that
which inspired first the Pre-Raphaelites and then William Morris,
or those which animated Puvis de Chavannes in France or Marees
and Bocklin in Germany, they remained under the surface.
On the surface we see Benjamin Haydon showering abuse
upon the Royal Academy, and at the same time Joseph Hume, a
leader of the Radicals in Parliament, demanding an enquiry
into the finances of the institution and insisting on the abolition
of entrance fees to the exhibitions. That was in 1834, and
1 837-39. However, as the academy was economically inde¬
pendent, his motion was defeated. So he appealed to Queen
Victoria in 1844, asking her to withdraw the royal charter from
an establishment of no use to the arts of the country, and to turn
it out of the new National Gallery building into which it had
moved a few years before. Hume was not more successful this
time than he had been before, and the Royal Academy was able
to keep its original character for another century, i.e. to the
present day, sharing with Paris the reputation of being the
most reactionary of European academies.1 Roger Fry made a
few vivacious remarks on the Ecole des Beaux Arts at the time

when he was young. We read of the “dirty brown plaster casts”,

and the “dusty, foxy, and fly-blown copies of Italian pictures
and frescos ” kept in what he calls “ the most admirably equipped
of these laboratories for inoculation against art”.
1 Cf. Sandby, l.c. vol. 2, pp. 80, 105-18.

238
Figs. 20 and 21. The Turin Academy, about 1900. Life room, and studio
of the painter Senatore G. Grosso
»
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

And as we are now once more at artists’ invectives against

academies, let us go on for another moment and bring them
up-to-date by quoting at random just a few sayings of painters,
architects, and critics of the last seventy or eighty years. Cam-
mar ano : “ Lucky he who has nothing to do with . . . what is crazily
done in academies”; Fattori, speaking of his friends, the young
“ macchiaiuoli ” in Florence, “who had become enemies of the
professors in the academy; and it was a war to the knife”;
Ruskin : “Until a man has passed through a course of academy
studentship, and can draw in an improved manner with French
chalk, and knows foreshortening, and perspective, and something
of anatomy, we do not think he can possibly be an artist;...
whereas the real gift in him is utterly independent of all such
accomplishments”; Whistler : “The Academy! Whom the Gods
wish to make ridiculous, they made Academicians ” ; Fred. Brown :
“Throughout the school, every natural instinct of the student was
prevented or frustrated”; Sir G. Clausen : “We gained little or
nothing from our masters”; Feuerbach : “ ...something peculiar,
damp and mouldy, which I should like to describe as ‘ academic
air’”; Liebermann : “Only the most talented can go through the
academic drill without harm to their powers of imagination”;
Gasquet on Cezanne : “He detested public art schools all through
his life”; Sant ’ Elia , the futurist architect: “Academies where
the young have to force themselves into masturbatory imitation
of classic models”; Le Corbusier : “They are mortuaries; in
their cold-rooms there are only the dead. The door is kept
well locked; nothing of the outside world can penetrate”1
(figs. 20-21).
The florid language of the modern artist does not seem to have
gone far beyond that of his ancestors of 1800. It is masturbation
1 Fry: Art and Commerce, London, 1926, p. 14. Cammarano: Letter to Celentano 1859;
M. Biancale, Milan and Rome, 1936-7, p. 20. Fattori: M.Tinti, Rome and Milan, 1926,
p. 50. Ruskin: The Stones of Venice, vol. 1, chap. 4, § 61. Whistler: Mr M. H. Spiel-
mann, Letter to The Times, 13 July 1934. Fred. Brown: Art Work, vol. 6, 1930, p. 154.
Clausen: Art Work, vol. 7, 1931, p. 18. Feuerbach: Fin Vermachtnis, Wien, 1882, p. 14.
The expression refers to Diisseldorf about 1845-50. Liebermann: Gesammelte Schriften,
Berlin, 1922, p. 33. St Elia: V Architettura Futurista, Manifesto of July 11, 1914.
239
Le Corbusier: “Address to students of the Paris fcole”, quoted from Hier schreibt Paris,
edited by A. Wolfenstein, Berlin, 1931, p. 308.
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

and mortuary now, it was myriads of maggots and mummifica¬

tion when Koch and Schick wrote. The meaning is the same,
and it appears only surprising that academies have stood these
hundred-and-fifty years of never abating assaults. This must be
explained now, before we can leave the Fine Arts of the nine¬
teenth and twentieth centuries.
It has been tried in the foregoing chapters to explain the rise of
art academies during the Cinquecento, their acme during the
siecle de Louis XIV, and their sudden spread after 1750 for
reasons rooted in the general history of civilization and more
especially the history of social movements. Strong States had
made and developed the idea of the academy of art. Their
legitimate reason had been to issue a certain quantity and a
certain quality of art, useful to, and desired by, court or govern¬
ment. Now art had emancipated itself since about 1800, first
through Schiller and then through the Romantic movement.
After this the artist regarded himself as the bearer of a message
superior to that of State and society. Independence was conse¬
quently his sacred privilege. To serve society would have been to
degrade himself. A public art school could therefore not seem
anything to him but a work-house. No individual reform of
existing academies could alter this. The doctrine of the freedom
of Art is the fundamental tenet of nineteenth-century aesthetics.
It prevails from Keats down to Oscar Wilde’s cheap paradoxes,
and still looms in the present-day writings of most painters.
Thus the readiness of the Nazarenes to enter upon academic
offices must at long range be considered an error; and thus, for
the very same reason, all the vast and not ungenerous public
furtherance of art during the nineteenth century must be indicted
as another grave error. The prince of the eighteenth century
supported his academy because he needed it, the State of the
nineteenth century because it believed in that sacredness of art
preached by Goethe, Schiller, Humboldt. It was a lofty ideal
indeed, when it was conceived, and it is all to the credit of the
public authorities of that age that they recognized and appreci¬
ated it. It sounds dignified and cultured, though remote, to hear

240
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Franz Kugler say in a document meant to be regarded as official:

“In consideration of the beneficial influence which Art can have
upon the refinement of morals and upon education in general,
its cultivation is being recognized as a public necessity. It is
therefore a duty of a State ... to provide in an adequate way for

thorough art-education.”1 But what a humiliating position

have the European States accepted by not opposing a claim that,
though it had been justifiable in Schiller, had certainly become
meaningless by 1875 or 1890. Public authorities everywhere
seemed only too obtrusively eager to help Art, wooing and pro¬
posing all the time, but the artists of genius answered only by
intensifying their scornful rebuff. The States and cities or private
associations of patrons arranged exhibitions to show the works of
the artists, built museums to preserve them for eternity, gave
commissions so that no town hall was left without its series of
painting from local history and no square without a monument
to some distinguished citizen. Drawing lessons in elementary
and secondary schools were developed, trade schools and art
schools (and their grants) grew, until they either reached mon¬
strous sizes, or were split up so that the art school proper
remained a college or university with sometimes only thirty or
fifty students in all.2 Master-classes, when they had been
established, guaranteed an individual treatment and a free
development of every promising student. He had a model and a
1 Grundbestimmungen fur die Verwaltung der Kunstangelegenheiten im Preussischen Staate,
Berlin, 1859, p. 8.
2 A few instances may suffice to illustrate this. Combined trade and art schools,
i.e. schools including elementary drawing classes, at the middle of the nineteenth
century: Milan i860: about 1100 students (820 ornament, 180 elementary drawing,
15 painting, 10 sculpture, 9 architecture; cf. Caimi, l.c.). Genoa 1862 : 165 elementary
classes, 10 plaster, 6 modelling, 9 life, none painting. Turin 1872 : 699. Modena 1865:
about 300. In Belgium: Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Gand, Li6ge, Malines, Louvain
had more than 400 students each. In Germany on the other hand, where no ele¬
mentary courses were given, Berlin had in 1876 147 students; Munich i860, 130;
Diisseldorf i860, 63; Dresden 50; Karlsruhe 30; Konigsberg 26 (cf. Ochelhauser, Die
Grossherzoglich Badische Ak. d. bild. K. zu Karlsruhe , l.c. p. 45). As a comparison it may
be well to add that the Bcole des Beaux Arts about 1890 had 1000-1 100 students each
year, which was of course due to its merely supplementary character. In London the
Royal Academy Schools in 1861 had 71 in the antique class, 45 in the life class, 35 in
the painting class. English municipal art schools, which never gave up serving trade
requirements, still have very high attendances: Birmingham 1935-6, about 4900.
PA 16
241
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

heated studio at his disposal free of charge for years after the end
of his actual studies. Did he feel under an obligation for this?
No — he made a point of assuring everybody in later life that he
did not learn anything while he was at the academy, and that
what he had achieved was all due to his own unaided efforts.
One understands this. It would have been against the funda¬
mental credo of a nineteenth-century artist to admit that he
owed something to the community. That was a clear position,
whereas the attitude of the liberal statesman was ambiguous and
muddled. He accepted it as a duty to support Art, and did not
see that this had lost all its sense, when Art was no longer what
Schiller had wanted it to be — a school of humanity, an ultimate
interpretation of the universe addressed to all and everybody. The
statesman, the civil servant, the town councillor, the public bene¬
factor, kept paying money to art schools and purchasing works of
artists who had entirely renounced any social duty and preferred
to revel in Art for Art’s sake. And nobody ever ventured to ask
what Heinitz had asked at the end of the eighteenth century : What
are you artists prepared to do in return for us, the representatives
of the public, of society, of the State? So deep-seated was the
uneasy conscience of the century of bourgeois prosperity.
Since public compulsion remained absent in matters of art
education, and Art had only one wish: to be completely free,
was it not right to plead for the abolition of academies? And
would it not be right to-day? Liberal cultivation of Art could
express itself in purchases and commissions, but governmental
art education in a nineteenth-century State was absurd.
So parliamentarianism would probably in the long run have
freed itself from the prejudices of 1800 and finished with the
academies once for all, had it not been for an entirely different
development which came to their rescue about 1900. This was the
outcome of the English Arts and Grafts Movement, and as it is due
chiefly to this movement that by 1914 a great and very promising
renaissance had begun in many art academies, especially in
Germany, the last chapter of this book must be devoted to art
education in connection with the applied or industrial arts.

242
 Chapter VI
THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND
THE ARTIST’S EDUCATION TO-DAY

The history of the craftsman’s or the decorative artist’s training

as such is outside the scope of this book. But as it plays such an
important part in the contemporary movement for the reform of
art schools, it must to a certain extent be taken into consideration.
To what extent, shall be entirely governed by the varying degree
of influence which it has exerted upon the development of
academies of art.
When the Renaissance brought a first emancipation of the
artist, the goldsmiths, or cabinet-makers, or weavers had no
share in it. They remained craftsmen and members of guilds, and
continued to receive their training as apprentices in masters’
workshops. It was again Absolutism and Mercantilism that,
first opposed the craftsman’s dependence on the guild. As early
as 1607 Henry IV favoured the establishment of royal tapestry
manufactories, and Colbert, in 1664, amalgamated these into
the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, enlarged in 1667 into the
more comprehensive Manufacture des Meubles de la Couronne.1
Lebrun, director of the Academie Royale, was made director of
this new enterprise as well. On the staff of the Manufacture
were craftsmen of many kinds: sculptors, goldsmiths, joiners,
cabinet-makers, weavers, artists in pietra dura, and also painters,
particularly specialists in certain genres mineurs, such as the
painting of animals, battles, costume, etc. Caffieri was amongst
the employees of the Manufacture, also Boulle. It has been
mentioned before (p. 159) that members of the academy —
Tuby e.g. and Coysevox — gave drawing courses to sixty ap-
1 Cf. L. de Laborde, De V Union des Arts et de V Industrie, vol. i, Paris, 1856, p. I2iseq.;
43 2 des Arts
H. Jouin, Ch. Lebrun, Paris, 1889, p. 196; P. Mantz, “L’Enseignement
Industriels avant la Revolution”, Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. 18, 1865; H. Gobel,
Wandteppiche, 2nd part, Leipzig, 1927, pp. 47 seq., 1 13 seq.

16-2
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

prentices and journeymen of the Manufacture, these courses

being considered merely as supplementary, just like those which
formed the programme of the Academie Royale. Although the
courses were called Ecole Professionnelle they were by no means
concerned with the relation of design, material and working
process (as much of this as needed was learned at the bench or the
loom), but consisted chiefly in copying from drawings, i.e. a
training in pure paper ability. That this was regarded as a
desirable addition to the practical instruction indicates the
beginning of the artist’s encroachment upon the craftsman’s
territory. The designs should be his wherever figure compositions
or individual figures came in, because he alone was familiar
with the grand style. The tendency was evident to deprive the
craftsman of all creative work, a tendency in accordance with
that practised by the academy against the maitrise. Up to that
time a unity had generally existed between design and execution
(generally, not exclusively; cf. Holbein’s designs for gold-
smithing, etc.), now a wall was to be erected between the two.
All the numerous tapestry workshops and porcelain manu¬
factures established by European princes during the eighteenth
century are imitations of Colbert’s conception. Of schools, how¬
ever, we hear nothing (except for Meissen, cf. p. 167). Training
for trades was still concentrated in the workshops of masters.
Thus e.g. at Berlin, in 1784, while the town had approximately
145,000 inhabitants, there were 7744 journeymen registered,
and more than 6000 of them worked under masters, i.e. not in
factories.1 Educationalists of the Enlightenment have, as was
mentioned, endeavoured to communicate to them some “aca¬
demic” initiation. It has been described, in detail, how the
sudden immense growth of art academies and art schools after
1750 was connected with this tendency of the Enlightenment,
and how the new institutions were mainly or exclusively
organized to serve trade interests. From that point of view it
was also extremely important 2to
44 raise the worker’s or crafts-
1 Cf. O. Simon, Die Fachbildung des preuss. Gewerbe- u. Handelstandes im 18. u. 19. Jh.,
Berlin, 1902.
 artist’s education to-day

man’s ability in designing and in carrying out designs provided

by artists. The way of achieving this aim was still that followed
in France a century earlier. There was nothing but drawing-
lessons, and drawing meant copying exclusively. No difference
was made between the elementary classes for future artists, and
the trade classes. A change in the name of the reorganized
Berlin academy is especially characteristic of this. It was
originally called Academy of Fine Arts and Mechanic Sciences
(“Akademie der bildenden Kiinste und mechanischen Wissen-
schaften”) but the “mechanic sciences” were eliminated in 1809,
because Wilhelm von Humboldt, led by that lofty enthusiasm for
Art which his intercourse with Goethe and Schiller had taught
him, regarded it as a sacrilege to adulterate the idea of an
academy with commercial views.1 The foregoing chapter has
also shown that this conception, as the nineteenth century went
on, caused a gradual expulsion of the elementary courses every¬
where, and a concentration within the existing academies which
raised them to the status of universities or colleges of art. The
rudiments of drawing were taken over by elementary and
secondary schools, drawing for trades migrated to technical
schools, or trade classes or municipal art schools. A further
separation became necessary, chiefly during the second third of
the century, namely that of art students from students of engin¬
eering in all its branches. Thus, with the unparalleled growth of
industry and technique, some countries developed departments
of engineering in universities, some founded special “Technische
Hochschulen”.2 This exonerated the trade schools to a certain
extent, but in spite of that, no distinction was yet drawn between
training for a trade and training for applied art.
There is nothing particularly strange in this, for applied art
was in the most debased condition at that time. Academicians
were too conceited to take an interest in it, trade schools too
1 Cf. A. Amersdorffer, Der Akademiegedanke in der Entwicklung der Preuss. Akad. d.
Kiinste, Berlin, 1928, p. 16. Cf. also p. 164.
245
2 Cf. the excellent short account of the origins of the “Technische Hochschule” by
F. Schnabel, Die Anfange des technischen Hochschulwes ens in Festschrift anlasslich des 100-
jahrigen Bestehens der T. H. Fridericiana zu Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, 1925.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

overburdened to give enough thought to its needs, and guilds

were no longer in existence to uphold standards. Their position
had gradually been undermined by the English Economists of
the eighteenth century, the French Physiocrats and the ideas of
the Enlightenment in general. Action against them had first
been taken in Tuscany from 1 770, the Habsburg provinces of the
Netherlands from 1773, and France from 1776. They were
abolished in France in 1791, in Belgium in 1795, in Napoleonic
Italy in 1807, in Prussia in 1811. While thus no authority
watched workmanship, the early development of machine
industry completed the destruction of the crafts. Machines were
invented to imitate what had been the dignity of handwork,
speed was the only standard that counted, and the manufacturers
had usually no other ambition than to reap their profits — profits
which to a man still brought up in the traditions of the workshop
were bound to appear fabulous. The care which the craftsman
takes over a piece of work was alien to them. So was the thought
which the artist would give to a design for a craftsman. The
machine produced forms of any style, and surfaces of any
materials, provided that it was fed quickly enough with designs.
As early as 1 836 a situation must have been reached embodying
all the worst we know nowadays of maladjustment between art
and machine. The date given is that of Pugin’s Contrasts , the
title-page of which consists of mock-advertisements. Here are
some of them: “Ready made Balustrades all sizes — Gothic
chimneys from 10 to 30 sh. — Wanted an Errand Boy for an
office who can design occasionally — A large quantity of Gothic
cornices just pressed out from 6d. p. yd. — Design taught in six
lessons, — Gothic, Severe Greek, and Mixed Styles Compo-
Fronts forwarded to all parts of the Kingdom — Designs wanted:
A Saxon Cigar Divan etc.”
In point of fact, England , that had been first to develop
machine industry to its modern capacity, was also earlier than
the other European nations in facing its pernicious consequences
— social as well as artistic. Thus it came about that the outcry
against the abomination was louder in England than anywhere

246
 artist’s education to-day

else and that the first governmental measures to stop the decline,
of industrial art issued from London. Another reason for this
may be the fact that Great Britain had not during the second
half of the eighteenth century established anything like the
system of provincial or municipal drawing schools which we
have encountered in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, etc. It is
characteristic in this connection that the Royal Society of Arts,
founded in 1754 “for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture
and Commerce in Great Britain”, had not instituted a school at
all. In a few other places it had been done, at Edinburgh, e.g.,
where in 1760 the Board of Manufactures started a school “to
promote the art of drawing for the use of manufactures” (linen
and wool mainly). But that was not much, and State inter¬
ference would have been needed to go any farther. This how¬
ever, as is always the case in this country, met with little
encouragement. So things were left as bad as they were, and the
government allowed industrial art to muddle on until the time of
Pugin.
Then at last — in 1835 — action was taken, i.e. a Parliamentary
Commission was appointed “to inquire into the best means of
extending a knowledge of the arts and of the principles of design
among the people (especially the manufacturing population) of
the country”.1 The Commission pointed to the existence of
eighty drawing-schools in France, and thirty- three in a small
country such as Bavaria (one should compare these figures with
the ones quoted for 1 790 at the beginning of chapter iv to see how
rapidly the “academization” was still proceeding on the Conti¬
nent), and strongly recommended the introduction of a similar
system into Britain. Consequently a Normal School of Design
was opened in London in 1837. It received accommodation in
the rooms at Somerset House which the Royal Academy had

1 Cf. Report of the Departmental Committee on the Royal College of Art, London, 1 9 1 1 ,
p. 27 seq.; I. C. L. Sparkes, Schools of Art, London, 1884, pp. 30 seqq.; F. P. Brown,
South Kensington and its Art Training, London, 1912; and above all the scholarly, amply
247 und Kunst by H. Waentig, Jena, 1909-
documented and vividly written book Wirtschaft
Pp. 101 seqq. refer to the Commission of 1835 and the following development. On
Edinburgh cf. Prospectus of the Edinburgh College of Art.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

used before its removal to the National Gallery, and started

courses in elementary drawing, and drawing applied to various
industries. Practical instruction remained unheeded, although
it deserves special mention that in 1838 William Dyce, the
English “Nazarener”, set up a loom in the school. The class,
however, was discontinued for lack of students after only two
years. Branch schools were established in the provinces. Their
number had reached sixteen in 1849. But no real improvement
was brought about. So another Parliamentary Committee was
set up in 1 846 to investigate the results attained by the new system.
Its verdict on the Normal School was: “An utter and complete
failure.” Nothing, the Committee said, was done at the school
but copying of drawings. Industry, now as before, employed
only a few designers.
Such was the situation when Prince Albert conceived the idea
of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Proud of the wonderful
achievements of his century, he wished to give an unprecedented
chance to all nations to display what they regarded as their best
work and to compare it with the production of other countries.
The result of this immense bazaar was, as far as applied or
industrial art goes, depressing everywhere. It is not only to us
that most of the articles on show, as they are fully illustrated in
the volumes of the great catalogue, seem tokens of a monstrous
lack of taste hardly believable only fifty years after the restrained
dignity of Neo-Classic decoration, but this alarming contrast was
just as evident to enlightened contemporaries. Official reports
were published declaring quite frankly the downfall that the
jexhibition had revealed. France appeared to England still
superior, owing to the survival of a live tradition of craftsman¬
ship. But France herself felt menaced by foreign countries and
was by no means satisfied with her own show at the exhibition.
There was now no longer any doubt, either in France or England
or Germany, that the problem of a better training for industrial
art was one of utmost urgency. But what could be done? From
the manufacturers not much could be expected. They were
undisturbed as long as their products sold. Craftsmen could also

248
 artist’s education to-day

hardly contribute to a solution, because as a class they were no

longer existent. And artists were not competent — indifferent to
the problem as they had been for more than one generation. Of
what value could the contribution of a sculptor be who was
himself contented with making a small model of a monument,
leaving all the actual stonework to a ghost? Or how could a
painter be seriously concerned about the future of craft while
acquiescing in the use of commercially manufactured pigments
and luxuriating in bitumen? Pamphlets appeared on the
matter, and even bulky volumes.
The most interesting publications caused by the Exhibition
were written by a German, an Englishman, and a Frenchman.
The Frenchman, L. de Laborde, brought out in 1856 a treatise of
over 1000 pages called De V Union des Arts et de V Industrie. This
starts off with an account of the history of applied art which
endeavours to prove that in Greece no separation existed between
artist and industrialist, and such a separation was only brought
about by the princes of the Middle Ages, exempting artists from
certain laws which were valid for artisans. A more wholesome
system was, according to Laborde, introduced by Colbert at the
Manufacture des Meubles de la Gouronne. But when in the
nineteenth century the luxury of courts diminished and with
them the number of adequately trained craftsmen, the standard
of industrial art deteriorated rapidly, until it reached the wholly
unsatisfactory condition of the 1851 Exhibition, i.e. industrialists
obtaining designs from any seemingly talented workers, because

by going to great artists such as Proud’hon and Percier they

would only get designs conceived in complete ignorance of
technical processes. Against this state of affairs several remedies
are suggested by Laborde, in order to raise the aesthetic qualities
of French industry despite the growing competition from abroad.
First of all, art in schools should at once be improved by the
government. The means of achieving this would be better and
brighter school buildings, with a freer use of classic decoration,
2
49 Antiquity, to be copied by
better examples, again mainly from
the children, and above all regular drawing-lessons in all forms.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

Drawing should be learnt alongside writing. For apprentices

and workers, Laborde recommends a training not unlike that
of the old guilds and workshops. A youth in a factory to-day
should have two hours a day off for vocational training. Far
more Ecoles Superieures for applied art should be opened.
Paris ought to have twelve, with twelve to twenty-four thousand
students. Students should come straight from the elementary
schools. Only the pick of those thousands of students should
later on be transferred to art schools proper. In these, life-
courses are essential, whereas they seem quite superfluous in the
Ecole Superieure. In the art schools, teachers should have their
own big studios, receive good salaries and teach about half the
students free of charge. Not too much specialization ought to be
tolerated. Architects should be familiar with life-drawing,
sculptors should be able to work their own marble, etc. Besides
improving training conditions, the State could also, Laborde
writes, improve the taste of the nation, by ordering works of art,
bringing out cheap publications, concerning itself with theatre,
pageants, etc., and also by putting up good buildings and making
suggestions for street architecture, by opening up wide streets
and squares, and by preserving old monuments. A Direction
Superieure is suggested to deal with questions of this kind. And
beyond all that the State should improve industrial art in a more
direct way, by instituting model workshops or model factories to
stimulate national production. These should not rule out the use
of the machine at all. On the contrary, Laborde welcomes the
machine in so far as it can create leisure. In the factories only
six hours a day should be spent on work, two on drawing, and
one on theoretical courses. Nothing produced in these factories
should be sold in the ordinary way. Only museums and public
buildings should purchase their output. It should be up to the
highest standards, by which Laborde means honesty of materials
(no papier mache instead of stone, vulcanite instead of wood
carving, etc.), reasonable patterns (no carpets with archi¬
tectural designs seemingly piercing holes into the surface), etc.
It is in harmony with the remarkably progressive spirit of this

250
 artist’s education to-day

book that it recommends gas, central heating, electric bells and

running water.1
While Laborde’s interesting and sweeping suggestions are all
based on far-reaching State interference, obviously in keepin
g
with Napoleon Ill’s policy and the ideas of men such as Hauss-
mann, Gottfried Semper , the greatest German architect of his
generation, addresses his to the liberal public of England and to
her enlightened Prince Consort. When Semper had left Germany
as a refugee in 1848, he was asked to arrange the Danish,
Swedish, Egyptian and Canadian sections of the 1851 Exhibition.
He remained in London after the end of the show — planning, as
we are told, to open up a private art school— but, in spite of that,
he published his comments on the exhibition in German. They
are called Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst, and came out in 1852,
although they are actually dated 11 October 1851. The small
book originated, as Semper explains, in a “private request to put
forward suggestions as to improved methods for the education
of future technicians, especially with a view to the training of

taste”. Semper does not disclose the name of the person from
whom this private request came, but the publication of the book¬
let in German indicates that Prince Albert was in some way con¬
nected with it. The architect had not taken any special interest
in the problems of industrial art before he came to England, and
he states quite clearly that he owed to England the vital experi¬
ence of how “the history of architecture begins with the history
of practical art, and . . . the laws of beauty and style in archi¬
tecture have their paragons in those which concern industrial

art”. Earlier than Laborde, Semper denied in his book that the
invention of machines can be made responsible for the decline of
industrial art. He too differentiates between an indiscriminating
and a reasonable use of the machine, a judicious attitude that

should be kept well in mind against Ruskin’s and Morris’s whole-

1 History of applied art: vol. i, pp. 1-205; history of art exhibitions: ib. pp. 212
seqq.; 1851 Exhibition: ib. p. 234 seq.; art education in schools: vol. 2, pp. 159 seqq.;
apprentices and workers: ib. pp. 229 seqq.; art schools: ib. p. 270 seq.; improving the

national taste: ib. pp. 529 seqq.; “application de l’art k l’industrie”: ib. pp. 400 seqq. ;
machine: ib. p. 518.

