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Academic Art

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ACADEMIC STYLE

During the Renaissance, the first European fine art academies were established in Italy and would guide the style and standards of visual culture in the following centuries. Academic art became dominant across the continent in the 17th century, with artists coming together to offer instruction in this style of painting and sculpture

The academic art period represented a significant change from the previous era when painters, sculptors and other artists were part of guilds and seen more as artisans than purveyors of culture. While patronage from the elite and the church remained pivotal, young artists were able to support themselves for the first time through academic exhibitions and an independent marketplace. The leading academies included the French Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture founded in Paris in 1648 (which became the Académie des Beaux-Arts after the French Revolution) and the London Royal Academy of Arts formed in 1768 under the inaugural leadership of painter Joshua Reynolds

Academy students sketched drawings based on prints, sculptures and, finally, live models. Movements including neoclassicism and romanticism were particularly popular in these art schools and institutions where the influence of Raphael and Nicolas Poussin was prominent. Beaux Arts architecture and furniture design drew on these movements, too, and, as they also originated at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the disciplines share common ground with academic painting and sculpture.

Although academic art was a major shift for artistic status when it began, by the middle of the 19th century it was viewed as stodgy and resistant to new ideas, with the subject matter of artists such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jean-Léon Gérôme generally limited to allegorical or mythological themes. Impressionism, realism and the other movements that engaged with contemporary issues that followed were direct reactions to the academic tradition, although it continued to inform the avant-garde as artists like Gustav Klimt and Pablo Picasso started their practices as academic realists.  

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Style: Academic
"Sakura is blooming"
"Sakura is blooming"

"Sakura is blooming"

By Oleksandr Khrapachov

Located in Edinburgh, GB

The painting "Sakura Blooms" is a true ode to spring, created outdoors in the heart of Transcarpathia. Oleksandr Khrapachov skillfully conveys all the beauty of cherry blossoms, whic...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Beaty - Archival fine art print, Black white photo, Portrait of a young woman
Beaty - Archival fine art print, Black white photo, Portrait of a young woman

Beaty - Archival fine art print, Black white photo, Portrait of a young woman

Located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona

An archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 g/m² paper of a photograph by Harry Sutcliffe (1878- 1942) entitled ' Beaty ' Portrait of a young woman created cerca ...

Category

1910s Academic Art

Materials

Black and White, Giclée, Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital Pigment

French School circa 1880, Portrait of a boy holding a book, drawing
French School circa 1880, Portrait of a boy holding a book, drawing

French School circa 1880, Portrait of a boy holding a book, drawing

Located in Paris, FR

French school circa 1880 Portrait of a boy holding a book graphite and white gouache on paper 39.5 x 32 cm oval view in good condition, slightly yellowed with age In its original ova...

Category

1880s Academic Art

Materials

Gouache, Pencil

Pathos
Pathos

Pathos

Located in New York, NY

A sensuous and fabulous piece to enjoy in the round as every vantage point is attractive or on a shelf or table. In the 19th century, the Italians and French were in a golden era f...

Category

1890s Academic Art

Materials

Bronze

Benoit Fils - Archival fine art print, Black white, Montreal, Clydesdale truck
Benoit Fils - Archival fine art print, Black white, Montreal, Clydesdale truck

Benoit Fils - Archival fine art print, Black white, Montreal, Clydesdale truck

Located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona

An archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 g/m² paper, a photography of a delivery of foodstuffs from a shop of seeds, flour and provisions in Montreal cerca 1920 ...

Category

1920s Academic Art

Materials

Black and White, Giclée, Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital Pigment

Dr Decarie - Archival fine art print, Black white, Montreal, Phillips square
Dr Decarie - Archival fine art print, Black white, Montreal, Phillips square

Dr Decarie - Archival fine art print, Black white, Montreal, Phillips square

Located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona

An archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 g/m² paper of a photograph of a street corner in Montreal cerca Valentin's day 1925 entitled ' Dr Decarie ' Unframed ...

Category

1920s Academic Art

Materials

Black and White, Giclée, Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital Pigment

"Winter Wildfowling" Frank Weston Benson, Hunting Scene, Outdoors, Marshes
"Winter Wildfowling" Frank Weston Benson, Hunting Scene, Outdoors, Marshes

