Contemporary Classical Ateliers
Modern-Day Art Academies Approved by Art Renewal Center
For centuries proven theories of art instruction were passed along to each new generation of atists. The process of acquiring skills for producing a successful academic painting was a long and laborious one. Within all stylistic differences, masterpieces of every age display these consistent and basic underlying principles.
They include draftsmanship, the power of observation, awareness of visual subtleties, enhanced eye-hand coordination, skills developed over years of exercises, and the techniques that develop strong work.
In each age, artists made use of these time-honored principles while creating innovations that built upon or reacted to these standards. For example, Willliam-Adolphe Bouguereau, the quintessential academician and an artist wildly successful in his day, practiced a method of painting that had been developed and refined over the centuries in order to bring vivid life to paintings.
But in the 20th century, when modernism took hold, fine art instruction in the manner of the academies ceased to exist for several generations. Recent students of art history have not even heard of Bouguereau.
Modernism
Modernism came on the scene as a rebellion against the past. It viewed realism as a mere photographic rendition of reality and dismissed academic art as little more than derivative. Modernism abandoned lifelike representation in painting, which it considered passe and outmoded. It espoused that people who cannot draw have greater freedom in expressing themselves than people who can, preferring to stress that years of training stultify and repress the creative impulse. It went so far as to propound that neurotic or antisocial people are better artists.
It believed that depictions of beauty were insipid, trivial, and overly sentimental. The idea of beauty itself was denigraded in favor of what can best be described as deep concern over the horrors of modern-day war, barbarism, poverty, and unrest, as if the mere viewing and enjoyment of beauty was an affront to any compassion shown toward suffering humanity.
Modern Academic Art Theology
The theory of Modern Art was fated for irrelevance, having started out as a progressive and rebellious stance against the reigning theories of academic and realistic art which it deemed staid and oppressive. Once a theory like Modernism becomes the status quo // becomes institutionalized as it were // it no longer is successful at perpetually rebelling. It has indeed become as predictable as that which it began by protesting.
There is a resurgence of interest in academic artistic training. The Art Renewal Center, for instance, reports record numbers of visitors to its website and submissions to its annual Salon exhibition. Art Renewal Center recommends contemporary ateliers around the globe that adhere to the training and discipline favored by the Old Masters, including the Schuler School in Baltimore, Maryland.
Today’s artists can benefit from the academic training available once again and create fresh artwork that judiciously selects the traditions while taking advantage of the finesse and mastery that years of craftsmanship and learning can attain. Thus the art world can rebuild links between masterpieces of the past and the art of the future.
Source:
- Art Renewal Center.
William-Adolphe Bougureau's Fraternal Love
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