251
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

sale condemnation of machine industry. What Semper depre¬

cates (just as does Laborde five years later) is the way in which
the machine can imitate everything and make things look as if

they were something they are not. “The hardest porphyry and
granite are cut like chalk, and polished like wax, . . . rubber and
gutta-percha are vulcanized and used for bewildering imitations
of carving in wood, metal and stone. . . . Metal is no longer
founded but, with the aid of powers only recently discovered,

deposited galvano-plastically.” Semper also recognizes — a re¬

markable statement — that in the Exhibition only “objects, in
which the seriousness of their use does not allow for anything
unnecessary, e.g. coaches, weapons, musical instruments and the
like, sometimes showed a higher degree of soundness in decora¬
tion and in the methods by which the value of functionally

defined forms is enhanced”. These facts induce Semper to plead

for a reform of art education. Academic instruction of the
customary kind he dislikes as leading to an over-production of
artists not justified by demand. Tuition in Fine Arts and
Decorative Art should not be separated at all. All training should
take place in workshops conducted in a spirit of community and

with a “brotherly relationship between master and apprentice”.

Here Semper’s dependence upon the ideas of the Romantic
Movement becomes visible, and as so many of his conclusions
clearly herald developments to follow forty and fifty years after
he had published his views, they must, just as Morris’s theories,
be recognized as an essential link between the spirit of 1800
and that of 1900. He actually introduced workshop teaching for
architecture, metal-technique and cabinet-making into his own
studio which will be mentioned presently, and also — on the
example of the Nazarenes — allowed his pupils to take part in
carrying out commissions received by him. But Semper was
(clear-sighted enough to realize that teaching improvements alone
cannot solve all the problems raised by the aesthetic failure of the
Exhibition. It is the taste of the public that has to be reformed,
before any benefit can be derived from a changed method of
educating artists. To achieve this, Semper’s proposal — very
252
 artist’s education to-day

Victorian in its obvious “ historicism ” — is the foundation of-

Museums of Decorative Art with collections of exemplary speci¬
mens of ancient ceramics, textiles, woodwork, masonry and
engineering art. Lectures and teaching workshops should be
linked up with these, and perhaps, Semper concludes, the
Crystal Palace could be preserved as the seat of such an insti¬
tute.1
Before passing to the practical result of these suggestions of
Semper, which were to be of the utmost importance for the
future of industrial art in the nineteenth century, another book
must be mentioned containing a series of lectures that was

delivered one year after the publication of Semper’s pamphlet.

The author was Owen Jones , a Welsh architect, six years younger
than Semper. He was appointed Superintendent of the Works
of the Great Exhibition in 1851, and later decorated the
Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Alhambra Courts in the re¬
erected Crystal Palace at Sydenham. In 1856 he published a
comprehensive volume on the Grammar of Ornament with
3000 coloured illustrations, one of the most popular works on
the subject, familiar to all English nineteenth-century architects.
In his addresses, which were published in 1863 under the title of
The True and the False in the Decorative Arts , he is evidently in¬
fluenced by Semper. Although Jones does not to any extent
dwell upon educational matters, except for the education of the
public, a page must here be devoted to his ideas, because
scarcely anybody knows of them nowadays and because they
probably are more topical than anything else written on art at

that time. Jones begins with the Exhibition, stating that “We
are far behind our European neighbours”, and calling upon his
country to rise “from that chaos and disorder in art in which we
are now plunged He says less than Semper about the machine,
but inveighs — in contradiction to his own practice, it seems —
1 The quotations are taken from H. Semper: G. Semper, ein Bild seines Lebens und
Wirkens, Berlin, 1880, p. 21, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Industrie, Braunschweig, 1852,
253
pp. 9, 11, 39 (“separating the ideal art from the commercial is inexpedient”), 62.
As for the superior quality of objects for immediate use in the English sections of the
1851 Exhibition, Laborde made the same observation {l.c. vol. 1, p. 368).
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

against the questionable habit of his time of reviving and using

styles of the past. Jones strongly condemns the “vain and foolish
attempt to make the art which faithfully represents the wants,
the faculties and the feelings of one people, represent those of
another people under totally different conditions This appears
strikingly twentieth-century in outlook, and such an interpreta¬
tion is confirmed by Jones’s insistence on the necessity of “fit¬
ness”, based though it is on Pugin’s True Principles of 1841.
Every object, Jones says, “to afford perfect pleasure, must be
fit for the purpose and true in its construction”. So he objects to
carpets with “perspective representations, and pierced full of
holes”, to the elaborate decorating of furniture with flowers,
animals, etc., and to wallpapers the patterns of which are not
perfectly flat.
However, the most interesting parts of his book are those
dealing with the problem of manufacturer and industrial de¬
signer. There are passages to be found there which to the present
day have not lost any of their topical value. It must suffice here
to quote two:
We are amazed at the shortsightedness of the manufacturers, who do not
see how much it would be to their interest to begin by having a real and
proper design from the hands of an artist. The manufacturer answers, Where
are these artists? I admit they are few indeed, but it is for the manufacturer to
help to make them. So long as they consider design of such little importance,
that they trust this important branch of their business to mere work-men
without art-education of any kind, they cannot hope for any improvement or
find artists to help them.
And in connection with textiles:

No improvement can take place in the art of the present generation, until
all classes, artists, manufacturers, and the public, are better educated in art,
and the existence of general principles is more generally recognized....
Were we to enquire of the artists who designed these melancholy productions
suspended on the walls, why they had chosen that particular form for their
fancy; they would undoubtedly tell us, that these were the only style of
designs which manufacturers would purchase, and that they had only done as
they were bid. Were we to enquire 2of 54 the manufacturers, why they had
engaged such a vast amount of capital, skill, and labour, in production of
articles so little worth; they would undoubtedly tell us that they were the
 artist’s education to-day

only articles that they could sell, and that it would be useless for them to
attempt the production of articles in better taste, for they would infallibly
remain unsold upon the shelves. Were we to enquire again of the public how
it came to pass that they purchased such vile productions and admitted them
to their houses, to enfeeble their own taste and effectually to destroy that of
their children; they would infallibly reply, that they had looked everywhere
for better things, but could not find them. So . . . the vicious circle is com¬
plete.
After reading these arguments so amazingly similar to those
put forward to-day by the Council for Art and Industry or the
Design and Industries Association, it is surprising to see that the
only remedies which Owen Jones recommends are those of

Semper and of the British Parliamentary Commission: “Every

town should have an art-museum, and every village a drawing-
school.”1
Now Jones’s course of lectures was delivered in the School of
Design then domiciled at Marlborough House, and at Marl¬
borough House the recently founded Department of Practical
Art had opened a museum, the direct outcome, it seems, of

Semper’s proposals. Prince Albert had succeeded in securing a

large part of the show of ancient decorative art that formed part
of the Great Exhibition as a nucleus for the museum. The
Department of Practical Art took over, amongst other duties, the
charge of the schools of design. Its secretary was Henry Cole, one
of the most unsparing critics of the old schools, who, together
with Dilke, Digby Wyatt and Robert Stephenson, had been an
Executive Commissioner for the Great Exhibition of 1851. It
was he who appointed Semper as a professor.
So the origins of the Victoria and Albert Museum and of what
during the later part of the nineteenth century was usually
termed “South Kensington” are closely connected with Semper.
His idea of improving the taste of manufacturers, artists and the
public by showing them the achievements of the past was the
very fulfilment of what the Victorian mind demanded from
1 The quotations are taken from The True and the False in the Decorative Arts, London,
255 On Owen Jones, cf. N. Gray in Archi¬
1863, pp. 2, 3, 8, 14, 21 (also 48), 33, 40, 42.
tectural Review, vol. 81, 1937, and N. Pevsner (article on Christopher Dresser),
Architectural Review, vol. 81, 1937.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

'decorative art. Hence, the new museum grew, flourished and

influenced foreign developments greatly, above all when in 1856
it was transferred to its new and spacious premises. The School

of Design, however, despite Sir Henry Cole’s efforts, was not a

success at all. The new classes for “metals, jewellery and
enamels”, and for “fabrics, embroidery, lace and paper-
staining”, were discontinued as early as 1856. Semper left for
Zurich in 1855, and after a short time the establishment was
hardly more than a training ground for future teachers of art.
There were still some scholarships for designers, but tuition was

again confined to paper-drawing, although now — at Semper’s

request — drawing not from drawings but from actual pieces of
decorative art. Thus the principal achievement of the Depart¬
ment of Science and Art — as its name ran after 1 853 — was again
only the foundation of more drawing schools in the country.
In 1861, 87 existed, in 1884, 177. Maybe that to a certain extent
they have contributed towards an improved taste in British
industrial products. For the Exhibition of 1862 showed to
foreign visitors such an obvious progress in British art that alarmed
comments appeared in more than one country. Hence the atten¬
tion which was paid abroad to the Art Department and the
Victoria and Albert Museum. In Vienna the Oesterreichisches
Museum fur Kunst und Industrie was established in 1864, and
in 1 867 a school of applied art was added to it. In 1 865 Karlsruhe
opened its Gewerbehalle, in 1867 Berlin a Gewerbe- Museum
with an art school, in 1868 Cologne an Industrie-Museum and
Munich a Kunstgewerbeschule, in 1869 Hamburg its famous
Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe. In Holland, combined
teaching of fine and applied art and the opening of a Museum
of Decorative Art was recommended by a special commission
in 1878. Its suggestions were followed at The Hague in 1882 and
1888. Similar tendencies were also at work in the seventies in
France, and the United States, although they did not lead to
the institution of museums.1 Despite this it can safely be said that
1 Vienna: R. Eitelberger von Edelberg, Ges. Kmsthist. Schriften, vol. 2, Vienna,
1879, and E. Muntz, “ L’Enseignement des Arts Industries dans l’Allemagne du

256
 artist’s education to-day

Semper’s combination of museums of applied art and schools of

applied art is, in our connection, the most significant feature of
the second half of the nineteenth century.
It was, however, the only feature distinguishing the educational
methods used in the training of designers from those still custom¬
ary for students of painting and sculpture. For in theory as well
as in practice it was still almost universally agreed that to copy on
paper was the sole commendable procedure of tuition. There was
more drawing from casts and nature in the schools than there had
been fifty years earlier, but that was the same in art academies.
And just as in these, life-drawing was regarded as the foremost
task of any future designer. Not to pay enough attention to this
was what Haydon violently blamed the School of Design for in

1839. The typical arguments in favour of this “enseignement

classique”, which also prevailed in French schools of decorative
art and trade schools, are produced e.g. by L. Alvin, a Belgian
critic of his country’s failure at the 1862 Exhibition. The human
body, he writes, is the most perfect object for the artist’s studies
which exists. He who knows how to draw it, knows all about
proportion and form that can be required to design for industry.
And since in drawing from life, one has to learn to leave out ugly
accidental features, casts from Antiquity are the most stimulating
interpretation of the human body that any school of art or
decorative art can possess. More concisely the same case is made
out by Springer, one of the great German art historians of Mid-
Victorian days, and more drastically by Eitelberger von Edel-
berg, the originator of the Vienna Museum of Industrial Art.
Springer says : As the same faculties cause inventive power in art
and applied art, the same education is to be imparted. The first
educational task must be to transmit to the student the general

principles of art, and these have never been more perfectly ex¬1 1
pounded than by the Greeks. Hence a school must introduce
pupils to Antiquity before the study of Nature is begun. Eitel-
25
Sud”, Gazette des Beaux Arts , 2 Per., vol. 3,7 1870. Karlsruhe, etc.: W. Waetzoldt,
Gedanken zur Kunstschul-Reform, Leipzig, 1921- France: P. Bailly, Gazette des Beaux
Arts, 2 Per., vol. 1, 1869. United States: Waentig, l.c.
PA
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

berger carries this argument to its extreme by stating that

industrial art is but “the application [of Fine Art] to the needs
of everyday life”. Therefore instruction in applied art — it is
now evident, how much that misleading term of “applied art”
is an expression of Victorian theory— must be an outcome of
instruction in painting, sculpture, and architecture, if the

products of industry “are to exceed mere trade standards (‘das

Handwerksmassige’) and to give the impression of artistic
achievements”. No progress whatever seems to have been made
since Haydon said more than forty years earlier: “Perfection in
design depends on the perfection of design and position and en¬
couragement of the poetical and elevated branches.”1
The actual syllabuses of schools of design, or decorative art,

were arranged accordingly. In spite of Semper’s and Laborde’s

warnings and in spite of the satisfactory monotechnics which
were put up in some Continental centres of industry for the
benefit of the respective staple trades — e.g. at Elberfeld in 1845
and at Crefeld in 1855 for the textile industries, at Steinschonau
in Bohemia in 1856 for the glass industry, at Briinn in i860 for
embroidery, etc. — workshop training was practically unknown.
A few experiments such as at Munich and Nuremberg are
exceptional. And in fact it would not be just to expect, at least
on the Continent, a development on these lines. For, first of all,
the new schools of decorative art, unlike their English examples,
had not been founded to meet the requirements of trades and
workers. For these there was still the old system of apprentice¬
ship, or else special trade schools, supplemented perhaps by a
few evening courses in schools of decorative art.2 The schools of
1 Haydon, On Academies of Art (more particularly the Royal Academy) and their pernicious
effect on the genius of Europe, London, 1839, pp. 24, 18; Lectures on Painting and Design,
London, 1844-6, vol. 1, p. 38; also Autobiography, ed. A. Huxley, New York, 1926,
vol. 2, pp. 620, 787. Alvin, L’ Alliance de V Art et de P Industrie, Brussels, 1863, p. 154 seq.
Springer, Die Kgl. Kunstakadem. u. Kunstgew. Sch. in Leipzig, Amtl. Bericht, Leipzig,
1881, pp. 10-14. Eitelberger von Edelberg, Gesammelte Kunsthist. Schriften, vol. 2,
Vienna, 1879, p. 121 seq.
2 Thus e.g. in Berlin the new Kunstgewerbeschule had been put into some
working connection with the old Allgemeine Kunstschule, the surviving remainder of
the Age of Reason’s trade section of the academy (cf. Simon, l.c. p. 720 seq.). On
monotechnics, cf. Simon, l.c. and R. von Klimberg, Die Entwicklung des gewerblichen

258
 artist’s education to-day

decorative art were meant to educate artist-craftsmen, such as

goldsmiths, or designers for industry. And for them the study of
drawing from plaster and life, from flowers and ornament seemed
more important and also more dignified than actual handwork.
The same pernicious pride had infected decorative art and fine
art. All the students and teachers wanted to be artists, and not
craftsmen. So they took an interest only in ornament and
thought that decoration was all they were concerned with. The
worst expression of this false doctrine is a definition of archi¬
tecture laid down by George Gilbert Scott: “Architecture, as
distinguished from mere building, is the decoration of construc¬
tion.”1 The same outlook ruled the teaching of applied art
everywhere. Hence the museums, regarded as collections of

examples to be copied, hence the Scuole d’ Ornato which were

after the foundation of the United Italian State added to the
official academies of art, hence also the universal indifference to
workshop tuition, and such a disarmingly naive and yet indis¬
putable statement as that of Alvin, who says that Raphael in
order to design his tapestries had certainly no need to know how
to weave.2
But only fifteen years after this, William Morris learned
tapestry-weaving to acquire an insight into the processes which
must govern design. Not one of the founders and principals of
the schools of decorative or industrial art down to almost the end
of the century had an idea of the organic inter-relation between
material, working process, purpose and aesthetic form which
William Morris rediscovered. It is therefore due to him and his
indefatigable creative energy alone that a revival of handicraft
and then of industrial art took place in Europe. The Modern
Movement in design owes more to him than to any one other
Unterrichtswesens in Osterreich, Tubingen, 1900. The programme of the Vienna School

Arts Industriels
is quoted, ib. p. 40; that of Munich: E. Muntz, “ L’Enseignement des
dan sl’Allemagne du Sud”, Gaz ■ des Beaux Arts, 2 Per., vol. 3, 1870. On continental
art and trade schools about 1880 a very full account can be found in the Report of the
Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction, London, 1884, 5 vols.
259 Oxford, 1927, p. 5. I asked Mr Briggs
1 Cf. M. S. Briggs, The Architect in History,
where he had found this definition, but unfortunately he was unable to remember.
2 L.c. p. 48.

17-2
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

artist of the nineteenth century, and it seems high time now after
a universally accepted style in building and industrial art has
at last been established, to recognize his supreme prominence
for the history of art in its most general sense.

Morris’s theories just as Semper’s can be traced back to the

Classic-Romantic school of Germany. For he had learned his
belief in the sublime mission of beauty in life from Carlyle and
the Pre-Raphaelites, and it is well known how much Carlyle
depends on Goethe, and the doctrine of the Pre-Raphaelites, as
laid down in the “Germ”, on that of the Nazarenes. Morris’s
admiration for the Middle Ages on the other hand is derived
from Carlyle and Ruskin, from Pugin and also the Oxford
Movement, all these being late representatives of Romantic
thought in England. And Romanticism is at the bottom of his
hatred against his century, against democracy and industry, and
of his enthusiasm for the Icelandic sagas, the King Arthur
legends, for Shelley and for Keats. Even his socialism is an out¬
come of his profound Romanticism, and has little in common
>vith Karl Marx’s materialism. For Morris’s ideal was the
corporative state of the Middle Ages. This system alone, with its
guilds and trade companies, secures, according to him, a whole¬
some social position for art, and consequently beauty. The inter¬
dependence of social conditions and beauty is Morris’s most im¬
portant discovery. Because in the Middle Ages every object was

made “by the people for the people as a joy for the maker and
the user”, and because “the best artist was a workman still, and
the humblest workman was an artist” — that beauty resulted
which in medieval times enlivened whatever was shaped
or
decorated. Directly the unity of art and craft is lost, beauty
is
bound to vanish, and the development of industry in
the
nineteenth century is the best proof of the truth of this contention.
Owing to production by machinery, which — so Morris once put
it— “ as a condition of life ... is wholly an evil ”, work
is no longer
a joy but a mere unmitigated slavish toil”, and consequently
the products thus turned out are “tons upon tons of unutterable
rubbish . This theoiy of Morris was, when he conceived
it, as
260
 Fig. 22. WILLIAM MORRIS

From a photograph by Emery Walker

Fig. 23.
WALTER GROPIUS

From a photograph of
about 1925
 artist’s education to-day

new and revolutionary in its historical as in its topical aspects.

Historically it goes — guided by Pugin and Ruskin — a decisive
step beyond the Nazarenes, in that the idea of a revival of medi¬
eval art by a mere imitation of medieval forms or by a mere
reform of educational methods is replaced by a far deeper insight
into the social foundations of medieval art practice. Painting ip
the Middle Ages, Morris realized, was what it was only because
it was not confined to the work of “unassisted individual
genius” as it had become since the Renaissance. Architecture
led, and all other arts — painting, sculpture, and what Morris
called the “Lesser Arts” — were ready to serve. There was no
pride in inspiration, that mysterious modern quality (“the talk
of inspiration is sheer nonsense, there is no such thing”), and
artists were just “common fellows”.1
Morris — energetic and enterprising as few men — never be¬
lieved in theories on paper. What he felt was right he at once
started to practise. In fact, he had begun to live his doctrine
twenty years before he first put it forward in public in the form
of a lecture. Unlike the other Pre-Raphaelites, and unlike even
his closest friend Burne-Jones, he was, while still a student,
longing for something beyond painting. So he went for a short
time into the office of Street, the Neo-Gothic architect, and
acquired a certain knowledge of architecture, and at the same
time, in 1856, embarked on some wood-carving, modelling and
illumination. Then he took a house in London, and now he found

1 On Morris, cf. above all J. W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris, 2 vols. London,
here
1899. There is a wide literature on him as a man, an artist, a writer, which
publication is May Morris, William
cannot be quoted. The most recent important
from his doctrine
Morris, Artist, Writer, Socialist, 2 vols. Oxford, 1936. The points
in my book, The Pioneers of the Modern
singled out by me are treated in more detail
1, and in an article on W. Morris, C. R. Ashbee and
Movement, London, 1936, chap.
chrift fur Literaturwis senschaft und Geistes-
the twentieth century”, Deutsche Vierteljahrss
in the text are taken from The Beauty of Life,
geschichte, vol. 14, 1936. The quotations
22, p. 57 (cf- also pp. 47, 5°, 73, 85, etc.) ; Art under Plutocracy, ib
Collected Works, vol.
Beauty of Life, ib. p 66; The Lesser Arts, ib.
p. 166; The Revival of Handicraft, ib. p. 335;
Art of the People,
p. 23; Art, Wealth and Riches , ib. p. 147; Mackail, lx. vol. 1, p. 186;
artist as a workman and the
Collected Works, vol. 22, p. 40. Morris’s remark about the
from a statement made
workman as an artist is incidentally almost literally taken over
Commission of 1835.
by the German art critic Waagen to the English Parliamentary
more workmen, and the workmen more artists.”
“In former times, the artists were
26l
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

himself faced with an alarming fact, the fact which was to

decide his future. If you wanted to buy beautiful or just decent,
acceptable furniture, there was nothing for you on the commercial
market. That set Morris thinking, but at the same time it set him
working. He and his friend, the young architect Philip Webb,
designed furniture, heavy, solid and medieval-looking pieces.
Two years later, in 1859, he married, and the same question was
brought up again on a larger scale. Webb built him the Red
House at Bexley Heath, the first English middle-class “villa”
designed not according to abstract rules of symmetry and “de¬
cor” but to fit the owner’s requirements, and Morris and his
friends worked at the decoration. But Morris, true to his first
principle that art should not be an exclusive luxury of the few,
was not satisfied to get what he wanted for himself. He wished
to make available to a wide public all that he considered good
art. So, in 1861, he opened a shop and founded the firm of
Morris, Marshall and Faulkner, Fine Art Workmen in Painting,
Carving, Furniture and the Metals, the starting-point of all
modern industrial art.

The profound importance of Morris’s firm lies in this: Here

for the first time some of the foremost artists of a country — for
Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown were among the
partners — agreed to co-operate in the designing and producing of
articles for everyday use. Morris, Marshall and Faulkner meant
the end of that contempt of the artist for the “Arts Not-Fine”
which had undermined European art for such a long time. And
what is more, Morris’s stained glass windows or tapestries, his
wallpapers and chintzes, show once more after a long period of
realistic horrors, as denunciated by Pugin and Owen Jones,
the
right attitude towards decorative tasks. A flat stylized treat¬
ment prevails, although not always quite as stylized as Morris
would have liked. He was not a particularly good draughtsm
an,
and so he had to rely on his friends and collaborators for a
certain amount of designing. But while, as far as this went,
Burne-Jones and Webb believed in the same principles as
Morris,
he remained the only member of the firm who passed on
from
262
 artist’s education to-day

the designing to the actual making. He alone had understood

that designing without a live knowledge of materials and of how
to work them was one of the chief reasons for the futility of nine¬
teenth-century industrial art. So, with an infuriated energy, he
set out to acquire the technique of those branches of handicraft
which he wanted to handle and with which he was not familiar.
In 1874 he learned to dye, in 1877 to weave, in 1890 to print, and
it is this direct intercourse with his materials that has saved
Morris from becoming a mere imitator of medieval styles, which
his enthusiasm for the Middle Ages otherwise might easily have}
caused. His early wallpapers, such as The Trellis of 1861 and
The Daisy of 1862, are as fresh to-day as they were when he
brought them out, and his mature designs — The Pomegranate,
The Honeysuckle and many others — are of undated beauty.
Morris himself was not especially interested in education.
What little occasional teaching he had done in his workshops is
negligible. But in 1882 he gave evidence to the Royal Com¬
missioners on Technical Instruction, and this evidence, although
worded less pointedly than his lectures, contains the principles
which he wished to see adopted in art education. A few sentences
will 'Suffice to show what he had in his mind: “Everybody ought
to be taught to draw, just as much as everybody ought to be

taught to read and write.” As far as this general drawing goes,

Morris still believed that “there is only one best way of teaching
drawing, and that is teaching the scholar to draw the human

figure”. This statement, which seems strangely old-fashioned

amidst Morris’s other proposals, can be accounted for psycho¬
logically by remembering that Morris himself was bad at nature¬
drawing and never ceased to regret this deficiency. The most
important passages in his evidence are, however, those in which

he says that “the artist and the designer should be practically

one”. In addition he thinks it “essential that a designer should
learn the practical way of carrying out the work for which he

designs”, e.g. he “ought to be able to weave himself”. Conse¬

263
quently art schools should give “some opportunities for people
to learn the practical part of designing”, for “as to workshop
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

training in most trades, it is certainly not sufficient”.1 So Morris’s

one and only remedy against the evident inadequacy of nine¬
teenth-century art education seems to be workshop training. His
evidence was supposed to be concerned with technical instruc¬
tion mainly, but we know that he did not recognize any funda¬
mental difference between painting or sculpture and weaving or
wallpaper-designing. We can therefore take it that to him a large
part of the artist’s and craftsman’s education should be centred
in workshops. The importance of the workshop in the medieval
sense had first been rediscovered by the Nazarenes, but what an
immense progress between what they had meant by the term and
what it now conveyed! Semper’s shortlived workshops at Marl¬
borough House seem to be the only forerunner of Morris’s idea.
It was not taken up by South Kensington, but it acted as a
strong stimulus to the Arts and Crafts Movement, and also
almost immediately to some new and progressive municipal art
Schools. The Arts and Crafts Movement originated in the

eighties as a direct outcome of Morris’s teachings. In 1883

Mr A. H. Mackmurdo, the architect, founded the Century
Guild, a group of young artists, designers and craftsmen to work

at the applied arts, in 1884 the foundation of the Art Workers’

Guild, a joint club of artists and craftsmen, took place, and in
1888 that of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Morris’s
conception of direct workshop training was, however, adopted
with the greatest fervour and developed most constructively by
Mr C. R. Ashbee, the most intelligent and consistent of Morris’s
followers. In connection with the University Extension Move¬
ment of the eighties, Ashbee started in 1888 — not far from
Toynbee Hall, where he himself had held courses — an establish¬
ment which he called the Guild and School of Handicrafts. The

Guild was a society of craftsmen, working in close co-operation

with each other, and at the same time training apprentices. The
history of this social experiment is outside the scope of the

1 Second Report of the Royal Commissioners

2
64 on Technical Instruction, London, 1884,
vol. 3, pp. 150-61 ; also The Lesser Arts, l.c. p. 20 and Catalogue of the 1st Arts and Crafts
Exhibition, 1888, p. 28.
 artist’s education to-day

present work. It was first carried on in London, and then, be¬

cause of the unwholesome surroundings of the East End, in
Chipping Campden, where a system of small holdings was
linked up with the crafts activities of the guild. As for the

educational ideas underlying Ashbee’s experiment, they made

him suggest later, that no public money at all should go to
schools of the fine arts, but that the State should finance small

productive workshops. “ Endowing craftsmanship” is to Ashbee

the only possible constructive furtherance of art.1
The first public art school incorporating some of Morris’s
ideas was that which the City of Birmingham established in
1 88 1. A special training school for jewellers and silversmiths
was added to it in 1 890, a fact which was recognized at the time
as being “revolutionary”.2 In 1896 the London Central School
of Arts and Crafts followed, and, under the principalship
of W. R. Lethaby, rapidly developed into what the German
architect Muthesius called in 1901 “probably the best organized
contemporary art school”3 (fig. 24). However, once this stage
was reached, once a certain amount of craft instruction had
penetrated into some art schools and had become amalgamated
with what already existed of trade courses, Britain did not go
further. A movement in which the English had been leading from
the time of Morris to the time of Voysey, i.e. from 1 860 to 1 900, now

“hesitated, halted and broke down” (Ashbee). The transforma¬

tion of the style of 1900 into the present style of architecture was
achieved outside Britain, and so was the reform of art education.
The most important steps were taken in Germany, the
country which experienced an evolution of the new style more
consistent and more universal than any other. To understand
the causes which have led to this it will be well to consider a few

1 Cf. my article on C. R. Ashbee, quoted above, p. 261, n. 1 and Mr Ashbee’s

books, notably A few chapters in Workshop-Reconstruction and Citizenship, 1894; An en¬
deavour towards the teaching of J. Ruskin and W. Morris, 1 9° 1 » Craftsmanship in Competitive
Century
Industry, 1 908 ; Should we stop teaching Art? 1 9 1 1 . On A. H. Mackmurdo and the
Guild: my article in Architectural Review, vol. 83, 1938.
2 Transactions of the National Association for265the Advancement of Art and its Application to
Industry, 3rd Congress, Birmingham, 1890, p. 228, also Studio, vol. 2, 1894, p. 90 seq.
3 Die Krisis im Kunstgewerhe, ed. by R. Graul, Leipzig, 1901, p. 18.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

facts from the history of general education in Germany. Drawing

as a compulsory subject had been introduced in Austria in 1869,
in Prussia in 1872, in Saxony in 1878, while England followed
only in 1890. The methods used were of course still everywhere
those of a lifeless copying of drawings, simple geometrical shapes,
or perhaps, in the later stages, flower arrangements. Now, about
1900, as an original offspring of the English Arts and Crafts
Movement, although indirectly dependent on the ideas of
Pestalozzi and Froebel, a movement set in to introduce a creative
spirit into the art classes of schools. This Kunsterziehungs-
Bewegung, represented above all by Alfred Lichtwark in Ham¬
burg, argued on the following lines: Art, because it is the
expression of the creative powers in man, must be made the
centre-piece of all education. The school of the nineteenth cen¬
tury, too exclusively intellectual, has completely neglected the
artistic faculties which exist in every child. Thus life became
drab and mechanized. To recover what has been lost, methods
must be found by which the child can exercise his or her own
active and productive energy. In this connection subjects like
drawing, singing and gymnastics acquired a new importance,
and handicraft was soon added to them, on the example of the
United States, it seems, where craft classes existed in schools as
early as the seventies. The Kunsterziehungs-movement suc¬
ceeded after a relatively short time not only in reforming German
art teaching but also in improving the inside and outside ap¬
pearance of school buildings.1
The same spirit which inspired the reorganization here, al¬
most immediately seized the art schools. Here too, under the
guidance of enlightened princes such as Ernst Ludwig of
Hessen, or Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, sweeping reforms
were planned and carried out. The leading German architects
of Art Nouveau were all under
English influehce, theoretically
and practically. Some of the best — e.g. Peter Behrens, Bruno
Paul, Hans Poelzig, Pankok, Eckmann (and also the Belgian
1 Kunsterziehung, Ergebnisse und Anregungen, ed. by L. Pallat, Leipzig, 1929,
and, in a
shorter form, Handbuch der Padagogik, vol. 3, Langensalza, 1930, pp.
408 seqq.

266
 artist’s education to-day

van de Velde)— had actually started as painters and then, fol¬

lowing the example of the Arts and Crafts, changed over to
design. They were now, one after another, put in charge of the
Kunstakademien and Kunstgewerbeschulen. In 1897 A. von
Scala, a strongly pro-English amateur, was made director of the
Osterreichisches Museum fiir Kunst und Gewerbe, and in 1899
Freiherr von Myrbachstarted as principal of the attached
school. They made Josef Hoffmann professor of architecture,
and also appointed Koloman Moser and Alfred Roller. In
1902 van de Velde was asked to take over the Weimar art
school. In 1903 Hermann Muthesius, an architect who had
spent seven years in London as a special attache to the German
embassy in order to study English housing, was made Inspector
of the Schools of Arts and Crafts in the Prussian Board of Trade,
and almost immediately called Peter Behrens to Dusseldorf and
Hans Poelzig to Breslau to reorganize the two academies. In the
same year Bernhard Pankok started experimental workshops in
Stuttgart at the request of the Grand Duke of Baden, and in 1907
Bruno Paul settled down in Berlin as principal of the Kunst-
gewerbeschule. It was now evident — 19°7 was a^so Year in
which the Deutscher Werkbund was founded — that the Modern
Movement had carried the day. Not only did the forms of the
new style spread rapidly, but the appointments of so many of the
of
pioneers to leading posts in art schools secured an education
the coming generation in a truly contemporary spirit.
Moiris s ideas
It proved, however, not quite simple to transfer
Germany.
of workshop training into the public art schools of
,
Morris had refused to take any interest in machine production
with
and the Arts and Crafts had also mainly been concerned
handicraft. Although and others had supplied industry
Voysey
taken devised
with designs, no educational measures had been
In Germany,
especially for the needs of the industrial artist.
ideas. It first
industry proved more responsive to the new
adapted Art Nouveau, and there by spoiled it. But then the
26the
7 most essential step which
artists themselves discovered —
England that
raised Germany beyond the stage reached by
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

only by accepting the machine and designing in accordance

with its properties could a universal style, as opposed to a mere
fashion amongst the rich, be created. So the problem of the
educational needs of the designer came to the fore. It was not at
once recognized, and the first fifteen or twenty years of the
movement in Germany are characterized by controversies be¬
tween the supporters of the new style in its Art Nouveau and in
its Arts and Crafts version as to what should be made the central
principle of a reformed art education.
Some felt that the creation of original form was, after the past
century of lifeless repetition of hackneyed period idioms, the
most important task to be achieved by art schools. The student
must, according to them, be enabled to develop a personal style
of ornament derived from the laws which underlie ornamental
configurations in Nature. Drawing of plants and of the human
body should therefore at once be followed by attempts at simpli¬
fying natural form into genuine ornament. This Art Nouveau

principle governed Roller’s teaching in Vienna, that of Obrist,

the brilliant creator of fantastic shapes and patterns, in
his
private school at Munich, and that of Peter Behrens, in his early
days, when he taught at Diisseldorf. Behrens’s words are that
impressions experienced” should in every case be made “the
point of departure for stylized form”. This theory appeared
to
others to be overstressing purely aesthetic considerations. If
such a line were followed in art schools, they argued,
the new
movement would never spread beyond a few sensitive artists and
connoisseurs, and the wide market of decoration and industrial
art would remain unaffected. A renewal — this was above
all
Hermann Muthesius’s conviction — should not be brought
about
from above, but from below, by tackling the trade schools
and
crafts schools. There was indeed more scope for
such a policy
in Germany than there would have been in England. For where¬
as in England most of the eighteenth-century crafts
had been
destroyed by the industrial revolution, and the Arts and
Crafts
Movement had therefore of necessity taken
the shape of a
gentlemen s enterprise to revive the profession of the
artist-
268
 artist’s education to-day
craftsman, in Germany, as in many other Continental countries,
cabinet-makers, metal-workers, etc. were still in existence in big
and small towns who could turn out excellent handwork. Mass-
production had not progressed as far as in England, and a
programme devised to introduce the new outlook and the new
style into the Handwerkerschulen was therefore quite sensible
and practicable. Muthesius, as superintendent to the Prussian
schools of this kind, could do much — and no doubt did. He
was at the same time one of the founders of the German Werk-
bund, and has been instrumental above all in popularizing the
principles of the Werkbund first in the schools, then through
them in the small workshops, and in the end in the average
middle-class houses. This spreading of a sound modern style
has — as everybody can see by looking at small provincial shops
in Germany and the adjacent countries — gone much further
than in the motherland of the Arts and Crafts Movement. On

the other hand one serious objection has been raised to Mu-
thesius’s policy, namely that by introducing the new style into
the trade-schools, these were encouraged to look no longer to the
requirements of trades, but to Art or at least the Arts and Crafts.
The danger of this is obvious. The trade-school should think
only of training craftsmen and skilled workers. By duplicating
the work of the Kunstgewerbeschule on a slightly lower base, it
could not but contribute to the growth of an unwanted class of
half-baked artist-craftsmen. This argument
was frequently used
by the heads of arts and crafts schools who were aware of the
danger in their own establishments of enticing students into a
realm of free decorative art instead of leading them back to

genuine and productive craft. An aesthetic isolation, just as it|

had paralysed the painter and sculptor of the nineteenth century ;
seemed now to menace the newly revived crafts. The Arts and
Crafts Movement in England was in fact deprived of lasting
popular success mainly by its exclusiveness.
One group of German artists above all recognized the real
269 d its interest from the
need of the day, and gradually transferre
position of the artist-craftsman to that of the industrial designer.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

This group at last brought about a reform of the Kunstgewerbe-

schulen suitable for twentieth-century production. However it
took a long time to evolve the new conception. If we want to
follow its formation, we shall have to start once more from

Morris’s and his followers’ idea of teaching in workshops instead

of drawing classes. Not that workshops were entirely absent
from German Kunstgewerbeschulen before the reform. We
know of pottery classes, metal classes, and textile classes in the
Munich school in 1882, where throwing, chasing, and, if not
weaving, at least drawing on point-paper were practised.
Berlin had nothing comparable at the time. But later on, in 1902,
its Kunstgewerbeschule also ran classes for decorative painting,
wood-carving, embroidery, chasing, enamelling and textile
designing, although still in a reactionary style of period imitation.
It was with a very different feeling that the idea of the workshop
was taken up by most of the leaders of the new style in Germany.
“The only essentially right method of teaching Kunstgewerbe
is by means of workshops”, said Obrist in 1901. Lichtwark in
one of his charming letters to the trustees of his museum at
Hamburg tells of Josef Hoffmann, Professor in the Vienna school,
who insisted on his students “actually making everything in
special workshops instead of merely drawing things”. In Ger¬
many the earliest experiment actually started was some tem¬
porary master-classes arranged at the Bayrisches Gewerbe-
museum at Nuremberg in 1901 under Peter Behrens’s direction,
and later carried on under Riemerschmid. After van de Velde
had been called to Weimar in 1902, workshops for ceramics and
weaving were instituted in his school. Poelzig, when put in charge
of the Breslau school, developed existing weaving and founding
courses, and added courses of chasing and cabinet-making. At
Stuttgart, the Grand Duke of Wurttemberg established his ex¬
perimental teaching-workshops in 1903, and at Darmstadt the
Grand Duke of Hessen started on a similar enterprise in 1906.1

1 Behrens: Kunst und Kiinstler, vol. 5, p. 207; cf. also F. Hoeber, P. Behrens,
Munich,
'9* 3. P- 25 seq. Muthesius: cf. e.g. H. Muthesius, Kultur und Kunst, Jena,
Workshops in German schools, 1882 and 1902: Nachrichten iiber die Preussischen 1904.
Kunst-
270
 artist’s education to-day

While these workshops were originally planned to create in

Germany an Arts and Crafts Movement on the English lines,
some of them soon enlarged their sphere of activity by taking
industrial needs into account. It is the historic merit of the
German Werkbund that it was the first organization which put
standards of industrial art above standards of handicraft. The

development from Morris’s “intellectual Ludditism” to a

sympathetic understanding of the machine and its possibilities
has been traced elsewhere.1 Morris himself recognized only in
rare moments the discrepancy between his theory and his work.

Once he grumbled at serving only the “swinish luxury of the

rich”, and on another occasion he confessed that he sometimes
hoped for “Barbarism once more
flooding the world... that it
may once again become beautiful and dramatic”. But as a rule
he was too intensely busy with his reformatory tasks to see that
by his refusal of the machine he was forced to increase the price
of his products so much as to make them available only to the
same class who would buy the studio-created easel-picture of the

painter. The mile-stones on the way from Morris’s attitude to

that of a wholly machine-minded generation are Walt Whitman’s
romantic enthusiasm for industry, Zola’s mixed admiration,
the conditioned acceptance by Lewis F. Day, an industrial
designer of the late Victorian age, by the Neo-Gothic architect
Sedding, and by G. R. Ashbee, and then the whole-hearted wel¬
come of the machine expressed in lectures and articles from 1 894
to 1 904 by van de V elde in Brussels, Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos
in Vienna and Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago. The Werkbund
during the first years of its activity strengthened this new attitude
considerably by bringing architects and manufacturers together
to advocate a sound contemporary style. Handwork was by no

gewerbeschulen , Berlin, 1906, p. 15; cf. also the second Report of the Royal Commissioners on
Technical Instruction, London, 1884, vol. 1, and Simon, l.c. p. 725- Obrist: hunst-
erziehung, ed. by L. Pallat, l.c. p. 44. Lichtwark : Briefe an die Kommission fiir die Ver-
waltung der Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1924, vol. 1, p. 387. Nuremberg master-classes: cf.
F. Schmalenbach, Der Jugendstil, Wurzburg, 1935, p. 107. Poelzig: Letter of 17 May
1933 to the author. Van de Velde: Conversations of Prof, van de Velde and Prof.
Gropius with the author.
1 Cf. N. Pevsner, Pioneers, l.c. pp. 25 seqq.

271
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

means excluded from the production of Werkbund members,

but the stress lay, especially after 1914, on improved standards of
machine-art. There was in this a distinct reaction against the
aestheticism of Art Nouveau, now defeated by the dogma of
Sachlichkeit preached in all Werkbund-minded circles.
In conjunction with the Werkbund-movement a new con¬
ception of art education was bound to arise. The future
designer for industry would now have to be regarded as the type
pf student to be served first and foremost. This would not mean
giving up craftwork, for it will always be the creative craftsman
who initiates new tendencies. The truth of this contention was

seen in Britain, where Morris’s style, although evolved as a protest

against industry, and the style of the greatest architects of 1890
to 1900 such as Voysey and Baillie Scott gradually raised the
standard of British industrial art so much that it preserved a
certain dignity and charm in furniture, textiles, etc. right down
to the unfortunate moment when the “modernistic” style of the
1925 Paris Exhibition infected the country. But if the crafts¬
man’s and the designer’s needs were to be considered, how could
a constructive compromise be found? That was the question
with which the German art school reformers and Werkbund
members were faced. They were, in matters of art education, up
against a particularly intricate problem. The German Kunstge-
werbeschule of pre-Art Nouveau days had not made enough
provision for the requirements of the artist-craftsman. But the
designer, at the time characteristically styled Musterzeichner,
which really means draughtsman of patterns, could learn what
he needed in the courses of the school. The reformed school of
1900 to 1914 had concentrated upon the creative craftsman, and
lost much of its grip on industrial demand. The problem was
consequently to restore the close connection between school

and industry without becoming “tradey” onc'e more, by ex¬

pelling the artist-craftsman. So the complex task of the School
of Arts and Crafts in the Machine Age was bound to be to
communicate a working knowledge of materials, hand and
machine processes and a wide variety of purposes to the future
272
 artist’s education to-day

artist-craftsman as well as the future designer for machine

production.
There is however one more task of the Kunstgewerbeschule
which has not been discussed yet. It refers to the so-called fine
arts and takes us back to the history of art academies proper.
We had left these in such a condition that little hope of a revival
seemed to be left. Drawing from plaster casts and from a model
posing a la Grecque was still the centre piece of the tuition. The
typical academician of about 1900 was a man whose ideals were
completely opposed to those of his students adhering to Im¬
pressionism or developing towards that Post-Impressionism
which in Germany is aptly called Expressionism. To the
academic dignitary of that time, whether in London, or Paris,
or Berlin or anywhere, what could be the message of van Gogh,
Cezanne, Gauguin, or even Renoir and Degas? And what could,
on the other hand, the young painter care for the cumbersome
and pedantic teaching methods of the academies? He hated
them heartily, as our quotations have shown, and this hatred was
not confined at all to the pioneer minds. On the contrary, the
unsuccessful student had a particularly poignant grievance. The
of his
academy had given him cheap or free tuition, a free studio
a
own, and free models, and then suddenly pushed him out into
world that evidently had no use for him. How could the State
for most of the academies were, as we know, governmental take
de¬
such a responsibility? The blatant discrepancy between
Salons and
mand and supply, as illustrated by the immense
similar exhibitions and the small number of sales, roused an
which seems
hostility of artists against State-aided art education
been directed
understandable, although it should of course have
Be that as it
by the artist against himself and his obstinacy.
! was re-echoed
may, the outcry : Close down all art academies
everywhere.
l reforms ap¬
Not even constructive programmes of art schoo
In fact, very
peared between i860 and 1890 (cf. pp. 235 seqq.).
to these problems
little serious thought seems to have been given
, and then the new
until the beginning of the Modern Movement
PA
18
273
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

arguments are closely linked up with those of the English Arts

and Crafts.1 In 1894 van de Velde exclaimed in an address
given at Brussels: “Oh, if only the academies would establish
workshops for weaving, embroidery, lace-work, and for gold-
smithing and printing, besides their studios for painting and
sculpture. If only they would reveal the secrets of pottery ! The
young student could then easily find his own way, and, what is
more, all these branches of art would be delivered from the un¬

just contempt into which they have fallen.” This was only an
exclamation, and not a detailed programme, but it can safely be
said that around the idea underlying it was centred the whole
of the development of art academies in Central Europe for the
next thirty years. The first to supply a practicable scheme
seems to have been Wilhelm von Bode, the famous director of
the Berlin museums. In an article of 1896, he expressed his
grave concern as to the future of the academies of art, if their
teaching was to be continued on the customary lines. The
inevitable result of their present policy, Bode writes, is the
alarming congestion in the artists’ professions so obviously un¬
justified by existing demand. The obvious remedy is improved
drawing lessons in schools, followed by courses in special pre¬
paratory drawing schools at the end of which a student could
decide whether to pass on into a school of arts and crafts, or
whether, on the strength of exceptional qualities, to apply
for
admission to an academy. Here, for the first time, a common
training is urged for the future artist and the future craftsman or
designer, and a plan is put forward by which the majority of
students would be drawn into Kunstgewerbeschulen instead of
cramming the academies which should indeed be open only
limited elite. to a

Shortly after 1900 the first schemes were worked out by which

1 T'kf most surprising exception which I have come across is an article

in 1862 in the Suddeutsche Zeitung by the published
Munich journalist and painter Friedrich Pecht,
whose name was mentioned in the foregoing chapter. In
2 4 connection with the in¬
auguration of the Weimar art school, Pecht 7expresses his hope that this establishment
might not develop into another “incubator for semi-talents”
“only depriving trades
of ability and talent so greatly needed”.
 artist’s education to-day

existing art schools were to be reformed according to van de

Velde’s and Bode’s ideas. Several of the most progressive archi¬

tects and designers took part in the struggle. Poelzig’s school at
Breslau e.g. was an academy and not a Kunstgewerbeschule,
and yet he established workshops and tried to bring about a
congenial co-operation between art and craft classes. Olde at
Weimar endeavoured to attain an amalgamation between his
art school and van de Velde’s School of Arts and Crafts, Richard
Meyer in Hamburg widened the scope of his Kunstgewerbe¬
schule to include the fine arts, and Hans Seliger — perhaps the
most remarkable instance — turned the old Leipzig academy of
eighteenth-century tradition into an academy of the arts of
printing which, as is known, have in Leipzig one of their chief
European centres (Akademie der Graphischen Kiinste) . Further¬
more, the same scheme was recommended by several artists and
writers during these years, both in lectures and pamphlets.1
It may appear at first sight as though these German projects
were really only aiming at a state of affairs quite usual in Britain.
For as early as 1837 Dyce had drawn up his plan of an academy
divided into two sections: form and colour, and combining in
each the teaching of design and fine art. Consequently, the
Royal College of Art (of which more will be said later) and
many of the municipal art schools had art as well as craft classes.
The difference from the German schemes of thirty-five years ago
was however that in Britain these various departments were
1 Van de Velde: Kunstgewerbl. Laienpredigten, Leipzig, 1902, p. 66. Bode: Pan,
vol. 2. Olde: W. v. Seydlitz, Die Zukunft der Vorbildung unserer Kunstler, Leipzig, 1917,
of this
p. 18. Meyer: Die Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule, Hamburg, 1913. The text
publication was written by A. Niemeyer, who had taught under Behrens
interesting
von
at Diisseldorf before he went to Hamburg. Other writers and artists : (1) Friedrich
Thiersch : ‘ ‘A time will come when the existing academies will have to be re-shaped into
of applied art, and only the master-classes kept for fine art (Address,
academies
Alle,
“Kunstgewerbetag, 1912”, cf. Niemeyer, l.c.). (2) E. Kalkschmidt, Die Kunstfiir
(3) P. Drey, Die wirtschaftliche n Grundlagen der Malkunst, Stuttgart and
vol. 24, 1908—9.
academy,
Berlin/ 1910. (4) L. Dettmann, who was the principal of the Konigsberg
cf. his lecture at the
planned an amalgamation with the Kunstgewerbeschule there;
suggestions for a ten years
Berlin academy, 28 January 1921. (5) Hans Thoma:
fur die Entwicklung
training to be common to students of all arts (“Sind Akademien
niitzlich oder schadlich?” Address, “Karlsruher Verein
der Kunst notwendig und
fur heimatliche Kunstpflege ”, quoted from Ochelhauser, l.c. p. 140 seq.).

l8'2
275
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

virtually kept separate from each other, whereas in Germany a

new conception of the unity of fine art and applied or industrial
art was assuming shape. The British organization about 1900
was — generally speaking — an outcome of two unrelated lines of
development, that of the nineteenth century art school, and that
of the Arts and Crafts Movement; Germany’s endeavours at the
same time were directed by men who knew that architecture and
design would be more essential to a genuine style of the twentieth
century than painting and sculpture, and who acted accordingly.
Thus it came about that immediately after the end of the war,
in a revolutionary mood which spurred Germany during those
years towards revising accepted values everywhere, a new
system of art education was conceived and put into practice that
not only incorporated the progressive ideas of the past twenty
years but went far beyond them in greatness and consistency.
Many schemes were discussed between 1918 and 1924, but in
two centres above all the re-birth of the academy of art was
achieved; at Weimar, where Gropius founded and developed
the Bauhaus, and at Berlin, where, under Bruno Paul, the
famous academy was completely amalgamated with the Kunst-
gewerbeschule. The story of both these enterprises, no doubt the
most important experiments in art education so far ventured
upon in our century, must here be told in detail.
At the end of 1914, when van de Velde had left Germany, the
Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar elected Walter Gropius to the
principalship of the Weimar school. Gropius, a pupil of Peter
Behrens, was then thirty-one years of age, and, as his F agus-factory
of 1 9 1 1 and his model-factory at the Cologne Exhibition of 1914
had proved, one of the most uncompromisingly modern archi¬
tects in the world. Gropius served in the war and only gradually
developed his programme, which was however complete in all
its details when, after the revolution, the Thuringian govern¬
ment confirmed his appointment and put into his hands the
direction of both the art school and the school of arts and crafts.
Gropius reorganized them and reopened them as one establish¬
ment, called Staatliches Bauhaus. A few years later he published

276
 artist’s education to-day

a short yet extremely illuminating account of “Idea and Struc¬

ture” of the Bauhaus.1 The following are some of the essential
points in this pamphlet: Nineteenth-century dualism which
separated the individual from the community is now vanishing.
In many fields of human activity, a notion of the “fundamental
oneness of all phenomena” is dawning. In art, this notion
necessarily leads to the destruction of the fatal doctrine of art for

art’s sake, and thus helps to clear the way for a genuine new
architecture of our age. Art education of the past has only pro¬
duced a proletariat of self-complacent artists, unable to stay
their ground in the struggle of life, because brought up without

any “link with the realities of matter, technique, economy”.

Opposition against “ Salon-art” (which term in Germany means
picture-painting for the drawing room), against an art “without
relation to any superordinate building unit” directed Ruskin
and Morris, van de Velde, the Darmstadt group (i.e. Behrens,
and others), and the Werkbund in their activities. It was to be

the task of the Bauhaus “determinedly to transfer into practice”

the ideas of these generously recognized precursors. Gropius’s
programme was “to link up thorough practical training in pro¬
2 ductive
* workshops with an exact doctrine of the elements of form
*
and their structural laws” (“exakte Lehre der Gestaltungs-
elemente und ihrer Aufbaugesetze”). The aim of the Bau¬
haus — and this accounts for its name — is consequently “to
gather all creative art activities into a unity, to reunite all
£ werkkunstlerische 5 branches into a new architecture”, — “the

The curriculum of the new school was clearly conceived to

1 Idee und Aufbau des Staatl. Bauhauses, Munich, 1 923 and Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar,
1919-1923, Munich, 1923. Cf. W. Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus,
London, 1935, and W. Gropius, The Tear Book of Education, 1936. Cf. also for the
Bauhaus, Berlin and the significance of the new ideas in Germany: N. Pevsner, “Post-
War Tendencies in German Art Schools”, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 84,
J936-
2 It may not be amiss to emphasize here once more that this fundamental con¬
277
ception of Gropius and the new style had been already formulated by Morris: “The
true unit of the art is a building” (Transactions of the Second Congress of the National
Association for the Advancement of Art and its Application to Industry, 1889, p. 192).
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

serve this programme. It consisted of practical instruction in the

use of stone, wood, metal, glass, clay, textiles, pigments, and in
the qualities of materials and tools, and of formal instruction
(Gestaltungslehre) which was divided as follows: study of nature
of materials, study of geometry, construction and model-making,
and study of design according to volume, colour and composition.
Lectures on ancient and modern art and science were added.

The student passed through three courses. He began in a pre¬

paratory class for six months, where the whole range of Bauhaus
teaching was given in an elementary form, derived to a certain
extent from the method which Johannes Itten at Vienna had
used in his private school from 1916 to 1918. 1 The aim of this
class was to gauge the pupil’s talent, to liberate his mind from
conventions, and to help him to first-hand experience of the
basic facts about materials and tools. After this, the pupil pro¬
ceeded to the proper practical and formal course (Werklehre),
lasting three years. Gropius is well aware of the fact that the
ideal training for the architect, artist and craftsman would be the
apprenticeship to a master-craftsman, but this has nowadays
become impracticable owing to the “fatal segregation of the
talented artist from a life of practical work”. So Gropius
developed an ingenious system combining modern school instruc¬
tion with some of the advantages of the medieval practice. Each
pupil had to work especially in one craft or trade, and was always
under the supervision of two masters. (In the later phase of the
Bauhaus only one master was responsible.) The work in this

course was not to be directed towards “craft individualism”,

but towards ‘ ‘ collective co-operation in building ’ ’ . Industry and
machine are welcomed, and at the end of the three years’ course
the student had to undergo the ordinary municipal trade
examination, before the Board of Master-Craftsmen. Only with
the Journeyman’s Certificate thus acquired was he allowed to
try for the Bauhaus-Apprenticeship Certificate, which enabled
him to enter the third course, termed Structural Instruction

(Baulehre) . Here he was actively collaborating in the Bauhaus’s

1 Cf. J. Itten in Die Form, vol. 5, 1930.

278
 artist’s education to-day

building tasks, so that he might grasp “the essence of the new

building conception” and help to evolve that new style which
can only originate “from the will of a whole nation”. Anony¬
mously, in a true community spirit, the young artist should here
take part in shaping new norms which would act as stimuli for
industry, schools, stage, etc. Some of the students were now
chosen for the research station and the experimental designing
studio, and all had access to every workshop, in case they wanted
to improve their knowledge outside their own trades. Certain
students were for short periods sent into the factories of sym¬
pathetic industrialists, others who wanted to specialize in
the architectural profession into one of the Technische Hoch-
schulen.
This programme, a work of creative genius throughout, is as
fascinating in its vitality as it is comprehensive in its scope, and
sound in its details. Although it is written in a passionate style,
quite different from that of pre-war documents on matters of art
education, but evidently in keeping with the literary outbursts of
Expressionism which appeared during these years in Germany,
it is nevertheless fully practicable. Gropius could realize it point
by point and permeate it with so much life that his school with
its atmosphere of youth, conquest, thrill, was, one can safely say,
for a number of years almost the ideal of a twentieth-century art
school. An extraordinarily brilliant staff of architects, craftsmen
and artists was appointed, representing the most advanced
tendencies in art as well as the soundest principles of industrial
design. There was Moholy-Nagy, pioneer of abstract art,
photography, film, photo-montage, and publicity in general;
Kandinsky, one of the foremost of abstract painters in Germany;
Feininger, a painter of architectural motives and seascapes of
extraordinary noblesse and vigour; Klee, who was a surrealist
before that term was invented; and there were on the other hand
Breuer, the originator of tubular steel furniture, Slutzky, the
metal-worker, Dieckmann, the cabinet-maker and many more.
Thus an admirable blend of art 2and
79 design was achieved. Most
constructively, the principles of handicraft were combined with
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

those of machine-production. Gropius’s conviction was that the

creative designer for mass-production must be trained to carry
out, completely by himself, a model of any article that he is con¬
cerned with. Experimenting must be done by means of handi¬
craft in a studio which is half a workshop and half a laboratory.
Only by proceeding from the useful and well-balanced shape of
an article worked out in the studio, can the designer later on
develop a satisfactory model for mass-production. The lamps,
chairs, pots, cups, rugs and wallpapers created by the Bauhaus,
and put on the market by German factories, proved that all this
was not mere theory. The work of the Bauhaus was however
meant to culminate in architectural tasks to be carried out by the
Bauhaus community. To put this part of the programme into
practice was not easy in the first years of post-war penury. At
Weimar, only a few small-scale jobs were available, but at
Dessau, to which town the Bauhaus moved at the invitation of
the Anhalt government, when in 1925 Thuringia found herself
unable to support the establishment any longer, Gropius was
granted funds for setting up completely new buildings (fig. 25),
planned by him and carried out with the aid of his pupils. Out¬
side his own premises, Gropius built the Dessau Labour-Ex¬
change, and a small working-class estate at Torten near Dessau.
These however originated in his own private studio, although he
published them after some years as “Bauhausbauten”, because,
as he put it, “public opinion later regarded them rightly as the
results of that continuous spiritual intercourse which character¬
ized the Bauhaus”.
In the matter of architectural team-work, Gropius’s successor
at Weimar, Otto Bartning, was perhaps more successful. He
carried on the idea of the Bauhaus under the name of Staatliche
Bauhochschule, and showed himself so generous as to transfer to
his school commissions given to him privately. The Institute of
Physics, the Students’ Hostel at the Jena University, the Musik-
Landheim at Frankfort a.O., and one or two other buildings
were thus planned and carried out by Bartning’ s “Active
Building Studio”. Fees were divided into three equal parts, of
280
 artist’s education to-day

which one went to Bartning, one to the students, and one to the
Thuringian government for giving accommodation, heating, etc.
to the studio. A similar co-operation was aimed at between the
industrial art classes and Thuringian home industries.1 Here
again the original stimulus of course derives from the Bauhaus
whose designs for mass-production as well as hand-production are
amongst the most outstanding German contributions to post-war
art. The historian should not forget that it was at the Bauhaus
that tubular steel furniture was invented, and that, to quote
only one more instance, those types of globular ceiling fittings
were first devised which have by now become so universal a
feature of interior equipment. However, after the first years
of unanimity, certain differences of opinion began to spread at
Dessau. Gropius resigned in 1928; and his successor Hannes
Meyer brought an element of militant communism into a com¬
munity which up to then had been adhering only to a more
general ideal of collectivism. Meyer was dismissed in 1930, and
followed by the architect Mies van der Rohe, one of the most
brilliant exponents of the Modern Movement in Germany. In
spite of this, the government of Anhalt dissolved the Bauhaus in
1932, and it was not strong enough to carry on as a private insti¬
tution at Berlin for longer than a year. In 1933 it closed down,
but, sad as its disappearance was, the historian can say that its
great task could be regarded as achieved when it left Dessau. For
the first time in our century, a new live type of art academy had
been realized. Proof had been given that such a school could
materially influence the development of art as well as industry
towards a genuinely contemporary expression of life. This will
remain the lasting merit of the Bauhaus.
Concurrently with the early years of the Bauhaus, the prepara¬
tory work for the amalgamation at Berlin took place. In order
fully to understand this, it would be advisable to acquaint one-

1 Cf. J. Bier, Die Form, vol. 4, 1929, and Staatliche Bauhochschule Weimar, 1929. I
also owe some valuable private information to Prof. Bartning. The quotation on the
Bauhaus’s architectural work is taken from W. Gropius, Bauhaus bauten, Munich,
1930, p. 12.

28l
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

self with the theories propounded by some other adventurous

German architects since 1918. However, this can here not be
done in detail.1 They will only be mentioned inasmuch as they
were connected with events in Berlin. The point of departure
was a pamphlet published by Bruno Paul, director of the Berlin
Kunstgewerbeschule in 1918, and dealing with the education of
artists in State-supported schools. Paul starts in the same way
as discussions on design had so often been started since the
eighteenth century, namely by pointing to the export-value of
better industrial products. This, he says, seems particularly
important in order to counteract the post-war impoverishment
of Germany. Hence the utmost care must be taken to supply the
future designer or artist-craftsman with the best training that
can be conceived. At the same time, it will always be necessary
to encourage genius in the fine arts, these being “the indispens¬
able pace-makers of the evolution of art in general and conse¬
quently of a considerable part of commercial evolution as well”.
Paul’s programme, based on such considerations, is as follows:
All students, whether tending towards painting and sculpture or
towards applied art, must have one and the same training in an
“Einheitskunstschule”. Nobody, save a few rare exceptions,
should be admitted into the school without having first served a
complete term of apprenticeship in a trade. It would be desirable
to arrange for this as often as possible in the workshops of
practising craftsmen or small workshops. But as so many of
these are nowadays artistically barren, existing trade schools,
and monotechnics must take their place. It is from these as a
rule that students would pass on into a “ Kunstfachschule”.
The instruction given there would still be concerned with

1 Cf. 1 9 1 7 : Bruno Paul bei W. v. Seydlitz, Die fukunft der Vorbildung unserer Kunstler,
and in Wieland, vol. 3 ; later as a separate pamphlet, Erziehung der Kunstler an Staat-
lichen Schulen, 1918. Also 1917: R. Riemerschmid, Kiinstlerische Erziehungsfragen. 1918:
Fritz Schumacher, Die Reform der Kunsttechnischen Erziehung ; Kurt Kluge, Die Neu-
gestaltung der Kunstler erziehung, Denkschrift an das Sachs. Kultusministerium, Privat-

druck. 1919: Peter Behrens, “Reform der kiinstlerischen Erziehung”, in Der Geist der
Neuen Volkswirtschaft. 1921: Wilhelm Waetzoldt, Gedanken zur Kunstschulreform ; A.
Amersdorffer, “Reform des Kunstunterrichts”, in Die Woche, 21 May 1926. H.
Muthesius, fur Frage der Erziehung des kiinstlerischen JVachwuchses.
282
 artist’s education to-day

practical subjects only. During the three or four years which

a student would spend here, his teachers could easily find out
whether his training should stop at the end of the course, or
whether his talents seem promising enough to allow him to go
on into one of the master-classes for painting, sculpture, archi¬
tecture or applied art. All these classes should also be of work¬
shop character. Any design produced must be carried out in the
school’s workshop, or at least be suitable for execution. The
classes for painting and sculpture must be open only to a very
small number of students evidently able to become independent
artists.
It is obvious that many points in this pamphlet coincide with
Gropius’s programme, although Paul’s style in discussing them
is strictly matter-of-fact and has nothing of the impetus of
Gropius’s manifesto. The ideology underlying Paul’s requests is
in fact not mentioned at all, but as he himself, just as Behrens,
Riemerschmid, or Poelzig had begun as a painter, and under¬
gone the significant transformation first into a designer, and in
the end into an architect, he was bound to know of the dangers
of art severed from demand, of the fatal oversupply of painters
and sculptors in the nineteenth century and his own age, and of
the feeling of redemption, once the idea of art for art’s sake has
been abandoned for the idea of service. Hence the firm belief in
the unity of all arts, in the superiority of architecture, and the
necessity for the same training for all in one “educational com¬
monwealth” (P. Behrens), as also advocated by Riemerschmid
and Schumacher. Hence the confidence in the beneficial
effects of apprenticeship and craft training even for a student who
knows that one day he will be a painter (Kluge, Schumacher,
etc.), and hence also the obvious hope that many students will,
by the education they receive in such a school, be convinced that
the ethical value of being a designer is higher than that of being
one more solitary painter without public response (Kluge). It is
understandable that such pamphlets, typical products of archi¬
283
tects or designers, did not meet with an appreciative reception
amongst painters, directed as they were against the sacred
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

aloofness of the fine arts. A typical instance of a distinguished

painter’s attitude is afforded by an article which Max Lieber-
mann, one of the greatest German impressionists, published in
1917, and again in 1920.1 At first sight he seems to agree with
Paul’s fundamental statement. He also wishes art to be treated
as a craft. But what he really means, is still exactly what
Whistler, an impressionist older by half a generation, had said
in 1898. Painting should be taught with a view to technique
exclusively. Drawing, drawing, drawing is what Liebermann,
who was by then so accepted as to be the president of the Berlin
academy, keeps recommending. The problem, whether the
future painter should be educated as if he were to become a
designer, is neither discussed nor even recognized by Liebermann.
The social question does not seem to exist for him, and how
could it for a convinced impressionist?
Art historians have shown more understanding on this issue,
probably owing to their knowledge of the position of art in the
past. Thus Bode, Seidlitz, Gronau, Posse, among the leading art
historians agreed, and above all Wilhelm Waetzoldt, since 1919
head of the art section of the Prussian Board of Education.
His prudently written Gedanken zur Kunstschulreform came out in
1921. They contained a competent report of the history of art
education in Prussia from the eighteenth to the twentieth century,
and suggestions as to what could be done within the limits
determined by the particular administrative system of the
Prussian State. The difficulty was that, whereas the academies
of art came under the Board of Education, the schools of arts and
crafts depended on the Board of Trade. Only the Berlin school,
Bruno Paul’s school, because — as has been mentioned — it was
founded originally as a part of the Museum of Decorative Art,
was still placed under the Board of Education. If this school
were to be amalgamated with the Berlin Hochsehule der Freien
Kunste, no difficulty of overlapping spheres of competence would
arise. The academy of art, which since 1882 had been a body
284
1 1917 in Seydlitz, l.c., 1920 in “Uber Kunstschulen”, a memorandum reprinted
in Ges. Schriften, Berlin, 1922, p. 229 seq.
Figs. 26 and 27. Two
classrooms in the Berlin
Vereinigte Staatsschulen
fur freie und angewandte
Kunst, about 1930.

Paints and their use

(Professor Sandkuhl)

Bronze founding
(Professor Kluge)

Photographs, A. von Perckhammer

 artist’s education to-day

separate from the school, although still connected with it through

the master-classes, was asked by the ministry to submit a memo¬
randum. The memorandum, dated n February 1921 and
drawn up by the secretary A. Amersdorffer, pronounces the
approval of the academy to the amalgamation, to a compulsory
diploma of a trade school or monotechnic before admission to
the Berlin school, and to a joint course for all students. After
two more years of negotiations about details, the School of Arts
and Crafts moved into the building of the Hochschule at
Charlottenburg, and the amalgamation was achieved — despite
the protests of several of the teachers of the Hochschule. The
new name of the institution was United State Schools for Free
and Applied Art, and it will be unnecessary to emphasize the
significance of this new name. The capital of Germany now
possessed that unified educational establishment which had been
the aim of all those hoping for a revival of a socially sound art,
a school in which young artists were trained by some of the
leaders of modern painting and sculpture, and young craftsmen
and designers taught in well-equipped and efficiently run work¬
shops and laboratories (figs. 26-2 7). 1
One would think that once the amalgamation had been so
successfully carried out in Berlin, the provincial academies of
Prussia would have followed immediately. However, the divided
spheres of competence of the two ministries proved stronger than
the arguments of logic. Neither at Breslau, nor Konigsberg, nor
Cassel, were the academies united with the schools of arts and
crafts. And even when in the worst year of the international
economic crisis, in 1932, the three academies had to be closed
down, their incorporation into the Kunstgewerbeschulen was
not preferred. They have now been reopened, but no further
steps appear to have been taken for attaining a fusion of the two
types. Even at Berlin, things have somewhat changed since
1 The pre-history of the Berlin amalgamation has here been told in such detail,
because it is hardly known to those who had no personal connection with it. I am
285 and also Prof. Poelzig, Prof. Amers¬
greatly indebted to Geheimrat Dr Valentiner
dorffer and Prof. Sorensen, who helped me considerably in collecting the information
on which my account is based.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

1924. Whereas some experts objected to the amount of separa¬

tion that was still left and had found its expression in the name
of United State Schools, others disliked the amalgamation alto¬
gether. Poelzig, Bruno Paul’s successor, pleaded in a memo¬
randum of 27 February 1933 for a more complete fusion, but
after his resignation a different course was taken, and as since
the National Socialist Revolution things are again in a state
of ferment, it would be rash to include these most recent develop¬
ments in a book dealing with the history of the problem.
Going back to the situation of 1930, it must be added that
Dessau and Berlin were by no means the only centres where the
new unity of art education had been achieved. As early as 1920
Karlsruhe saw the fusion of academy and school of arts and
crafts into one Badische Landeskunstschule. Paul Thiersch at
Halle succeeded in building up a small but very progressive
school (Werkstatten der Stadt Halle), and Riemerschmid turned
the Cologne school into the Kolner Werkschulen. Only at
Munich, in spite of the activity of such admirable monotechnics
as those for the printing trade, for trades and crafts using timber,
and for painters and decorators, the struggle for the amalgama¬
tion of academy and school of arts and crafts was not successful.
The academy remained victorious.1
This does not however mean that the Munich academy was
reactionary as far as painting, sculpture, and architecture went.
For quite apart from the fact that the new type of a truly unified
art school for fine art, crafts, and industrial art, is mainly a
German product, it should also be appreciated that, contrary to
the French and English academies, the academies of art in Ger¬
many and the adjacent Central-European countries, were now no
longer the stronghold of reaction. Many representatives of con¬
temporary style, which is tantamount to Post-Impressionism, to
use a vague and sufficiently comprehensive term, were amongst
the principals, members and teachers. It would be out of the
question to suggest any comparison with the Royal Academy in
1 Cologne: Die Form, vol. 4, 1929. Munich monotechnics: Die Form, vol. 4, 1929.
Munich academy: Cicerone, vol. 16, 1924.

286
VEREINIGTE STAATSSCHULEN FUR FREIE U. ANGEWANDTE
KUNST /BERLIN-CHARLOTTENBURG HARDENRERGSTR. 33

15th July 1932.

Fig. 28. Letter Headings of letters received by the author in 1932

from the Berlin, London, and Paris Academies
 artist’s education to-day

London which at last condescended to accept Brangwyn as an

academician in 1919, John Lavery in 1921, Augustus John in
1928, and Sickert in 1934. Just forty years before, C. R. Ashbee
had compared the Royal Academy with a “charming old lady of
exquisite manners”, and in 1936 the art critic of The Times , not
a revolutionary paper, wrote of the Annual Exhibition that it
comes “into the same order of things as the Boat Race, the Derby,
and Eton and Harrow” and bears “only a nominal relation to
contemporary British art”.1 To illustrate the different approach
of the most officially recognized academies in three European
centres to the new style, it may be useful to look at the headings
of letters which I received within the last ten years from London,
Paris and Berlin (fig. 28). This comparison does not of course
lend itself to any immediate conclusions as to the sympathy
or antipathy for the Modern Movement in art schools of the
respective countries in general.
In this connection a few words on the present-day structure of
art education in France, England, and Italy may be added. In
France the contemporary style still seems to develop almost entirely
outside the public establishments. There are excellent trade
schools and monotechnics, but these do not come within the
scope of this book.2 As far as the Ecole Nationale Superieure des
Beaux Arts goes, it is highly significant that even the most
recent editions of Larousse define its exclusive purpose thus:
“L’ ecole prepare les artistes aux differents concours pour le
Grand Prix de Rome.” Hence there are, just as in the past,
only three departments: painting, sculpture, and architecture.
The training for the applied arts is kept entirely separate, mainly
at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs, which is the direct
1 The President of the Royal Academy did not think so, for he said, according to
the report in The Times of 3 May 1936, that “in no country, he thought, could a
better exhibition of contemporary art be found”. Mr Sickert resigned in 1935,
Mr John in 1938. The quotation from Mr Ashbee is taken from A few chapters, p. 20.
2 On present-day trade schools in France as well as other European countries,
those wanting exact information should compare the short but excellent reports of the
287 on the Continent , Board of Education,
Board of Education: (A. Abbott), Trade Schools

Educational Pamphlets, No. 91, 1932; and E. H. O’R. Dickey and W. M. Keesey,
Industry and Art Education on the Continent, Educational Pamphlets, No. 102, 1934.
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

descendant of Bachelier’s eighteenth century foundation. Its

reorganization took place in 1878, but the tuition imparted is
still restricted to drawing, modelling, and decorating. Younger
architects, craftsmen and designers seem to dislike it just as
much as the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, and the other
national, regional, and municipal Ecoles des Beaux Arts, and
Ecoles des Arts Decoratifs.

In Italy a similar stagnation appears to have prevailed in

public art education until the arrival of Fascism. Before that no
uniform organization of national art schools existed. This was
brought about by the Legge Gentile. Since then there have been
three types of schools of arts and crafts all using the method of
workshop-training : Scuole d’ Arte, Istituti d’ Arte, and Istituti
Superiori per le Arti Industriali. Istituti Superiori exist only
at Venice, Florence, Naples and Palermo. With the fine arts
Licei Artistici are concerned, and for the most advanced courses
Accademie di Belle Arti, situated in the same cities as the Licei.
There are eight in the whole of Italy: Bologna, Florence, Milan,
Naples, Palermo, Rome, Turin and Venice. Pupils are usually
registered at the Liceo at an age of twelve, and as much general
education is therefore incorporated into the curriculum as in
junior departments of British art schools. After four years at the
Liceo, a successful student can pass on to an academy, or if he
wants to specialize in architecture, to a Scuola Superiore
d’ Architettura. Academies still keep to the principle of studio¬
training, and the style of work prevailing in them has only of late
begun to be in sympathy with the Modern Movement. However,
as the most official views in Italy are now strongly in favour of
twentieth-century forms of expression, it is to be hoped that in a
short time academies will as unanimously stand for them as in

fact several Istituti d’ Arte have done for some years, although
more with regard to craft than to industrial design. Sufficient
emphasis seems nowhere yet to be laid on the requirements of
machine-art, and co-operation between academies and design
nowhere achieved, and this is no doubt the most urgent amend¬
ment to be advocated in a country where modern architecture,

288
 artist’s education to-day

design, and art has lately made so much headway. Legislation

to this effect is, I understand, under consideration.1
The situation in Britain is much more complex. The Royal
Academy, this has been said more than once, cannot be com¬
pared with Continental academies, because it is a private institu¬
tion not easily to be influenced by alterations of official policy,
and also because its educational activity is only a sideline, carried
on as a kind of moral duty (without fees). Only about eighty
students are enrolled at a time. The method of instruction is still
essentially that of the nineteenth century. Five classes exist:
antique school, school of painting, life-drawing (open to female
students since 1893), life-modelling, and architecture. Even
a life-drawing theatre with rows of seats amphitheatrically
arranged, can here still be seen in use. Up-to-date methods
are followed at the Slade School, forming part of University
College, London. It is known what a prominent part this
school played about the end of the last century as a centre
of the growing style of Impressionism. However, the Slade
School too is essentially concerned with fine art, and therefore
not so important in our present connection.
The most interesting establishment, as far as the problems of
contemporary design go, is unquestionably the London Central
School of Arts and Crafts. Its derivation from the Morris Move¬
ment is still clearly recognizable. From its beginnings, it has
taken care to develop its workshops, and some of them, which have
found support from local industries, have in fact succeeded in
obtaining wholly adequate equipment. In other classes still
the outlook is more towards pure craft. The school as a whole
appears full of vitality and keenly interested in present-day
trends. There are classes for decoration, stained glass, cabinet¬ 19

making, textile design and weaving, fashion, metal, lettering,

painting, bookbinding,building, apart from the general drawing
and painting courses. These are not held to train painters or

1 My thanks are due to Comm. Salvini 2in89Florence, Gio Ponti in Milan, and S. E.
Ugo Ojetti in Florence for valuable information on the most recent developments in
Italy.
PA
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

sculptors, but experience has shown that the bracing atmosphere

of such a school can help considerably to put future artists on the
right road. Since, in Britain, trade schools have never been
separated so completely from art schools as on the Continent,
and since compulsory continuation schools are unfortunately
absent, a school such as the London Central School has also to
run a day school for boys between 13 and 16 who want to be
prepared for certain trades, and afternoon and evening classes
for students engaged in trades.1 The same principles apply to
several of the biggest provincial art schools, such as Birmingham,
Leicester, and some more. The necessity of linking up craft
teaching with design for machine production has been felt for
some years, but nothing so far-reaching has yet been achieved as
in Germany. At Birmingham e.g. a special design class exists,
but co-operation with craft-classes seems difficult to attain. At
Leicester (and in a few more cities) on the other hand a system
has been evolved, by which students have to register concurrently
in the art school and the College of Technology, and the indus¬
trial aspect of design is thus introduced.
There is only one national art school in England, and this
seems at first sight to be organized on the same principles as the
most advanced German establishments. The Royal College of
Art was, as has been discussed in the previous chapter, founded
to serve the purposes of industry, but had soon deviated and
become a training place for teachers, and for painters and
sculptors. Opposition against this development had never been
quite silent, but it reached a new pitch, when the Arts and Crafts
Movement was in its prime. In 1898 Walter Crane, one of the

most faithful of Morris’s followers, was made principal of the

College. When he resigned the post after only two years, he
had succeeded in introducing new regulations (1899), adding
a design department to the three departments in existence.

1 Space available and the scope of this book do not allow for a detailed account of
art schools in Britain. I have dealt with this question more fully and with special
paragraphs on desirable improvements in my book, An Enquiry into Industrial Art in
England, Cambridge, 1937, pp. i38seqq., 2i5seqq.

29O
 artist’s education to-day

However, an effective reform was not achieved and in 1911 a

Departmental Committee, amongst whose members there were
several distinguished representatives of the Arts and Crafts,
recommended what would have come to an almost complete
abolition of the Royal College. This suggestion was not ac¬
cepted, and the College carried on, still chiefly interested in the
fine arts. In recent years, the Design and Industries Association
has again pleaded for a drastic reorganization, and a Committee
meeting in 1936 under the chairmanship of Lord Hambleden
has put forward similar suggestions. They all agreed on one
point, the importance of restoring to the Royal College its
original purpose of serving industrial needs. A University of
Design is what the Design and Industries Association advocated,
and it should not be so extremely difficult to attain this change of
aims. For some time the design department with its classes for
metalwork, stained glass, lettering and book illustration, book¬
binding and embroidery, has been numerically the strongest in
the College. The majority of the workshops are not so well
equipped as in some other schools, but not worse off, as far as
this goes, than some of the most influential Continental schools.
In fact reforms seem to be on the way, and it is an encouraging
fact that the new principal of the College, Mr P. H. Jewett, was
principal of the London Central School before he went to the
College in 1934. How far these reforms will tend to increase co¬
operation between craft and design on one side, and the fine
arts on the other side, can as yet not be seen.1
In connection with this most topical problem of fine art and
industrial design, not much, it seems, need be said about the
United States of America , although I am here not speaking from
personal experience. As far as can be seen from printed evidence,

1 I gladly use this opportunity for thanking the heads and members of the staff of
so many British art schools who have shown me round their buildings and classes,
and have explained to me their methods of organization and instruction, above all
Mr P. H. Jowett and the late Mr Athole Hay, at the Royal College of Art, Mr H. H.
Holden in Birmingham, Mr K. Holmes in Leicester, Mr W. O. Hutchinson in
Glasgow, Mr H. L. Wellington in Edinburgh, Mr R. A. Dawson and Prof. W. Morton
in Manchester, Mr G. Forsyth in Burslem.

291

19-2
 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

only Frank Lloyd Wright’s romantic Taliesin Fellowship is con¬

cerned with ideas comparable to those of the Bauhaus.1 It is a
small private art school wholly shaped to the theories of its
founder, the greatest of American architects. Students are called
apprentices, and concurrently work at drawing, crafts, agri¬
culture, road-making, building and basic principles of archi¬
tecture. The aim of the school is the re-conquest of a “funda¬
mental architecture”, the method followed is closely connected
with, and seems influenced by, H. Th. Wijdeveld’s ideas which
were, in 1931, put into the shape of a manifesto for the foun¬
dation of “An International Guild”, and are now embedded in
Wijdeveld’s own school Elckerlyc.
Space does not allow me to dwell upon any of the other
academies and craft schools in the smaller European countries,
although some of them are leading in the Modern Movement.
A few words however should now, in conclusion, be said
about recent developments in Russia. Bolshevism as a dic¬
tatorial form of government could not fail to take an active
interest in art education, and consequently for a time the
most extreme modern architectural style and a direct pictorial
propaganda together with strongly propagandist films and posters
were welcomed. But this has come to an end, and now official
Russian architecture and the little that can be learned from out¬

side about applied art and design are back in an “academism”

of the old type. However, I have not been in a position to study
conditions in Russia myself. Travellers’ tales and articles in news¬
papers and magazines are distinctly inadequate and almost
invariably biased sources of information as far as Russia is con¬
cerned, and letters which I wrote to the Commissariat for Educa¬
tion, and to private personalities, remained unanswered.2
Thus the fact remains that, amongst European nations,
%

1 Cf. The Taliesin Fellowship, Spring Green, Wisconsin, s.d., H. Th. Wijdeveld,
An International Guild, Sautpoort, 1931, F. L. Wright, The Hillside Home School of the
Allied Arts, privately printed, Oct. 1931, H. Th. Wijdeveld, Elckerlyc-Programma; also
C. R. Richards, Art in Industry, New York, 1922.
2 I received however a letter from Mr Fedoroff Dawydoff, dated 13 December
!934> which he refers to publications in Russian on the subject, by Prof. Maza.

292
 artist’s education to-day

Germany, since 1918, has gone farther than any other country
in re-shaping her art academies and fusing them into an organic
unity with schools for crafts and industrial design. And here lies
beyond doubt the most important question of twentieth-century
art education. Industry cannot be held up in its triumphal pro¬
gress, and art can only be restored to something like its former
role in the life of the community if it joins forces with industry.
In the modern style of architecture this is achieved, in industrial
design it is advancing. Unless art schools take the lead in this
movement, they will not have a place in the modern educational
structure.
More than this must not be said; it would not be the his¬
torian’s task to do so. For the historian has only to analyse how
certain problems have developed in the past, and how they are
linked up with certain social, religious, philosophical premisses, in
short with the Zeitgeist, of different periods.
Consequently it has been shown in this book, how art aca¬
demies originated in Florence when Absolutism first emerged
and Mannerism, a style of the strictest rigidity of compositional
schemes, prevailed ; how they reached a first climax of power and
influence in France under Colbert, when Absolutism was at its
height, and the Classic style of the French with its schematism
ruled ; how they suddenly spread all over Europe in the second
half of the eighteenth century, when princes everywhere imitated
French institutions, and the new rules of the Neo-Classic Move¬
ment became predominant in art. Opposition against the
academic style first arose amongst the bourgeois artists of the
Dutch republic, and then grew rapidly amongst the sceptic
libertines of French Rococo, and the revolutionary individualists
of the Sturm und Drang. In consequence of the theories of
Schiller and the Romantic school, this anti-academic attitude
became a matter of course with progressive artists of the nine¬
teenth century; and by 1900 it seemed obvious to most that no
need remained for State-supported art education. For what
293
interest would an artist, as convinced of that criminal doctrine of

art for art’s sake as were the Impressionists, have in State-

 THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRIAL ART, AND THE

interference, and what interest a liberal State in spending money

on an art understandable only to a small set of connoisseurs?
This was the situation as long as artists did not themselves
begin to feel the necessity of a return to a life of service, and as
long as States did not start abandoning the principles of nine¬
teenth-century liberalism. The change in the attitude of the
artist is due to William Morris (the socialist), the change in the
attitude of the State we are experiencing just now, above all in
the new totalitarian States. But a growing tendency towards
governmental enterprise has become evident in England too,
above all since, and owing to, the war, although its beginnings
date back to the pre-war decades. The numbers of civil-servants
are increasing steadily, the influence of the under-secretary in
ministerial administration, and the town-clerk in municipal
administration is becoming more and more decisive. State-fixed
minimum wages and health insurance are by now a matter
of course, high taxation of large incomes — especially death
duties — play their part in the economic structure of the State.
Board of Education and County Council control over schools
is spreading, and none of the Universities is, financially, com¬
pletely independent of public money. Not that, in Britain,
this must necessarily mean the abolition of self-government
to any considerable extent. But the tendency is obvious
enough. And the consequence for the problem here under
discussion of any totalitarian tendency growing or even
prevailing in European politics and civilization is equally
evident.
If a return to liberalism is desired, no art education in one
consciously accepted and promoted style is possible, just as no
planning of towns, no planning of streets is possible. Art will be
the privilege of genius, and the art which surrounds us all will
be a medley of individual activities. If however planned towns,
streets, and houses are desired, only State interference can help,
and only at the expense of civic liberties. And as for good design
294
in cheap mass-produced articles, it will, broadly speaking, also
not be worth the individual manufacturer’s while to invest
 artist’s education to-day

much money in so decidedly educational a matter. The State

on the other hand has a strong interest in eliminating shoddy,
and supplying citizens with what is clean and decent and there¬
fore life-enhancing.
It need not be repeated that a totalitarian State must also be
anxious to promote education in the fine arts according to
certain standards of style, because artists are necessary for
propaganda in the widest sense of the term. On the other hand,
it is a fact that the majority of progressive artists, and not only in
this country, seem strongly to resent State interference. But that
is probably due to the many mistakes which were made in the
nineteenth century, and the case of the Futurists in Italy proves
that an advanced style is by no means necessarily anti-govern-
mental. However that may be, a school such as the Bauhaus is
certainly only possible as a State school, and can — of course —
only be successfully run by one strong personality, and not by
means of Committees and majority votes.
So far it is easy and legitimate to put the case. To state what
will happen, or decide what should happen, would not be for
me, or at least not for this book of which the exclusive aim has
been to describe exactly the development of an institution in
the course of four centuries.

295
 APPENDIX I

CODE OF RULES OF VASARI’S AGGADEMIA

DEL DISEGNO, 1563

Capitoli et Ordini dell ’ Academia et Compagnia delV Arte del Disegno ,

approvati daW Illustriss. et Eccellentiss. S. Duca Cosimo de Aiedici ,
Duca secondo di Fiorenza et di Siena.

C. I. Havendo 1’ anno 1239 considerato i maestri, i quali furono allhora

capi dell’ arte del disegno, che la sua nascita et prima rinovatione fu nell Ar-
chitettura per M.o Arnolfo di Lapo architetto ecc.te nella fabbrica di Santa
Maria del Fiore, et per M.o Giotto di Bondone da Vespignano, allhora
prima luce del disegno, della pittura et del mosaico, et per M.o Andrea di
Nino Pisano nella scoltura e nel getto del bronzo m.o ecc.mo; e come capi di
queste nobilissime arti, le quali erano state rinovate in Toscana et illustrate
per loro nella citta di Firenze et conosciuto havere meritato si gran dono da
Dio, per riconoscere sua Maesta in parte di tanto benefizio, ragunato piu
volte insieme tutti gl’ artefici del disegno, risolsero di fare tutti insieme una
compagnia nella lor citta, dove in quella si raunassero due volte il mese per
lodare Iddio e per fare molte opere pie e confabulare insieme tutte le cose
dell’ arte loro, et questa fu la capella maggiore ch’ e oggi nello spedale di
S. Maria nuova, et li diero il nome di Santo Luca Evangiolista et pittore; e

questo presero per avocato loro et in nome suo sagrarono 1’ altare di quel
luogo. Fu poi edificato da e Portinari lo spedale di Santa Maria Nuova e
attaccata a detta cappella la croce di quello spedale per gl’ infermi, si per
1’ antichita sua come per 1’ onore che havevano dato a quel luogo si ecc.ti
artefici, i quali ancora duravano di ragunarsi havendo alia compagnia provisto
entrate di beni stabili, oggi la maggior parte diminuiti ; fu premutato il luogo
poi del raunarsi a questi artefici dallo spedalingo sotto le volte dello spedale,

seguendo le tornate et le feste coi capitoli sonti et all’ offerta et processional-

mente tutto il corpo dell’ arte alii xxvm d’ ottobre per la festa dell’ awo-
cato loro S.to Luca. Anchora che dallo spedalingo Buonafe fussero cavati di

sotto le volte et tramutata la compagnia 1’ anno 1515 et messa in sul canto

della via della Pergola senza staccarla dal ceppo delle case di detto spedale.

La quale compagnia in quel luogo si raguno molt’ anni. Ne fini per questo,
che di nuovo travagliata dallo spedalingo dei Montaguti, il quale trovata
occasione d’ essere stretto di stanze, per non volere piu questi artefici in casa,
i quali gia sviata la compagnia che havea trascurato gia molto tempo il
raunarsi per non essere difesa da maggiori i quai potevano e non se ne cura-

296
 APPENDIX I

rono, i deboli piegandosi, ottennero per non far peggio dallo spedalingo lire. . .
per ricomperare un altro sito altrove. La dove essendo cascata la com-
pagnia del tutto et quasi finita apunto in quel tempo, che men doveva
spegnersi, abbondand’ ella maggiormente d’ artefici ecc.ti, ricchi et favoriti
assai et tutte persone onorate, che dovevano difenderla et aiutarla, dove
nessun di loro si mosse mai. Ma la bonta di Dio, il quale hebbe sempre
protezzione di queste onorate virtu, rivolgendo gl’ occhi alia ecc.za di tanti
pellegrini ingegni, ha voluto che chi ha di continuo favorite et premiate queste
nobilissime arti et fatto fare nel suo tempo maggiori opere di queste tre pro-
fessioni, vuole che il medesimo sia quello che 1’ accresca d’ onore et le man-
tenga vive ai posteri per lungo tempo; et ha voluto che questa sua se-
conda rinascita accaggia sotto il felice principato dell’ Illustriss. et Eccell.mo
S. Duca Cosimo d’i Medici, Duca di Fiorenza et di Siena, il quale come
benigno padre degl’ uomini del disegno sentendo che era spento il luogo, dove
si ragunavano tanti chiari spiriti ed onorati ingegni di qual natione si sia,
purche sieno ecc.ti et si dilettino del disegno, ristrignendo e piu famosi e
chiari per opere e piu perfetti insieme per fare una Academia et Studio a

utilita d’i giovani che imparono queste tre arti, col dargli quei gradi et quelli
onori che non solo diedero gl’ antichi Greci et Romani per nobilitare
quest’ arti, ma qual Imperio o Republica fusse mai; cercando con quei
rimedi piu facili e migliori difenderla da tutte quelle cose, che col tempo gli
potesser nuocere, ordinando capitoli et modi ottimi da tenere uniti insieme

questi onorati ingegni d’ ogni tempo. Et vuole come Prencipe, che e amatore
et protettore di quest’ arti, in questa sua seconda rinovatione esserne lui
padre, capo, e guida et correttore ; et che succesivamente di mano in mano
succedino gl’ eredi del suo stato e che governeranno. Da e dona liberamente
a tutti questi artefici di disegno, cioe architetti, scultori et pittori, che saranno

di questa compagnia, 1’ oratorio del tempio degli Angeli gia cominciato di

muraglia da M. Filippo Spano degli Scolari con tutte le sue ragioni che ci
havessero detti Scolari, come per virtu d’ una donagione fatta sotto di...
di luglio 1562 da M. Bernardo Scolari et...di quella casa, dando faculta a
detta compagnia che vi possino murare et fare tutti quei commodi per

1’ oratorio et poi per il corpo della compagnia et academia o studio di quella;

obligando detta compagnia k farvi a loro spese di marmo 1’ effige di M. Filippo
Spano degli Scolari, fondatore di detto luogo, et 1’ arme sua et la memoria di
S.to Antonio et San Giuliano, che esso fondatore lascia che in detto tempio si
faccia. Et inoltre obliga detta compagnia, che volendo M. Bernardo Scolari,
che ha ceduto dette ragioni a S. E., un luogo per farvi una sepoltura, se gli
conceda per lui et per tutta la famiglia degli Scolari.

C. II. Vuole S. E. I. che per mantenere

297 con piu governo questa Aca¬
demia ed onore et perche duri piu lungo tempo, che in persona di S. E. sia un
luogotenente fatto. Quella persona onorata e di grado non sia delle pro-
 APPENDIX I

fessioni, ma se ne diletti et sia amatore del disegno; il quale sia obligato ragu-
narsi a tutte le tornate in quel luogo con gl’ uomini diputati al governo di
questa Academia, durando il tempo per uno anno o piu, secondo che parra
a S. E. I., et habbia divieto dua anni.

C. III. Sua Ecc.za vuole che questo oratorio sia corpo di compagnia
generalmente di tutti gl’ uomini di disegno, cioe architetti, scultori, pittori
dichiarati tutti per il ristretto e corpo di detta compagnia per le virtu et
qualita loro, se bene e non saranno
architetti, scultori o pittori meramente;
purche sien degni per il valore del disegno e del giuditio, possino entrare in
questo numero, havendo reso et rendendo conto per 1’ opere che hanno fatte
et fanno della virtu loro; et vuole che ne sieno tanto Fiorentini quanto del suo

ducal domino et ancora d’ ogni sorte natione, purche habbino buon disegno
e adimandino d’ entrarvi, pagando pero la tassa, che sara ordinata nella nuova
riforma et che sien vinti per i duo terzi del corpo di tutta la compagnia e
delb Academia.

C. IIII. Ordina S. E. I. che di questo corpo di compagnia se ne faccia un

ristretto o scelta d’i piu ecc.ti, tanto Fiorentini quanto forestieri d’ ogni
natione, e si chiami la Academia del disegno; et questi sien vinti da tutto il

corpo della compagnia per i duo’ terzi delle fave nere; et a questi vuole
S. E. I. che sia dato il governo in mano et P essecutione di tutti i capitoli,
dando con questo essempio avidita a giovani o garzoni che imparino et che
megliorando possino secondo P opere che faranno esser messi in detta
Academia per il corpo di tutta la compagnia et di detti academici, et appro-
vati poi per rescritto di S. E. I.

C. V. Approva anchora S. E. I. che tutto quello che faranno per corret-

tione et per riordinare detta Academia et corpo di detta compagnia i sei

riformatori eletti dalla detta compagnia questo anno 1562 che gl’ ha chiamati,
sia approvato tutto; poiche vede che mossi da buon zelo, utile e onore di
queste arti hanno provisto insieme con S. E. che queste professioni si man-
tenghino in questa citta vive di tempo in tempo et si lasci a’ posteri godere si
onorata et utile memoria et si utile provedimento.

C. VI. Volsero e cosi deliberarono, che si facessero tre consoli ogn’ anno
per la festa di S.to Luca et si cavassero dallo squittino, che sara fatto per li
detti academici, et uno sia scultore, P altro pittore e P altro architetto; et si

consideri che uno di questi maestri, il quale partecipa piu d’ una di queste
arte, possa entrare in piu di una borsa, sendo et pittore, et architetto, et
scultore.

C. VII. Deliberaro che questi consoli non potessero far niente senza
P intervento del luogotenente di S. E. I. o suo sostituto per partito di tre fave
nere.

298
 APPENDIX I

C. VIII. Et ancora providdero che il proveditore et camarlingo

si tragga
della borsa dell’ Academia scrivani, infermieri, sagrestani, festaioli e altri
offitiali dello squittino di tutto il corpo della compagnia.

C. IX. Debbasi ragunare detta Academia duo volte o almeno una il mese,
secondo che i consoli vedranno il bisogno, o se piu bisognasse intendendosi in
domenica sempre, poi le Pasque tutte, le Sante Marie, gl’ Apostoli; et la festa
principale sia S.to Luca, avvocato antico di queste arti; nel qual tempo si
faccino apparati et tutto quello che sara ordinato per i consoli et per i
festaiuoli.

C. X. Il medesimo si faccia per la festa de i Santi Quattro incoronati per

amor degli scultori et architetti col medesimo ordine.

C. XI. Debbesi ragunati nell’ oratorio i consoli et il corpo de la compagnia

dire leggendo i salmi penetenziali et fare oratione per la S.ta Madre chiesa
et per il nostro Ill. mo S. Duca; cosi pregare Iddio per i morti di quell’ arti;
poi si preghi per la casa et oratorio, che gl’ artefici accresca di perfettione
nell’ opere et die loro felicita; odasi poi la messa e udita i consoli ispedischino
tutte le cose attenenti a quel luogo, massime le divine, poi quelle della

fabbrica; poi si attenda all’ umane per chi ha bisogno et intan to gl’ altri
disputino delle cose dell’ arti; et sieno appiccati dubbi delle cose fatte et si
risolvino.

C. XII. Inoltre che si confessino dove vogliono, ma si comunichino in quel

luogo poi quattro volte 1’ anno e da monaci degl’ Angeli nell’ oratorio unita-
mente tutto il collegio et gl’ altri ufficiali et del corpo della compagnia chi
vuole.

C. XIII. Che si faccino dodici festaiuoli, 4 per arte, cioe architetti, scultori
et pittori, et debbono spendere di quel della compagnia sc. quattro, il restante
delle borse loro 6 di quello che accatteranno dalP Academia et dal corpo della
compagnia; et questo serva per la festa di S.to Luca et per i quattro Santi

Incoronati, et ci sia tutta 1’ Academia et tutto il corpo della compagnia.

C. XIIII. Che si debba in tal mattina andare processionalmente a visitare

1’ altare et cappella di S.ta Maria Nuova nello spedale per riconoscere quel
luogo antico di queste arti; et quivi ire a offerta; et cio sia di detta com¬
pagnia e ricolgasi dal camarlingo; che tal cosa e stata consueta per i tempi
passati. Il medesimo si faccia il Venerdi Santo la solita cerimonia, che si
soleva fare col crocifisso et dallo spedalingo di S.ta Maria Nuova sia dato

desinare la mattina a’ consoli et luogotenente et portino a offerta un tor-

chiotto di cera bianca.

C. XV. Che 299Servi donato

il capitolo de’ frati de all’ arte del disegno da
frate Giovann’ Angelo scultore sia capella et sepoltura di dette arti, lasciando
pero in lor liberta chi non volessi andarvi, che havessi altrove sepoltura.
 APPENDIX I

C. XVI. Volsono che I’ Academia et compagnia fusse obligata una volta

I’ anno per la Santissima Trinita ire a udire cantare la messa solenne, che tal
titolo ha detta cappella, et cosi il giorno seguente per 1’ uffizio de morti che
saranno sepelliti in quel luogo; et volendo gF artefici circa le cose spirituali

essere dal priore di quel convento per le cose dell’ anima, possino ricevere i
santi sagramenti in detta cappella, cosi alle case loro senza pregiudizio pero

delle parrocchie; che i frati in detto capitolo ne godino P uso com’ hanno fatto
sempre di ragunarsi quando vanno in coro et alle processioni et tenervi i
frati quando sono morti; et P Academia habbia cura all’ osservanza de i con-
tratti fatti per P obbligo delle messe e lampane accese, che Fra Giovann’ An¬
gelo ha co i detti frati, et P Accademia P ottenghino come cosa loro et se ne
facci contratto publico co i frati, con detto corpo di compagnia et Academia
di disegno.

C. XVII. Dettono licentia anchora a chi vi volessi fare pitture o scolture

o altre memorie di suo, che possa farle in detto capitolo osservando quello che
haveva cominciato Fra Giovann’ Angelo nel suo disegno.

C. XVIII. Diputarono ancora che gl’ infermieri di detta Academia fussero

sei, tre della borsa dell’ Academia et tre della borsa della compagnia, i quali
andassero a visitare tutti gl’ infermi, et a poveri si porgessi aiuto delle borse
del corpo della compagnia, quando non ci fusse altro modo, cosi a i forestieri

d’ ogni nazione, che la compagnia habbia un medico salariato, che vada a

visitare e a medicare detti infermi chi vuole; et cio si facci con la borsa

dell’ Academia et corpo della compagnia. Se non ci sara il modo, che caso
che nell’ arte alcuno per malattia storpiassi o accecassi, providdero che i con-
soli n’ havessero cura di provederlo, sendo povero, fino alia morte; cosi
gl’ altri poveri artefici che cascano in miseria che accadessi di queste arti, si
visitino et si aiutino et i consoli gli prestino ogni favore, et per cio si tassassi la
compagnia et L’ Academia.

C. XIX. Volsero che quando uno artefice era morto dell’ Academia, che
P accompagnassi alia sepoltura L’ Academia e ’1 corpo della compagnia et i
piu giovani di detta Academia lo portassero in su la spalla, dove si fusse
giudicato.

C. XX. Similmente se fusse del corpo della compagnia, il corpo della

compagnia facessi il medesimo ; et caso che, o per poverta o per essere persona
forestiera non havessi da sotterrarsi del suo, il corpo della compagnia et
P Academia facci di suo questa charita con ispendere quel che dichiararanno
i riformatori, et P accompagnino o alia sepoltura sua o ne Servialla sepoltura
generale, o dove sara sotterrato, cosi come sara da lui detto o da consoli, et

tanto si facci a gl’ artefici forestieri d’ ogni nazione.

G. XXI. Che si faccia un libro, nel quale si tenga memoria di tutti
gl’ eccellenti dell’ Academia, quando saranno morti, cosi de i forestieri e

300
 APPENDIX I

dell’ opere loro e dove saran sotterrati. Et un altro libro per quelli del corpo
della compagnia con debite parole, et habbine un riscontro i monaci de
gl’ Angeli.

C. XXII. Volsono che d’i piu eccellenti si facessi un fregio nel muro della
compagnia intorno intorno et in quello si ritraessino o di pittura o di scoltura
tutti coloro che sono stati eccellenti da Cimabue in qua di questo stato e
soccessivamente di questi che vivono se ne facci memoria quando saranno

morti per partito dell’ Academia et corpo di compagnia et approvato per

rescritto di Sua Ecc.za Ill.ma.

C. XXIII. Fecero anchora tre paciali, d’ ogn’ arte il suo, i quali havessero
cura alle differenze de gl’ artefici, et volsero che fussero dell’ Academia, et
ogni volta che non potessero metterli dacordo, colui che fusse per suo difetto,
lo privassino della compagnia e dell’ Academia.
C. XXIIII. Volsono ancora, che si ci fusse nessuno che tenessi mala vita,

si cercassi amorevolmente correggerlo, et dopo 1’ haverli fatte due o tre

correzzioni, egli perseverassi, sia privo della compagnia.

C. XXV. Che si faccino tre ragionieri, uno per arte, a rivedere duo volte

1’ anno il conto al camarlingo di tutta 1’ entrata e d’ uscita di detta com¬

pagnia insieme con i consoli.

C. XXVI. Considerando ancora che havendo S. E. I. donato loro il luogo

dell’ oratorio e tempio degli Angeli, et non havendo questi artefici il modo da
potere murare da loro, che S. Ecc. provegga loro il modo per fare finire detta
fabbrica, come ha accennato loro liberamente in universale et in particolare.

C. XXVII. Ancora faccisi in testa del tempio nella cappella maggiore

isolato uno altare, il quale divida la compagnia et 1’ oratorio, et in su 1’ altare

sieno tutte figure di scoltura di marmo fatte da questi eccellenti scoltori; et il
resto della cappella si muri et i consoli habbino a distinguere quelli modi che
parranno loro per darli aiuto cosi dei pittori come delli scoltori che saranno, e
che si stabilisca secondo il modo di chi fara di questi eccellenti meglior disegno

approvato dall’ Academia e dal corpo della compagnia et da S. E. I. Et se ci

fusse alcuno che ne volessi fare una parte, se gli conceda, purche sia dell’ acca-
demia, liberamente.

C. XXVIII. Debbasi ancora spartire nel tempio, che chi di questi eccel¬

lenti volessi fare una cappella o altra memoria per spendere del suo, se gl’ e
dell’ Academia, se gli conceda liberamente.

G. XXVIIII. Che ogni volta che fusse per dopo morte lasciata facolta da

quelli dell’ Academia o da altri della compagnia, o per fabbricare o per fare

qualche memoria, ritardando i consoli che saranno, 1’ arte de i marcatanti,

quella delli speziali, come parera a sua Ecc.za habbia la cura dell’ essecutione

3°!
 APPENDIX I

di detto oratorio, e sia esecutive di tutte le cose che accadessino per negligenza

d’i consoli, et una volta 1’ anno visitassino, o lor proveditore, il luogo et

riferissero del fatto a S. E. I. per rimediare a gl’ inconvenienti, che potessero
nascere.

C. XXX. Che si faccia col tempo un luogo murato a canto a detto

oratorio per mettervi dentro 1’ opere imperfette o perfette di quei maestri, i
quali volessino lasciare a detto oratorio.

C. XXXI. Appresso ci si faccia una libreria per chi dell’ arti volessi alia
morte sua lasciare disegni, modelli di statue, piante di edifizij, ingegni da
fabbricare o altre cose attenenti alle dett’ arti; le quali si conservino per in-
ventario nelle mani del proveditore, per fame uno studio pe i giovani per
mantenimento di quest’ arti.

C. XXXII. Debbasi ancora fare ogni anno dell’ Academia tre maestri
vinti per i consoli e per il corpo di tutta la compagnia, i quali habbino cura

d’ insegnare a i giovani, i quali saranno scelti et piu atti ad imparare le cose

appartenenti all’ arti del disegno, venendo o quivi o in quel luogo apparte-
nente a quello maestro; et ci sia chi legga Euclide et 1’ altre mathematiche;
et uno di loro ci sia che serva per gl’ architetti, 1’ altro per la scoltura et 1’ altro
per la pittura.

C. XXXIII. Et volsero che questi maestri sieno tenuti in nome di visita-

tori e andare per tutte le stanze dove detti giovani lavorano a vedere tutte
le cose che fanno e che non le possino senza licenza mandar fuora, se prima
detti visitatori non 1’ hanno viste et fatto emendar loro, se ci fusse alcuno
errore, havendo rispetto pero a chi le fa; et vadino considerando 1’ ingegno di
chi opera il tempo secondo 1’ eta loro, et il tutto si faccia con amorevolezza,
facendognene correggere, et quelli che si portano bene, questi visitatori,
quando trovano quei giovani, che habbino fatto di quest’ arti opere lodevoli,
lo dichino in corpo della compagnia, accioche per il mezzo di quello onore si
sforzino d’ essere degni di maggior’ lodi.

C. XXXIIII. Appresso vogliono che tutti coloro i quali si portano bene,

cosi architetti, scolton, pittori giovani veduto le opere loro crescere di
perfezzione, che sieno imborsatinegl’ uffici del corpo della compagnia; et a
cagione che meglio si vegghino gl’ effetti loro, deliberarono, che quattro
volte P anno, alia prima tornata di gennaio et quella di marzo et cosi di
giugno et di settembre, sieno obligati ciascun’ di loro portare un disegno per
uno fatto di lor mano; et gli scoltori qualche cosa di rilievo, cosi quelli che
attendono all’ architettura et prospettiva, et mostrarli a consoli, accio
sieno
tirati inanzi, et quelli che si portano meglio, sia dato loro commessione, che

1’ anno per S.to Luca et de i quattro Santi portino o disegni o cartoni o pit-
ture fatte da loro, cosi i giovani ch’ attendono alia scultura cose di rilievo, et

302
 APPENDIX I

quelle stieno a mostra tutto quel’ giorno,- et quelli che si porton

meglio,
habbino quell’ anno ad essere imborsati ne i detti uffici, et tanto si faccia nella
festa de i quattro Santi.

C. XXXV. Che quei giovani, i quali sono dotati di buono ingegno et non
hanno il modo a potere studiare 1’ arte, che i consoli gl’ habbino a porgere
ogni favore et aiuto; intendendosi di non obbligare ne loro ne i maestri a
spese alcune, et questo lo faccino non solo a quelli del dominio et di Fiorenza,
ma a i forestieri ancora, che lo dimanderanno a detti consoli.

C. XXXVI. Che si cerchi ottenere da S. E. I. che a tutti quelli della

Academia et anchora a qualunche persona, che volessi fare qualche cosa di
marmo per detta compagnia, dichiarati per i consoli atti a condurre dett’ opera
di marmo, che S. E. I. gli provegga il marmo gratis, se di bronzo, le materie, et
che fatto che hara la forma, si consegni alia sapienzia al fonditore, che le getti
a spese di S. E. I., simile a pittori le tavole e i colori; et questo passi per
segnatura et informazione de i consoli et per grazia di S. E. I. Et prima si
vegga per i consoli il modello dello scoltore, il cartone del pittore, se son
buoni, accio si sovvenghino et s’ aiutino quelle virtu che sono per la poverta
impedite, per non havere il modo da potere fare 1’ opere; et finita tale opera i
consoli ne facessero il giudizio et intender cio a S. E. I. accio ne deliberassi
qualche premio di tale opera, che gli paressi.

C. XXXVII. Desiderarino ancora ottenere da S. E. I. che gl’ architetti di

questa Academia intervenissero sempre uno di loro alle cose delle visite de i

fiumi, alle fogne della citta, alle deliberationi di fare i ponti et 1’ altre cose
publiche et private importanti della citta et del dominio insieme cogP ufficiali

et gl’ altri ingegneri diputati alle cose del disegno et che riferissi tutto al
collegio, il quale fusse obbligato sopra le piante e disegni di quel che si fusse,
disputare et disegnare et scrivere sopra di cio et informare S. E. del vero modo,

che gioverebbe a gl’ ingegni et non nocerebbe all’ opere che si fanno; se fusse
consigliato cio dalle menti di tanti chiari ingegni ; et questo il quale andera,
habbia havere uno sc. il giorno o quel che piace a S. E. I. et una parte appli-
cato alia fabbrica della compagnia da dichiararsi da S. E. I. tocca del detto

pagamento et 1’ altra parte a coloro che haranno a edificare.

C. XXXVIII. Desiderarino ancora per gratia di S. E. I. che nelle cause
delle differentie delle case o stime di quelle, che i terzi che si chiamono per
accordare i chiamati, fussero di questa Academia cioe gl’ architetti, et che
S. E. applicassi a questo oratorio una parte di questo guadagno per la mura-
glia.
C. XXXIX. Che la tassa degl’ uomini di detta compagnia et Academia sia
fatta secondo che parra alii riformatori at al corpo di detta compagnia con
quel meglior modo che si pone et questo serva per quel che fa di bisogno
giornalmente per tenerla in piede o con quel modo che dara S. E. I. o che i
riformatori la faccino loro.

303
 APPENDIX I

C. XXXX. Che tutte le differenze delle stime cosi di scoltura come di

pittura, o attenenti a coloro che si adoperano nella architettura, sien fatte per

mano de i consoli, i quali diano stimatori secondo 1’ opere del ristretto

dell’ Academia, non potendo metterle dacordo loro; et che la compagnia tiri
un tanto per lira secondo che sara dichiarato da S. E. I., purche quella trovi
modi che si possa aiutare et mantenere tutto 1’ ordine di questi capitoli per
augumento et utile ed onore di queste arti.

C. XXXXI. Che si faccia un capitolo dell’ amore et charita, che deveno

havere i fratelli e uomini di detta Academia et compagnia 1’ uno con 1’ altro
per 1’ osservanza di detti capitoli da i riformatori.
C. XXXXII. L’ entrata de i consoli sia la mattina di S.to Luca et quando
entrerranno a consoli vecchi, fara il locotenente al proposto alcune parole a
proposito detto che sara la messa alio altare; et inginocchiati di nuovo, il

luogotenente dara loro il libro de i capitoli, confortandoli all’ osservanza di

quelli et gli fara giurare di osservarli et se haranno ben governato, sien lodati
et ripresi con modestia se havessero trascurato il governo.

C. XXXXIII. Debbesi fare in questo tempo medesimo il proveditore, il

camarlingo et gli’ altri ufficiali.

C. XXXXIII I. Faccisi un capitolo per lo squittino, secondo che stanno i

capitoli vecchi; dove contenga il modo delle tratte et de partiti per i rifor¬
matori.

C. XXXXV. Et si dichiari meglio 1’ autorita che hanno questi consoli

sopra le cose degl’ uomini di detta Academia et compagnia per la pena delle
tornate et per chi mancassi et non obedissi delle pene secondo i capitoli
vecchi, trattando del divieto dello specchio e de i rifiuti per li medesimi
riformatori.

C. XXXXVI. Et si faccia per i detti per i defonti un capitolo simile al

vecchio, che sta benissimo, et s’ aggiunga e lievi a bene placito di chi con-
siderara meglio quel che bisogna per mantenere in piedi questa Academia e

compagnia; che tutto si cerca provedere perche 1’ habbian piu felice successo
che non hanno havuto per il tempo passato quest’ arti, si bene le sono durate
piu di 300 anni.
C. XXXXVII. Et in oltre volendosi eleggere correttore della compagnia,
sia rimesso ai consoli et al corpo della compagnia; accioche queste arti et
questa Academia virtuosissima et nobilissima venghino per il mezo di questo
Illustrissimo et Benignissimo Prencipe a risuscitare et rihaversi; et nel tempo
suo qual Dio Ottimo et Grandissimo spiri tutti questi eccellenti ingegni a fare
opere conforme alia piata et alia religione Christiana.

IL FINE

304
 APPENDIX II

LITERATURE

ON ACADEMIES TREATED IN CHAPTERS IV AND V

The following pages are not meant to give a complete register

of all literature on all academies of art. Publications dealing
with the earliest centuries have been mentioned in the notes to
Chapters n and m. As for nineteenth-century academies, on the
other hand, it has been explicitly stated in Chapter v that
completeness has not been my aim. So the following biblio¬
graphy contains those books and papers on which the text of
Chapters iv and v is mainly based.
A register of academies of art existing in 1 755 can be found in
Chr. L. von Hagedorn’s Lettre a un amateur , a register of
academies of about 1820 in Joh. Dom. Fiorillo’s Geschichte der
zeichnenden Kiinste, vol. 4, p. 190 seq.
COUNTRIES:

Belgium: A. Pinchart, “Recherches sur l’histoire et les medailles

des
Academies et des Ecoles de Dessin . . . en Belgique ”, Revue de Numismatique
Beige , vol. 4, 1848.
France: L. Courajod, Legons professees a Vlicole du Louvre, vol. 3, Paris, 1903;
J. Locquin, La Peinture d’Histoire en France de 1747 a 1785, Paris, 1912.
H olland: R. v. Eijnden and A. v. d. Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche
Schilderkunst, vol. 3, Harlem, 1820.
Italy: Enciclopedia Italiana, vol. 1, 1929.

CITIES:
AMiENs:P.de Chennevieres, Recherches sur la vie de quelques peintres provinciaux ...,
Paris, 1847 seqq., vol. 2, p. 52.
Amsterdam: J. Wagenaar, Beschrijving van Amsterdam, vol. 8, Amsterdam,
1 7(355 p. 770 seq.; J. O. Huslij, Redevoering over de Lotgefallen van de
Akademie der Teekenkunst te Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1 768.
Antwerp: J. B. v. d. Straelen, Jaerboek der...Gilde van Sint Lucas bimen de
Stad Antwerpen, Antwerp, 1855; Reorganisation de V Acad. Roy. des B.-A.
d’ Anvers, Brussels, 1855; F. J. v. d. Branden, Geschiedenis der Academie van
Antwerpen, in Kermisfeesten, Antwerp, 1864.
PA
305
20
 APPENDIX II

Augsburg: E. Welisch, Augsburger Maler im 18. Jh., Augsburg, 1901.

Bayreuth: F. H. Hofmann, D. Kst. am Hofe der Markgr. v. Brandenbg.,

Strassburg, 1901.

Berlin: H. Muller, D. Kgl. Ak. d. Kste. zu Berlin, 1, 1696-1790, Berlin, 1896;

Seeger, in fur fub elfeier. Kgl. Ak. Hochsch. f. d. bild. Kste. zu Berlin, Berlin,
1896.

Besanqon: A. Gastan, in Mem. de la Soc. d’lZmulation duDoubs, 6 ser. vol. 3,

1888.
Bologna: G. P. Zanotti, Storia delV Acc. Clementina, Bologna, 1739;

A. Gatti, Notizie Storiche intorno alia R. Acc. di B.A. in Bologna, Bologna,

1896.
Bordeaux: Meusels Miscellaneen, vol. 15; P. de Chennevieres, Recherches

sur la vie de quelques peintres provinciaux . . ., Paris, 1847 seqq., vol. 2,

p. 1 1 seq.
Bruges: D. vande Casteele, in Societe d’ Emulation, Bruges, 1867; A. Pinchart,
in Revue de Numismatique Beige, vol. 4, 1848.

Brussels: A. Pinchart, “Recherches sur l’histoire et les medailles des

Academies et des ficoles de Dessin.. .en Belgique”, Revue de Numismatique

Beige, vol. 4, 1848.
Carrara: E. Lazzoni, Carrara e la sua Acc. di B. Arti, Pisa, 1869.

Cassel: H. Knackfuss, Gesch. d. Kgl. K. Ak. zu Kassel, Cassel, 1908.

Copenhagen: F. Meldahl and P. Johansen, Det Kong. Akad. de Skonne

Kunster, 1700-1904, Copenhagen, 1904; Charlottenborg, Historie-

Opmaaling, Copenhagen, 1933.
Dessau: W. Hosaus, “F. W. v. ErdmannsdorfFs Gedanken iiber eine allgem.

vorbereit. Unterr.-Anst....”, Mitt. d. Ver. f. Anhalt. Gesch. u. Altert.-

kde., vol. 5, 1890.
Dijon: J. Gamier, Notice sur V Ecole Nat. des B. Arts de Dijon, Dijon, 1881;
P. de Chennevieres, Recherches sur la vie de quelques peintres provinciaux ... ,
Paris, 1847 seqq., vol. 2, p. 48 seq.
Dresden: M. Wiessner, D. Ak. d. bild. Kste. zu Dresden, Dresden, 1864;

H. A. Fritzsche, Kursachs. Kunstpadagogik. In Festschrift fur Paul Frankl

(Typescript), 1928.
Dublin: W. G. Strickland, Dictionary of Irish Artists, vol. 2, Dublin and

London, 1913.
Dusseldorf: Librum Academiae Electoralis . . . ab Anno 1774 (Manuscript kept

at the academy) ; R. Klapbeck, Gesch. d. Kgl. K. Akad. zu Diiss. 1, 1 769-

1805, Dusseldorf, 1919; R. Wiegmann, D. Kgl. K.' Ak. zu Dusseldorf,
Dusseldorf, 1856; K. Strauven, Vber kstl. Leben und Wirken in Dusseldorf,
Dusseldorf, 1862; L. Bund, Die Semis aecularfeier d. Kgl. K. Ak. zu Diissel-
dorf Dusseldorf, 1870; K. Woermann, fur Gesch. d. Dusseldorf er K. Ak.,
Dusseldorf, 1880.

306
 APPENDIX II

Edinburgh: W. D. McKay, in F. Rinder, The Royal Scottish Academy,

1826-1916, Glasgow, 1917.
Ferrara: Leggi delV Accademia della Pittura, Scoltura, Architettura detta del

Disegno, Ferrara, 1739; Codice Faustini (Manuscript kept at the Biblioteca

Pubblica at Ferrara, Coll. Antonelli, Nr. 362).
Florence: J. Cavallucci, Notizie Storiche intorno alia R. Accademia delle Arti

del Disegno in Firenze, Florence, 1873.

Frankfurt: K. F. Stark, Das Staedelsche Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt a. M.,

Frankfurt, 1819; Stif tungs brief ... , Frankfurt, 1817; F. Zwirner, Kunst und
Kiinstler in Frankfurt, Frankfurt, 1862, p. 332.
Gand: Historic en Inrichting d. Kon. Ak. van Teeken-, Schilder- en Bouwkunden,
Ghent, 1794.
Genoa: M. Staglieno, Memorie e Documenti sulla Acc. Ligustica di B. Arti,

Genoa, 1862; F. Alizeri, Notizie dei Professori del Disegno in Liguria...,

Genoa, 1864-6 and 1870-80.
Glasgow: Glasgow Evening Times, 17 February 1927.

The Hague: J. van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburgh, vol. 2, The Hague, 1751,

p. 505 seq. ; J. Gram, De Schildersconfrerie Pictura en here Academie.. . 1682-

1882, Rotterdam, 1882; J. H. Plantenga, De Academie van ’s-Gravenhage
en haar plaats in de Kunst van ons land, 1682-1937, The Hague, 1938.
Halle: C. F. Prange, Entwicklung einer Akad. d. bild. Kiinste, Halle, 1778;

C. F. Prange, Von d. Nothwendigkeit einer bjfentlichen feichenschule, Halle,

I783-5-
Hanau: Stif tungs brief und Gesetze der Hanauischen feichnungs-Ak. , Hanau, 1774.
Karlsruhe: A. v. Ochelhauser, Gesch. d. Grosshzgl. Bad. Ak. d. bild. Kste.,

Karlsruhe, 1904; G. Kircher, Vedute und Idealldschft. in Baden u. d. Schweiz,

Heidelberg, 1928, p. 25 seq.
Konigsberg: U. Baltzer, in Konigsberger Beitrage, Konigsberg, 1929.

Leipzig: L. Nieper, in D. Kgl. K. Ak. u. Kunstgew. Sch. in Leipzig, Leipzig,

1881 and in Festschrift u. Amt. Ber. Die Kgl. K. Ak. und Kunstgew. Schule in
Leipzig, Leipzig, 1890.
Leningrad: J. Hasselblatt, Hist. Vberblick d. Entw. d. Kais. Russ. Ak. d.
Kste. in St Petersburg, St Petersburg and Leipzig, 1886.
Lille: Quarre Raybourbon, Comptes Rendus des Reunions des Societes des Beaux

Arts des Departements , 1895, p. 253.

London: W. Sandby, The History of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1862;

J. E. Hodgson and J. A. Eaton, The Royal Academy and its Members,

1768-1830, London, 1905; G. D. Leslie, The Inner Life of the Royal
Academy, London, 1914; E. K. Chambers, in Report of the Departmental
Committee on the Royal College of Art, London, 191 1 ; The Slade, 1893-1907,
London, 1907.
Lucca: E. Ridolfi, Relazione Storica sul R. Istituto di B. Arti in Lucca, Lucca,

1872.

307
20-2
 APPENDIX II

Lyons: P. de Chennevieres, Recherches sur la vie de quelques peintres provinciaux . . .,

Paris, 1847 seqq., vol. 2, p. 38; E. Parrocel, Annales de la peinture, Paris,
1889-90, p. 88; L. Charvel, Comptes Rendus des Reunions des Societes des
Beaux Arts des Departements, 1878, 1903-5.
Madrid: J- Caveda, Rlemorias para la Historia de la Real Academia de San
Fernando , Madrid, 1867.
Mainz: Meusels Miscellaneen, vol. 25, p. 235 seq.
Mannheim; J. A. Beringer, Gesch. d. Mannh. fchngs-Ak. Diss. Heidelbg.,
Strassburg, 1902.
Mantua: F. Tonnelli, Compendio storico letterario intorno alia R. Mantovana

Accademia, Verona, 1801, pp. 41-88; C. D’ Arco, Notizie delle Accademie,

dei Giornali e delle Tipografie che furono a Mantova dal sec. XIV al presente
(Manuscript kept at the Arch. Gonzaga).
Marseilles: E. Parrocel, Annales de la peinture, Paris, 1889-90, pp. 390 seqq.
Mexico: Estatutos de la R. Acad, de S. Carlos de Nueva Espaha, Mexico, 1785.
Milan: A. Caimi, V Acc. di B. Arti in Milano, Milan, 1873.
Modena: F. Asioli, Relazione sulla R. Acc. di B. Arti in Modena, Modena,
1873.

Munich: E. v. Stieler, D. Kgl. Ak. d. bild. Kste. zu Munchen, 1808-1858,

Munich, igo8.
N anc y : P. de Chennevieres, Recherches sur la vie de quelques peintres provinciaux ...,
Paris, 1847 seqq., vol. 3, p. 51.

Naples: A. Borzelli, “L’ Acc. del Disegno a Napoli...”, in Napoli Nobilis-

sima, vols. 9, 10, 1 900-1 ; L. Iaricci, in Annuario della R. Acc. di B. Arti in
Napoli, 1926-7.
Paris: A. de Montaiglon, Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de VAc. Roy., Paris,

*853; L. Vitet, L' Ac. Roy. de Peint. et de Sculpt., Paris, 2nd edition, 1870;
L. Courajod, Histoire de Vftcole des Beaux- Arts au xvme siecle (L’Ecole Roy.
des Sieves Proteges), Paris, 1874; H. Delaborde, L’Ac. des Beaux- Arts,
Paris, 1891; E. Muntz, Guide de I’Rcole des Beaux- Arts, Paris, s.d.;
L. Aucoc, L Institut de France, Paris, 1889; J. Guiffrey, 4tFIistoire de
1 Acad, de St Luc”, in Archives de V Art Frangais, Nouv. Per. vol. 9,
Paris,
I9I5i also: Proces-Verbaux de V Acad. Roy. de Peint. et de Sculpt., 10 volumes,
Paris, 1875-92; H. Jouin, Conferences de V Acad. Roy. de Peint. et de Sculpt.,
Paris, 1883; A. Fontaine, Conferences Inedites..., Paris, s.d.; M. Guerin,
Description de VAcad. Roy. des Arts..., Paris, 1715.
Parma: L. Hautecoeur, “L’Acad. de Parme et ses Concours”, Gaz. d. B.
Arts, 4 1 er., vol. 4* I91*-*; H. Bedarida, Parme et la France, Paris, 1928;
P. Martini, La R. Acc. Parmense di B. Arti, Parma, 1873;
Costituzioni della
R. Acc. di Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura, Parma, 1 760.
Perugia: G. Calderini, Ipregi ed i guai dell ’ Acc. di B. Arti in Perugia, Perugia,
1885; Z. Montesperelli, Brevi cenni storici sulla Acc. di B. Arti di Perugia,
Perugia, 1899.

308
 APPENDIX II

Philadelphia: J. A. Myers, The History of the Pennsylvania Academy of the

Fine Arts (Typescript, kindly sent to the author by Mr Myers).
Prague: Almanach Akademie Vytvarnych Umeni v Praze, Prague, 1926.
Reims : P. de Chennevieres, Recherches sur la vie de quelques peintres provinciaux . . .,

Paris, 1847 seqq., vol. 2, p. 62 seq. ; L. Paris, L’Tcole de Reims et le Musee,

Reims, 1849.
Rome: M. Missirini, Memorie per servire alia storia della Romana Acc. di S. Luca
fino alia morte di A. Canova, Rome, 1823.
Rouen: Charlet de Beaurepaire, Recherches sur V instruction publique dans le

diocese de Rouen avant 1789, Evreux, 1872; J. Girardin, Precis analytique des
Travaux de V Academie Royale des Sciences , Belles-Lettres et Arts de Rouen, 1841.
Stockholm: L. Loostrom, Den Svenska Konstakademien, Stockholm, 1887;
C. R. Nyblom, Minneskrift vid Hundrafemtioarsfesten i Kgl. Ak. for de fria
Konsterna, Upsala, 1885.
Stuttgart: H. Wagner, Gesch. d. Hohen Carlsschule, Wurzburg, 1856-7;
Herzog Karl Eugen und seine feit, Stuttgart, vol. 1 , pp. 715 seqq. (B. Pfeiffer) .
Toulouse: H. Omont, “Documents relatifs a l’Academie de Peinture de

Toulouse”, in Annales du Midi, vol. 4, 1892.

Tours: C. L. Grandmaison, “Documents inedits pour servir a l’histoire des
arts en Touraine”, Memoires de la Societe Archeologique de Touraine, vol. 20,
1870, pp. 107-12.
Troyes: T. Boutiot, Histoire de V instruction publique a Troyes, 1868.

Turin: Regolamenti della R. Acc. di Pittura e Scultura di Torino, Turin, 1 778 ;

C. F. Biscarro, Relazione Stor. intorno alia R. Acc. Albertina di B. Arti in

Torino, Turin, 1873; L. C. Bollea, Gli Storici dell’ Acc. Albertina, Turin, 1930.
Utrecht: Redevoering bij de Inwijding der nieuwe Teekenzaal te Utrecht, Utrecht,

1778; S. Muller, De Utrechtsche Archieven, 1. Schilders Vereenigingen, Utrecht,

1882; S. Muller, in Oud Holland, vol. 22, 1904.
Venice: A. Dali’ Acqua Giusti, U Acc. di Venezia, Venice, 1873; G. Fogolari,
in VArte, vol. 16, 1913.
Verona: Capitoli delV Acc. della Pittura, Verona, 1766; (G. Pompei),
Orazione in morte di G. B. Cignaroli, Verona, 1 77 1 *
Vienna: G. von Liitzow, Gesch. d. K. K. Ak. d. bild. Kste., Vienna, 1877;

M. Dreger, in Die K. K. Ak. d. bild. Kste. in Wien i. d. Jahren 1892-1917,

Vienna, 1917.

Weimar: F. J. Bertuch, “Beschr. d. hzgl. freyen Zeichensch. in Weimar”,

Monatsschr. d. Ak. d. Kste. u. Meehan. Wiss. zu Berlin, vol. 2, 1789;
F. Pischel,ffwj Weimars Gesch., Weimar, 1926, pp. 60 seqq. ; E. Freih. Schenk
v. Schweinsberg, G. M. Kraus, Schriften d. Goethe-Ges., vol. 43, Weimar, 1 930.
Zurich: U. Ernst, Die Kunstschule in ZUrich I773~l8 33> Beilage zum

Programm der Ziircher Cantonsschule, 1900.

Zweibrucken: L. Molitor, Geschichte einer deutschen Fiirstenstadt, Zwei-
20-3
briicken, 1885, p. 445.

309
 INDEX
(Figures in italics indicate the chief mention )
Abilgaard, 194 Augustus the Strong, 118
Accaiuoli, 4 Auliczek, 122
Acireale, 9 Auwera, 122
Adam, F. G., 123 Bacchiacca, 44
Adam, R., 144
Bachelier, 162, 289
Agostino Veneziano, 39, 40, 41
Ahlefeld, 156 Bacon, Francis, 20
Aix, 142 Bacon, Roger, 20
Albani, 73, 77, 188 Baes, 128
Bai'fione
Bagl , 17, 57, 72, 74
Albert (Prince), 248, 251, 255
Alberti Cher., 61 Balbek, 143
Alberti, L. B., 4
Alberti, P. F., 74 Baldi, 74 bis
Alberti (Rom.), 61, 62, 77 Baldinucci, 13 1
Aldrovandi, 76 Baldrighi, 166
Alexander the Great, 84 Bandinelli, 39-42, 55, 62, 74, 77, 82
Alfani, 55 Barberini, 73, 74, 78

Alfonso (of Naples), 3 Barcelona, 142, 158

Barocci, 58
Algardi, 66
Algarotti, 145 Bartholdy, 208, 215
Altenstein, 208 Bartning, O., 280-1
Bart olom
Alvin, 257 Bassan o, meo,
94 Fra, 53
Amersdorffer, 282, 285 bis
Bate,
Batoni,19279
Amiens, 142, 305
Ammanati, 44 bis, 53
Batteux, 146
Amsterdam, 116, 129, 130, 131, 136, 143,
Bayonne, 142
305
Ancona, 10 Bayreuth, 141, 165, 307
Anshelm, 5 Beauvais, 142
Beccafumi, 53
Antolini, 222
Becker, 15 1
Antwerp, 126-8, 129, 131, 132, 140, 143,
177, 220, 241, 305 Behrens, 266, 267, 268, 270, 275, 276,
Aretino, Leone, Bell,
39 277,124282, 283 bis
Bellini,
Aretino, Pietro, 94
32, 39
Argenson, 90, 106
Argyropulos, 1, 4 Bellori, 90, 93, 95, hi, 188
Ariosto, 32 Bendemann, 218, 219, 222
Aristotle, 4, 5 Benedict XIV, 10, 112, 141
Armenini, 93 Benefial, 112, 113, 151, 209
Benvenuti,
Bergler, 79 170
Arras, 142
Ashbee, 261, 264-5, 265, 271, 287
Assereto, 72 Bergmuller, 1 17
Ath, 143 Berlin, 21-2, 117, 118-21, 123, 140, 141,
Athens, 1, 84, 143 i5L i53> l6l> i64> 166 bis, 167, 169,
Augsburg, 1 16, 117-18, 131, 140, 141, 170, 1 71, 174.hu, 175-6, 177, 179, 192,
148, 154, 212, 229, 306 !94, 195, 196, 200, 208 bis, 210, 211,
 INDEX

Berlin (cont .) Breslau, 167, 267, 270, 275, 285

Breuer, M., 279
215, 217, 218, 219, 229, 230, 231, 232, Briggs, 259
233) 241, 244, 245, 256, 258, 267, 270, Brno, 258
273, 274, 275, 276, 281, 281-6, 287,
288, 306 Bronzino, 7, 12, 44 bis, 53
Brouwer, 127
Bernini, 70, 73, 75, hi, 156
Bertoldo, 38, 39, 47 Brown, F. M., 232, 262
Bertuch, 164 Brown, F. R., 227, 239
Besangon, 142, 307 Bruegel, 7, 12 bis
Bessarion, 2, 4 Bruges, 22, 129, 140, 241, 306
Betzkoi, 181 Brunswick, 160
Beukelaer, 12 Brussels, 23, 129, 140, 143, 241, 271, 274,
Bevilacqua, 28 Bugiardini, 44
Bexley Heath, 262
Buonconti, 78
Beyerlingk, 7
Biffi, 70 Burckhardt, 219
Biirkel, 222
Bigari, 115 Burlington,
Biondo, 32 145
306
Bird, 124 Burn e Jone s, 261, 262 bis
Burrini, 1 15
Birmingham, 241, 265, 291, 292
Burslem, 292
Blanchet, 102 Biittner, 229
Blechen, 232, 233
Blondel, 90
Cadioli, 141
Bocklin, 238
Cadiz, 142
Bode, 274, 275, 284 Caffieri, 243
Calas, 144
Bodmer, 75, 78, 79
Boileau, 93
Calvaert, 78
Boisseree, 207
Cambiaso, 74 bis, 75
Boit, 107
Cammarano, 239
Bologna, 8, 10, 11 bis, 12 bis, 13, 20 bis,
Cammuccini, 170, 22 1 bis, 222
57) 68-9, 71, 73, 74 bis, 75, 75-9, 1 14-15, Canuti, 77
140, 231, 289, 306 Canova, no, 221 bis, 222
Bolognini, 73
Bolton, Edmund, 15 Cappelle, Van de, 135
Boltraffio, 28, 37 Caravaggio, 70, 137, 193
Caretto, 28
Bonington, 232, 235
Bordeaux, 102, 307 Carlyle, 260
Borghini, Raffaele, 45 Carmagnola, 10
Borghini, Vincenzo, 45, 47 Carracci, 69, 70, 75, 75-9, 94, 95, 172,
Borromeo, Charles, 10 193, 231
Borromeo, Federigo, 59, 70 Carrara, 142, 157, 306
Carriera, 107
Borsieri, 28, 29
Borzone, 72
Carstens, 192, 193-7, i99> 200, 201,
Bosse, 90 203 bis, 204, 206, 207, 227
Bottari, 68 Carvajal y Fancaster, 166
Casanova, 151
Bottschild, 1 18
Boucher, 105, 216 Cassel, 141, 151, 156, 166, 168, 193, 219,
Boulle, 243
233. 285, 306
Castrovillari, 8
Bracciolini, Poggio, 2, 4
Cataldi,
Catena, 5948, 50, 78
Bramante, 28
Brangwyn, 287 Cattaneo, 49
Brescia, 20

312
 INDEX

Caxton, 2 Copernicus, 22
Gaylus, go, 108, 143 Corio, 27-817, 93
Corneille,
Cellini, 7, 32, 54
Celtis, 5 Cornelisz, Corn., 81
Cerano, 70 Cornelius, 170, 207-9, 210, 21 1, 213-15,
Cesari, 56, 61, 74 217, 218, 221 bis, 222 bis, 226, 227,
232, 233
Cesi, 18, 19, 74, hi
Corot, 224, 232
Cezanne, 226, 239, 273 Correggio, 3
Chantelou, 73
Chardin, 108 Correggi
Corsi, 6o, Antonio, 53, 58, 94, 188
Charles I (of England), 16, 124
Charles II (of England), 20 Cortona, 10
Corvi,
Charles III (of Naples), 10, 157 Cortona,79 Pietro da, 66, 94, 1 1 1
Charles V (Emperor), 32
Charles VI (Emperor), 165 Cosenza,
Cossa, 36 11, 18
Charmois, 83-6 Costa, 36
Charron, 125 Cotte, 90
Chartres, 136
Chatellerault, 142 Courajod, 163
Courbet, 232
Chicago, 271
Courtrai, 129, 143
Chipping Campden, 265 Coustou, 96
Christ, 145
Christian VI (of Denmark), 156 Couture, 226
Christina (of Sweden), 8, 9 Coypel, A., 96, 105, 107
Cicero, 2 Coypel,
Coy sevox,N.,24396, 100
Cicognara, 237
Crane, 291
Cignani, 115
Crefeld, 258
Cignaroli, 142
Cipriani, 125 Cremona, 1 o, 1 1
Clausen, 231, 239 Crescenzi, 74 ter
Clement VII, 41 Crespi, G. M., 1 15
Creti,
Crinito,1 155
Clement VIII, 63
Clement XI, 111, 114
Coates, 184 Crome, 226, 232, 233, 234
Cockerell, 222 bis Da Como, 59
Coigniet, 226
Dahl, M., 124
Colbert, 17, 20, 24, 87-9, 91, 92, 93, 96,
97> 99> IOI> !02, 103, 104, 108, 109, Danckelmann, 120
Dandridge, 124
H9> H2, 158, 159, 163, 170, 1 71, 225,
Dannecker 15 1, 170
228, 243, 244, 249, 294 Dante, 8, ,9, 14
Cole, 255, 256 Danti, E., 55
Cologne, 256, 276, 286 Danti, V., 55
Comenius, 160 Danzig, 167
Comodi, 72
Condivi, 33 Darmstadt, 270, 277
Daubigny, 232
Conegliano, 1 1
Constable, 226, 232, 233, 234 bis Daumier, 222
Conte, 44, 56 David, J. L., 192-3, 197-9, 200, 201, 213,
Copenhagen, 118, 141 bis, 150 bis, 155-6, 215-16, 226
David, Lodovico, 58, 59
165, 166 bis, 167, 169 bis, 170, 1 7 1, Dawson, 292
174, 179, 180, 193, 196, 203, 220, 221,
229, 232, 306 Day, L. F., 271

313
 INDEX
Edwards, 223
D’Azeglio, 203, 237
Degas, 273 Egmont, J. van, 83
Eitelberger, 257
Delacroix, 226, 232
Elberfeld, 258
Delaroche, 226, 232
Elckerlyc, 292
Della Torre, 27
Del Monte, 9 Elizabeth (Queen), 16
Del Nero, 15 Erasmus, 6, 22
Del Sole, 1 15 Erdmannsdorff, 155
Erfurt, 1 41, 167
De Maria, 74 bis, 1 15
Denuce, 129 Ernst Ludwig (of Hessen), 266, 270
Descamps, 163 Errard, 66, 99, 102, no, hi
Descartes, 17, 20, 23, 95 Errera,
Escurial, 25, 26
49
Dessau, 151, 280-1, 286, 306
Desubleo, 73 Etty, Isabella,
Este, 234 3, 28
Dettmann, 275
Evelyn, 124
Diderot, 147, 192
Dieckmann, 279 Faberio, 76, 77
Dijon, 142, 163, 306 Fabri, 72
Dilke, 255 Faccini, 74, 77
Dillis, 212 Facius, 31
Domenichino, Faenza, 9
74, 78, 94
Dorfmeister, 122
Falcone, 74 bis
Doria, 72 bis, 74 Falconieri, 74, 79
Dorigny, 124 Farnese, 76
Douai, 142 Fattori, 239
Doudijns, 130
Dresden, 118, 120, 121, 140, 14 1, 145, Fedoroff-Dawydoff, 293
Fehling, 118
147, 150, 151, 153, 166, 167, 169, 174, Feininger, 279
180, 201, 202, 219, 233, 241, 306
Dresdner, 73, 81 Felbiger, 161
Dresser, 255 Felibien, 92, 93, 95, 96
Drey, 275 Ferrand de Monthelon, 162
Dublin, 143, 152, 156, 306 Ferrara, 9, 10, 36, 140, 307
Dubuisson, 123 Ferrata, no
Duccio, 136 Ferri, 1 10
Ferstel, 222
Dufresnoy, 93, 96
Feuerbach, 226, 239
Dulwich, 232
Diirer, 26, 94, 148, 224 Ficino, 1-3, 4, 5, 6, 38
Fiorillo, 306
Dury, 151
Flaxman, 147, 148
Diisseldorf, 78, 141, 15 1, 158, 168, 174,
Flinck, 131
190, 191, 207, 209, 209-10 , 210, 21 1,
213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 219, 227, 228, Florence, 1-2, 9, 10, n ter, 12 bis, 13,
230, 232, 234, 241, 267, 268, 275, 306 14-15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 29, 38, 41, 42,
Duval, 130 42-55, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 67, 68, 77,
Dvorak, 7
78, 79, 80, 83, 85 j 91, 108, 109, 109-10,
Dyce, 248, 275 131, 140, 141, 142, 158, 220, 229, 239,
Van Dyck, 127, 128 289 bis, 294, 297-303, 307
Fohr, 212
Eastlake, 222 Fontaine, 106, 170
Fontana, P., 50
Eckersberg, 232
Eckmann, 266 Forlimpopoli, 8
Formantel, 128
Edinburgh, 140, 142, 157, 247, 292, 307

314
 INDEX
Ghirlandajo, M., 44
Forsyth, 292
Ghislieri, 73 bis, 74, 78
Fragonard, 98, 108, 198
Franceschini, 115 Giampietro, 28
Gibbs, 124
Franciabigio, 53
Francis I (of France), 32, 82 Giedion, 188
Francke, 161 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 16
Giordano, P., 74, 75
Frankfort (Main), 115, 141, 158, 207, Giorgione, 12, 94
219, 307
Giotto, 136, 224
Frankfort (Oder), 167, 280
Freart de Chambray, 93, 94 Girodet-Trioson, 201
Giulio Romano, 94
Frederick I (of Prussia), 21, 1 1 9, 120, 165
Frederick II the Great (of Prussia), 22, Glasgow, 142, 156, 292, 307
123, 144, 153, 160, 191 Gluck, 144
Gleyre, 226
Frederick III (Emperor), 3 Gnoli, 69
Frederick William I (of Prussia), 120,
121, 161 Goethe, 122, 145, 146, 149, 151, 157,
Freminet, 84 164, 168, 170, 190, 191, 192, 202, 209,
Frey, K., 50 212, 228, 233, 240, 245
Gogh, Van, 273
Friedrich, C. D., 202, 204 bis, 205 bis, 223
Froebel, 266 Goldsmith, 170
Goltzius, 81
Fry, R., 238 Gorres, 207
Fiiger, 151, 164, 206 Gossembrot, 5
Fvihrich, 220
Fuseli, 149, 150, 195, 221 Gotha, 1 41, 160
Gottingen, 23
Fiissli, J. K., 15 1 Goujon, 7
Fiissli v. Fuseli
Fyt, 127 Goyen, Van, 135
Graat, 1 31, 231
Graff, 148
Gabriel, 90 Granacei, 44
Gaguin, 6
Gainsborough, 184, 192 Gravina, 188
Greco, 7 15
Grazzini,
Galileo, 19, 23, no
Galliani, 29
Galli Bibbiena, 1 15 Gregory XIII, 57, 59, 60
Gambara, 3 Gregory XV, 64
Grenoble, 142
Gand, 129, 143, 241, 307
Greuze, 198
Gartner, 170, 219
Gasquet, 239 Grimm, H., 236
Gassendi, 20 Grimm, M. de, 145
Gauguin, 273 Grimm, W., 236
Griscavallo, 145
Gedeler, 1 16
Gronau, 284
Gelli, 14
Genelli, 174 Gropius, W., 276-81, 283
Geneva, 143, 157, 159 Gros, 215-16, 226
Guercino, 72, 73, 74 bis, 77, 94
Genova, 67-8, 72, 75, 114, 131, 141, 150, Guhl, 236
232, 241, 307
Guiard, 151
Gentile, G., 289
Gentile, L., 66 Guibal, 147, 150, 15 1
George III, 185, 186 Guidi, A., 188
Gerard, 170 Guidi, D., 102
Gerbier, 15, 124 Guillet de St Georges, 105
Gerson, 135 Gunther, J., 122

3*5
 INDEX

Gunther, M., 1 17 Hume, J., 238

Hackaert, 202 Hunt, Holman, 220
Hutchinson,
Hutin, 153 292
Hagedorn, 145, 150, 152, 167, 305
Hagenau, 5
Hagenauer, 122
Hague (The), 120, 129-30, 140, 143, 148, Ingolstadt, 6
156, 166 bis, 256, 307 Ingres, 226
Isabey, 170
Halberstadt, 167
Itten, 278
Halifax, 125
Halle, 1 19, 141, 1 6 1 , 167, 286, 307
Halley, 20 James I, 15
Jarkius, 7
Hamann, 190, 19 1
Hambleden, 292
Jena, 21 1, 280
Hamburg, 256, 270, 275 John, A., 287
Hamilton, 157 Johnson, Dr, 170
Hanau, 141, 157, 167, 177, 307 Jones, O., 253-5, 262
Hanneman, 129 Jonson, Ben, 15
Hardouin-Mansart, 104, 105 Jordaens, 127
Harlem, 23, 80-2, 1 1 5 Joseph I, 120
Haussmann, 251 Jowett, 292
Hay, A., 292 Julian, 226
Haydon, 235, 238, 257, 258 Julius II, 32
Hayman, 125
Jungius, 21
Hecker, 161
Kalkschmidt, 275
Heidelberg, 6 Kambo, 56
Heinitz, 154, 194-7, 200> 2I7> 242 Kandinsky, 279
Heinse, 190, 191, 203 ter, 205
Henry IV (of France), 83, 87, 243 Kant, 144, 147, 148
Herculaneum, 10, 143, 144 Karlsruhe, 141, 151, 157, 177, 220, 227,
Herder, 170, 190, 191
Herz, 1 18 ^ 229, 234, 241,
Kauffmann, 256, 286, 307
A., 188
Hess, 214, 222 ter Kaulbach, 221, 222
Heyne, 212 Kaunitz, 152, 153, 164, 166, 167, 168, 233
Highmore, 125 Keats, 240, 260
Kent, 125
Hildebrandt, 218
Kepler, 23
Hind, 25
Kettle, 184
Hirschmann, 81
Hirt, 21 1, 212, 233 Keynes, 124
Keyssler, 177
Hittorf, 222
Kimon,
Klee, 2791
Hobbema, 135
Hobbes, 160
Hoffmann, J., 267, 270 Kleist, 205 bis
Hogarth, 124, 125, 231 Klenze, 170, 221 bis, 222
Klopstock, 193
Holbein, 94, 244
Holden, 292 Kluge, 282, 283 bis
Kneller, 124, 125
Holmes, K., 292
Honthorst, 116, 1 1 7 Kobell, 222
Hoogstraaten, 130 Koch, J. A., 183, 200, 207, 240
Hotzendorf, 153 Konigsberg, 6, 167, 241, 275, 285, 307
Koninck, J., 135, 155
Hiibner, 218, 219
Hudson, 184 Kraft, 222

Humboldt, Krahe, 15 1, 209

164, 21 1, 212, 233, 240, 245

316
 INDEX
Le Roi, 144
Kriegbaum, 46 Leslie, 237
Kristeller, 25, 30
Krojer, 220 Lessing, G. E., 144, 146, 222, 233
Krubsacius, 145 Lessing, K. F., 218, 220, 222
Lesueur, B., 123
Kiigelgen, 201 Lesueur, E., 94
Kugler, 219, 226, 230, 241 Lethaby, 265
Kuppelwieser, 220 Leto, 2, 3, 5

Lichtwark, 266, 270

Laborde, 227, 249-30, 251, 252 bis, 253, Liebermann, 239, 284
258
L’Abruzzi, Li6ge, 143, 241
79 Ligorio, 56
Laguerre, 124
Lairesse, 130, 13 1 Ligozzi, 58
Lana, 72 Lille, 142, 308
Landi, 78 Lippi,
Lis bon, Filippino,
23 53
Landini, 61
Landino, 4 Liviano, 3, 26
Llewelyn, 287
Landseer, 222
Lanfranco, 78 Lomazzo,
Locke, 1 61 93
Langer, 211, 212, 213, 214, 217, 227, 232
Langres, 142 London, 20, 31, 124-6, 142, 148, 158,
Lanzoni, 77
166, 169, 170, 177 bis, 180, 183-7, 187,
Larcheveque, 156, 166 220-1, 227, 230, 231 bis, 232, 234,
Largilliere, 121 235, 238, 241, 246-9, 251, 255-6, 262,
Laroon, 124 263, 264, 265 bis, 267, 273, 275, 287,
Larousse, 287 288, 290-2, 307
Lasca, 15 Longhi, 170
La Teuliere, 104 Longhi, O., 56, 61
Laugier, 145 Loo, Van, 96, 123, 166, 179
Loos, 271
Laureti, 61 Loredano, 9
La very, 287
Laves, 222 Louis XIV, 17, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89,
199
Lawrence, 170, 234 9L 98, 99) 100, 104, 1 1 1, 1 14, 1 19, 132,
Lear, 237
i33> 134) 137) I48, l66, 186, 222, 240
Louis XV, 101, 114, 133, 134, 178
Lebrun, 83-7, 91, 93, 94 bis, 95, 96, 99,
102, 103, 107, 108, 109, hi, 124, 132, Louis XVI, 101, 156, 158, 178, 179, 198,
i7L *73) 188, 243
Lecce, 20 Louis XVIII, 21
Le Corbusier, 239 Louvain, 241
Louvois, 97, 103
Legros, 113
Lubeck, 22
Leibniz, 7, 21, 23, 119
Leicester, 291, 292 Lucca, 72, 140, 141, 307
Ludwig, G., 59
Leiden, 23
Leipzig, 6, 122, 141, 145, 151, 153, 167, Ludwig (of Anhalt), 16
180, 275, 307 Ludwig I (of Bavaria), 208, 214, 219
Lund, 232
Le Lorrain, 166 Luti, 74
Le Mans, 142 Luther, 160
Leningrad, v. St Petersburg
Leo X, 32, 41 Lyons, 102, 142, 153, 309

Leonardo da Vinci, 12, 22, 23-37, 38, 39>

Macchiavelli, 22
41, 42, 53, 60, 66, 68, 81, 84, 92, 94,
Mackmurdo, 264
137, 148, 173

317
 INDEX

Macon, 142 Mengs, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 15 1,

McPherson, 190, 193 164, 174,
Menzel, 232 188, 193, 213
McSwiney, 124
Messerschmidt, 122, 153
Madrid, 23, 141, 158, 165, 166 ter, 167,
Mexico, 143, 308
174, 187, 232, 233, 308
Maffei, Scipione, 10 Meyer, Hannes, 281
Magdeburg, 167 Meyer, Heinrich, 149, 150, 15 1, 164
Meyer, R., 275
Mainz, 141, 157, 167, 308
Malaguzzi, Valeri, 27 Michelangelo, 32-4, 35, 36, 38, 39, 45,
Malines, 129, 143, 241
46, 49) 53) 54) 55) 56, 66, 68, 84, 94,
Malvasia, 57, 69, 72, 73 bis, 74, 75-7, I31) burg,
Middel 143 236
137) 172,
79
Manchester, 238, 292 Mies van der Rohe, 281
Mancini, 72 Mignard, 88, 103
Mander, 80-2, 1 1 5 Milan, 10, 26-9, 37, 38, 69-70, 72, 142,
Manet, 226, 235
232, 241, 289, 308
Milton, 7, 160, 193
Mannheim, 14 1, 165, 201, 309
Missirini, 63, 79, in, 177
Mannlich, 106, 201, 210, 212 Mitelli, 1 15
Mantegna, 36
Mantua, 3, 9, 28, 141, 308 Modena, 10, 72, 140, 142, 232, 241, 308
Moh
Molloly -Na
, 15 3 gy, 279
Manutius, Aldus, 3, 5, 10, 12, 45
Marcolini, 39
Marees, 238 Moller, 222
Mariette, 90 Momper, 12
Mon
Monset, 226, 235
Marigny, 178 , 14 3
Marino, 72
Maron, 15 1, 168 Montaigne,
Mon talto, 69160
Marriott, 287 Montelupo, 44
Marseilles, 142, 309
Martelli, 35 Montorsoli, 44 bis, 56
Martorelli, 5, 6 Montpellier, 142
Monzasco, 28
Marx, K., 260
Matthai, 170 Morghen, 170
Maximilian, 26 Morland, 202
Mazarin, 85, 87 Morris, 238, 251, 252, 259-64, 265, 267,
Mazenta, 29 270, 271, 272, 277 bis, 290, 295
Meder, 41 Morton, W., 292
Moser, K., 267
Medici, Aless., 1 10
Medici, Cosimo (the Elder), 1, 6 Mosler, 207, 213, 217
Medici, Cosimo I (Grand Duke), 14, 42, Muller, J. S., 117
Munich, 23, 78, 122, 141, 154, 165, 201,
45; f6, 49. 54
Medici, Francesco Maria, no 202, 208, 209, 210-12, 213, 214, 217,
Medici, Giovanni, 53 219 bis, 222, 241, 256, 258, 268, 270,
Medici, Giovanni Carlo, 110 286, 308
Muntz, 28
Medici, Leopold William, 19
Murano, 3, 1 1
Medici, Lorenzo il Magnifico, 2, 4, 5, 31,
32, 38, 39 Muthesius, 265, 267, 268-9, 282
Muziano, 56, 57, 58, 59
Meissen, 153, 167, 244
Melanchthon, 5, 7 Myrbach, 267
Melzi, 25, 29, 37 Mytens, 130, 153
Memling, 225
Mengoni, 70 Nancy, 109, 140, 308

318
 INDEX

Nantes, 142 I^I» i^7j 188, 1 9 1 , 193, 198-200,

Naples, 3, 6, 10 bis, 11, 12 bis, 18, 20 1, 213, 219-17, 220, 222 ter, 225,
19, 27, 230,
74, 1 14, 115, 1 3 1 , 14 1, 144, 150, 151, 233> 238, 241, 243-4, 272> 273, 287,
287-9, 308
I®5, r74> 23b 234> 289 bis, 308
Napoleon III, 251 Parma
Naumburg, 136 Parmig,ian142, 15b 165,
ino, 7, 12, 53,166, 168, 308
94
Parrasio, 11, 18
Neer, Van der, 135
Pascal,
Pasinelli,20 73
Nesbitt, 184
Newton, 20, 23 Passarotti, 74
Niebuhr, 208, 209, 213 Passeri, 72, 73
Niemeyer, 275
Passignano, 58
Nijmegen, 130 Paul III, 33, 56
Nilsson, 1 1 7
Niveton, 93
Paul, B., 266, 267, 276, 281-6
Nobile, 222 Pavia, 10 bis
Pecheux, 15 1
Nuremberg, 115-17, 1 18, 140, 154, 212,
258, 270 Pecht, 202, 214, 237, 274

Nymphenburg, 122 Pellegrini, 10 1, 107, 124

Percier, 170, 249

Obrist, 268, 270 Perrault, 20

Oeser, 122, 145, 146, 15 1, 188 Perugia, 9, 50, 55, 79, 140, 308
Ohringen, 14 1 Perugino, 53, 94, 212
Ojetti, 290 Pesne, 107, 121, 123
Olivier, 233 Pestalozzi, 266
Olschki, 26, 27, 28, 30, 36, 50 Peter the Great, 140, 181
Petrarch, 8, 9, 14, 31
Orleans, 142
Ottoboni, 74, 79 Pevsner, 7, 261
Oudenaarde, 143 Pforr, 201, 205-7
Ovens, 13 1 Phidias, 188
Philadelphia, 23, 143, 309
Overbeck, 201, 205-7, 222
Oxford, 20 Philip the Fair (of France), 82
Philip II (of Spain), 49
Picardet, 163
Pacioli, 27, 28, 29
Padua, 9, 37, 1 15 Pico della Mirandola, 4
Pietzsch, 227
Pagani, 58
Piles, 90, 94,
Paggi, 67-8 Pinder, 7, 13 103
Palermo, 9, 10 bis, 289 bis
Pio
Piomda
bo,Carp
Palizzi, 234 53i, 3, 26
Palladio, 8, 9, 32, 49, 145
Palma Giovane, 94 Plato, 1,Giovanni,
Pisano, 4 136
Palma Vecchio, 94
Plethon, 1, 5, 6
Palmyra, 144
Plinius, 2
Pankok, 266, 267
Plutarchus, 31
Pannini, 107
Panormita, 3, 5, 6 Po, Del, 1 1 1
Paolini, 72, 73 Poelzig, 266, 267, 270, 275, 283, 285, 286
Poerson, 104, 105, in
Paris, 6, 9, 16-18, 20, 21, 23, 66, 82-109, Poitiers, 142
no, hi, 1 12, 1 13, 1 14, 1 15, 1 18, 1 19,
120, 121, 123, 124, 127, 131, 132, 137, Polidoro da Caravaggio, 28
Pompadour, 178, 198
J39, 140* '46 i45> H9> i53> 156 bis, Pompeii, 143
158, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167 bis, Pontano, 3, 27
168, 169, 1 7 1, 173, 174, 177-9, 180,

319
 INDEX
Rinuccini, 1
Ponti, 290
Pontormo, 44 bis Robert-Fleury, 222
Roberti, 36
Porcellis, 135
Pordenone, 3 Roller, 267, 268
Romanelli, 66
Porta, G. B., 1 1, 18, 19
Porta, Giacomo della, 61 Rome, 2, 8 bis, 10 ter, 11, 12, 13, 18-ig,
Posse, 284 20 bis, 39, 41, 44, 52, 55-66, 67, 69, 71,
Poussin, 17, 66, 72, 84, 90, 93, 94 bis, 95, 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 8o> 8l, 83, 85,
99, io3> io5> IIO> J93 86, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99-100, 102, 104-5,
Prague, 310 107, 109, 110-14, JI5, Il8> ri9, 121 bis,
Prato, 10 140, 141 bis, 144, 150, 151, 158, 166,
Praxiteles, 188
216,177289,
169 bis,
209, 194-7, 200,201,206-8,
bis,309
Preissler, 116, 118 Romney, 184
Primaticcio, 82, 84
Roncalli
Rosa, S.,, 61
Priuli, 3, 26 9
Procaccini, 72 Rosoy, 163
Proud’hon, 249
Rossetti, 262
Pugin, 246, 247, 254, 260, 261, 262
Pulci, 5 Rossi, 44 bis, 1 1 1
Puligo, 44 Rosso Fiorentino, 53
Rostock, 21
Pulzone, 56
Rotterdam, 136, 143
Puvis de Chavannes, 238
Roubilliac, 123, 125
203 142, 163, 310
Rouen,
Quatremdre de Quincy, 199, 200, 213
Rousseau, J. J., 190, 196
Quellinus, T., 155
Rousseau, Th., 232

Rabelais, 6, 160 Rubens, 70, 94, 103, 105, 127, 128, 131,
Raimondi, Marcantonio, 40
Rainaldi, 66 Rugendas, 1 17
Raleigh, 16 Runge, 203, 216
Ramsay, 184 Ruskin, 239, 251, 260, 261, 277
Rysbrack, 147
Raphael, 12, 32, 53, 84, 94, 100, 106,
107, 172, 212, 259 Sabbatini, 50, 56, 57, 69
Rauch, 170, 221 bis, 222 Sacchetti, 74, 79
Sacchi, 74
Regensburg, 208
Reichenau, 224
St Omer, 142
Reims, 102, 136, 142, 224, 309
St Petersburg, 23, 140, 141, 155, 165,
Rembrandt, 94, 1 1 7, 131, 132, 136, 138
Salai,
166 ter,
37 181-3, l86, 221, 229, 233, 307
Reni, 69, 73, 78, 188
Renoir, 226, 273 St Quentin, 142
Revett, 144
Said, 9, 124
Salutati,
Reynolds, 125, 146 ter, 147 ter, 151, 184,
186, 188, 190, 192, 222 Salviati, F., 44, 52, 56
Ricci, O., 54 Salviati, G., 49
Ricci, S., 107 Salvini, 290
Richardson, 124
Salvioni, 62
Richelieu, 16, 17
Richmond (Duke of), 125 Salzburg,
Saly, 166 233
Richter, L., 202
Sandby, P., 124
Riemerschmid, 270, 282, 283 bis, 286
Sandby, W., 184
Rietschel, 222 bis
Rimini, 19 Sandrart, 115—16, 138
 INDEX

Sangallo, Francesco, 44, 56 Sforza, Francesco, 28

Sansovino, Jacopo, 39, Sforza, Giovanni Galeazzo, 29
54
Sforza, Lodovico, 27, 29,
Sant’ Elia, 239 31
Shakespeare, 15
Santi, G., 212
Shelley, 238,
Saragossa, 142 Sickert, 287 260
Sarazin, 83
Sar tines, 162 Siena, 9, 10, 12, 13, 20, 42
Signorini, 234
Sarto, 53, 94
Sirani, 73
Savonanzi, 73 Silvestre, 118, 121, 166
Scala, 267
Schadow, J. G., 170 Sisley, 226
Sixtus V, 59, 60
Schadow, W., 207, 208, Slutzky, 279
215, 217-18,
222 bis, 225, 232 bis
Snyders, 127
Scheemaekers, 147
Soane, 221
Schelling, 201, 203, 21 1, 212, 213, 227, Soderini, 15 1
232 Sogliani, 44, 53
Scherer, 26 Soufflot, 90
Schick, 201, 207, 240
Schiller, 147, 148, 149, 183, 191, 197, Sophia Charlotte (of Prussia), 21, 119
Sophocles, 9
200, 222, 225, 228, 233, 240 bis, 241,
245, 294 Soprani,
Soronsen 72, 74 bis
Sore , 74, 285
Schinkel, 170, 210, 219, 221 ter, 222
Schirmer, 218, 220, 232, 234 Spada, 74
Schlegel, F., 206, 207 Spalato, 144
Schltiter, 120 Spinoza, 93
Schmidt, G. F., 123
Springer, 257
Schmidt, P. F., 188
Squarcione, 37, 92
Schmutzer, 153, 233 Steele, 124
Schnorr, V., 180 Steen, 135
Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 214, 219, 221, Steer, 287
222 bis
Schonleber, Steinle, 222
234, 235
Steinschonau, 258
Schrodter, 218, 220
Stella, 28
Schuet, Van der, 130
Schumacher, 282, 283 bis Stengel, 210
Stephenson, 255
Schuppen, 121, 122
Schuster, 1 1 7 Stetten, 1 18
Schuvalov, 18 1 Stockholm, 23, 140, 141, 156, 165, 166,
Schweinfurt, 21 167, 169, 174, 175, 179, 221, 231 bis,
Scott, G. G., 259
Strack, 222
Scott, H. M. Baillie, 272
Strassburg, 190
Sedding, 271
Strauss, 122
Seguier, 87
Strozzi, 261
Street, 53
Seidlitz, 27, 29, 284
Seliger, 275 310

Selvatico, 236, 237 Strudel, 120

Semini, 74 ter Struensee, 156, 166
Stuart, 143, 144
Semler, 161
Stubbs, 184
Semper, 226, 251-3, 255 bis, 256, 257,
258, 260, 264 Stiller, 222 bis
Sergei, 170 Stuttgart, 14 1, 151 bis, 154, 183, 200, 201,
267, 270, 309
Sevres, 162, 163

321
 INDEX
Udine, 71
Subeyran, 157, 159, 172
Unterbergher, 153
Subleyras, 15 1, 209
Suida, 27 Urban
Urbino, VIII,
58 19, 64-5, 112, 113
Suisse, 226
Utrecht, 116, 130, 140, 309
Sulzer, 149, 172-3
Sutter, 206 Uylenborgh, 131
Uzielli, 25, 26
Taliesin, 293
Taruffi, 73 Vacca, 61
Tassaert, 123 Vaccaro, 74 bis, 115
Telesio, 11, 18 Vaga, 53, 56
Valencia, 142
Teniers, 94, 127
Valenciennes, 142
Terwesten, 120, 130
Valentiner, 285
Tessin, N., 156 Valesio, 76
Testelin, 94
Thein, 74 Valla, 22
Valori, 5
Valladolid, 142
Thiersch, F. R. von, 275
Thiersch, P., 286
Thoma, 275 Valsoldo, 61
Vanni,
Thornhill, 124, 125, 183 Van den 74Bank, 125, 231
Thorwaldsen, 169, 221 bis, 222, 231 Varchi, 14, 32
Tiarini, 73, 74 bis
Tibaldi, 29, 1 15 Vasari, 7, 25, 32, 38, 39, 41, 42-55, 57,
Tieck, 206 66, 80, 81, 109, 131
Vaux, 138
Tiepolo, 216, 224 Vecchia, 78
Tietze, 75, 76 277
Vedriani, 72
Tintoretto, 7, 12, 49, 94, 137
Veit, 207, 219
Tischbein, J. H., 193
Tischbein, J. W., 79, 148, 15 1, 157 Velde, Van de, 267, 270, 271, 274, 275,
Titian, 39, 47, 49, 53, 94, 127
Tivoli, 10 Venice, 8, 9, 12, 49, 58, 59, 79, 105, 1 14,
Torelli, 1 15 H5> !3b Hb H8> 231, 232, 233,
289 bis, 309
Torten, 280 Venusti, 56
Toschi, 222
Toulon, 142 Vernet, 222
Toulouse, 140, 142, 309 Verona, 9 bis, 10, 12, 142, 309
Veronese, 58
Tournai, 129, 143
Tours, 142, 309 Versailles, 138, 165
Vertue, 231
Trevisani, 113 Viani, 1 15
Tribolo, 44
Vicenza, 3, 8, 9, 12
Trippel, 79, 15 1
Trissino, 3 Vico, Enea, 40, 41, 77
Troger, 153 Victoria (Queen), 238
Troy, De, 1 1 1 Vien, 193, 216
Troyes, 82, 142, 309 Vienna, 117, 120-2, 123, 140, 141, 150,
Tubingen, 6
Tuby, 243 151 bis, 152-3, '157, 164, 165, 166 bis,
167 bis, 168, 171, 174, 175, 179, 180,
Turchi, 66 181, 205, 206, 207, 212, 219, 229, 230,
Turin, 10, 114, 140, 142, 151, 158, 241 233, 256, 257, 267, 268, 270, 271, 278,
289, 309 309
Vignola, 56
Turner, 221, 232 Villani, 31
Tuxen, 220

322
 INDEX

Vitruvius, io Willemsz, 130

Wilson, R., 184
Vittorio Amedeo I, 1 14 Wilton, 125
Vogel von Vogelstein, 170
Voltaire, 90, 144, 191, 192, 237 Winckelmann, 144, 144-52, 188, 190, 192,
Volterra, Daniele da, 53, 56 194, 203,15 222, 233
Windsor,
Vondel, 130
Winkler, 26
Vouet, 86
Wittenberg, 6
Voysey, 265, 267, 272 Wittkower, 35
Wood, 144

Waagen, 261
Wren, 20
Wach, 215, 217, 232
Wachter, 200, 206, 223 Wright, F. L., 271, 293
Wackenroder, 204, 205, 206 Wright (of Derby), 184
Wiirttemberg, 160
Waetzoldt, 117, 282, 284-5
Wurzburg, 122
Wagner, O., 271 Wyatt, 255
Wagner, P., 122
Waldmiiller, 233, 235
Walpole, 146 Young, 190, 191, 192
Ward, Seth, 6 Ypres, 143
Wasmann, 232
Watelet, 105, 149
Watteau, 108 Zahrtmann, 200
Zanotti, 73, 77
Webb, 262 bis
Zelotti, 49
Zauner, 15 1, 206
Webster, John, 6
Weimar, 15, 141, 160, 164, 169,211,270,
Ziesenis, 148
274> 275, 276-81, 310
Wellington, H. L., 292 Zingg,
Zoffani,202
184
Werner, 119
Zola, 177
271
West, B., 125, 186, 188
Zuccarelli, 184
Whistler, 236, 237, 239, 284
Whitman, 271 Zuccari, Federigo, 50, 51-2, 55, 56, 59-
Wiedewelt, 150 62, 70, 71, 76, 80, 93, 109, hi, 173,
Wieland, 170
Wijdeveld, 293 Zucchi, 61
Wilde, 240 Zurich, 143, 148, 1 5 1, 256, 309
Zweibriicken, 141, 309
Wilhelm Ernst (of Saxe Weimar), 266,
270, 276

323
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY

W. LEWIS, M.A.

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

 N 325 P4 1973
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Sir, 1 010101 000
Academies of art, past and>prei

63 01 62271
TRENT UNIVERSITY

N3 25 .P4 1973
Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus
Academies of art , past and

present .

1 4725

X
ISBN 0-306-71603 -8