"Winter Wildfowling" Frank Weston Benson, Hunting Scene, Outdoors, Marshes

By Frank Weston Benson

Located in New York, NY

Frank Weston Benson Winter Wildfowling, 1927 Signed lower left Etching on paper Image 8 1/2 x 7 inches Born in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant of a long line of sea captains, Benson first studied art at Boston’s Museum School where he became editor of the student magazine. In 1883, Benson enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris where artists such as Bouguereau, Lefebvre, Constant, Doucet and Boulanger taught students from all over Europe and America. It was Boulanger who gave Benson his highest commendation. “Young man,” he said, “Your career is in your hands . . . you will do very well.” Benson’s parents gave him a present of one thousand dollars a twenty-first birthday and told him to return home when it ran out. The money lasted long enough to provide Benson with two years of schooling in Paris, a summer at the seaside village of Concarneau in Brittany and travel in England. Upon returning to America, Benson opened a studio on Salem’s Chestnut Street and began painting portraits of family and friends. An oil of his wife, Ellen Perry Peirson, dressed in her wedding gown is representative of this period. It demonstrates not only the academic techniques he learned at the Academie Julian but also his own growing emphasis on the effects of light. And yet, despite all the technical mastery displayed in the work, the painting exudes the warmth that existed between model and artist. More than a likeness, it is a study in serenity. Perhaps it was of a work such as this that Benson was thinking when he said, “The more a painter knows about his subject, the more he studies and understands it, the more the true nature of it is perceived by whoever looks at it, even though it is extremely subtle and not easy to see or understand. A painter must search deeply into the aspects of a subject, must know and understand it thoroughly before he can represent it well.” Following a brief stint as an instructor at the Portland, Maine, Society of Art, Benson was appointed as instructor of antique drawing at the Museum School in Boston in the spring of l889. Benson’s long association with the school was particularly fruitful. Under the leadership of Edmund Tarbell and Benson the Museum School became a national and internationally recognized institution. The students won numerous prizes, enrollment tripled, a new school building was erected and visiting delegations from other schools sought the secret of their success. Benson cherished his role as teacher and was held in high esteem by his students, many of whom called him “Cher Maitre.” Reminiscing about his long career with the school Benson once said, “I may have taught many students, but it was I who learned the most.” In 1890, Benson won the Hallgarten Prize at the National Academy in New York. It was the first of a long series of awards, that earning for him the sobriquet “America’s Most Medalled Painter.” In the early years of his career, Benson’s studio works were mostly portraits or paintings of figures set in richly appointed interiors. Young women in white stretch their hands out towards the glow of an unseen fire; girls converse on an antique settee in a room full of objets d’arts; his first daughter, Eleanor, poses with her cat. Works of this sort, together with a steady influx of portrait commissions, earned Benson both renown and financial rewards, yet it was in his outdoor works that gave Benson his greatest pleasure. In the latter half of the 1890s, Benson summered in Newcastle, on New Hampshire’s short stretch of seacoast. It was here, in 1899, that Benson made his first foray into impressionism with Children in the Woods and The Sisters, the latter a sun-dappled study of his two youngest daughters, Sylvia and Elisabeth. This painting was one of the first works that Benson hung at an exhibition with nine friends. The resignation of these ten illustrious artists rocked the American art establishment but, the catalogue for their first exhibition was titled, simply, “Ten American Painters.” When, in 1898, the three Bostonians and seven New Yorkers began to exhibit their best work in exquisitely arranged small shows, the group (dubbed by newspapers, “The Ten” ) quickly became known as the American Impressionists, a bow to the style of their French predecessors. The Ten’s annual shows soon became an eagerly awaited part of the annual exhibition calendar and were always well reviewed. Held annually in New York City, the group’s yearly exhibitions usually traveled to Boston and were occasionally seen in other cities. Benson’s association with other members of the group such as Childe Hassam, Thomas Dewing, William Merrit Chase and J. Alden Weir, only reinforced his growing emphasis on the tenets of Impressionism. As he later said to his daughter Eleanor, “I follow the light, where it comes from, where it goes.” The principles of Impressionism began to dominate Benson’s work by 1901, the year that the Bensons first summered on the island of North Haven in Maine’s Penobscot Bay. His summer home “Wooster Farm,” which they rented and finally bought in 1906, became the setting for some of Benson’s best known work and there, it seemed, he found endless inspiration. Benson’s sparkling plein-air paintings of his children–Eleanor, George, Elisabeth and Sylvia–capture the very essence of summer and have been widely reproduced: In The Hilltop, George and Eleanor watch the sailboat races from the headland near their house. As a boy, Benson dreamed of being an ornithological illustrator. In mid-life, he returned to the wildfowl and sporting subjects that had remained his lifelong passion. Using etching and lithography, watercolor, oil and wash, Benson portrayed the birds observed since childhood and captured scenes of his hunting and fishing expeditions. Together with his two brothers-in-law, Benson bought a small hunting retreat on a hill overlooking Cape Cod’s Nauset Marsh. Here, in the late 1890s, he began experimenting with black and white wash drawings. These paintings became so popular that Benson was not able to keep up with the demand. He turned to an art publishing company to have several made into it intaglio prints; twelve wash drawings are known to have been reproduced in this manner. At least two of them were given as gifts to associate members of the Boston Guild of artists, of which Benson was a founding member. Benson was also an avid fisherman and his salmon fishing expeditions to Canada’s Gaspé Peninsula where one of the high points of his summer. There, in 1921, he began the first in a series of watercolors that would eventually over 500 works. Benson’s watercolors conveyed the joy and beauty of a sportsman’s life whether in a painting of a hunter setting out decoys, a flock of ducks coming in for a landing or a grouse flushed from cover. The critics favorably compared Benson’s watercolors to those of Homer. “The love of the almost primitive wilderness which appears in many of Homer’s landscapes and the swift, sure touch with which he suggests rather than describes–these also characterize Benson’s work,” one critic wrote. “The solitude of the northern woods is very much like Homer’s.” Like the wash drawings before them, Benson’s watercolors proved...

Category

1920s Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Etching

Pueblo Mailboxes

Pueblo Mailboxes

By Gerard Giliberti

Located in East Hampton, NY

Title: Pueblo Mailboxes, NM Size: 21” x 14” Edition: 1/5 Medium: Archival Pigment Print Price: $550 Also available in 20"x30" Edition of 10 $725 Printed to Order Gerry Giliberti is...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Portrait Max Surrealism, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind
Portrait Max Surrealism, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

Portrait Max Surrealism, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

By Ashot Yan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Ashot Yan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2017 Style: Portrait Surrealism, Title: Portrait Max, Size: 23.5" x 19.5" ...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mythological Painting begining 19th oval Bacchus Apollon children
Mythological Painting begining 19th oval Bacchus Apollon children

Mythological Painting begining 19th oval Bacchus Apollon children

Located in PARIS, FR

Italian school from the beginning of the 19th century ? Oil on canvas (2) 99 x 65 cm (103 x 78 cm with the frame) Old frames with gadroons and palmette decoration Very good condition...

Category

Early 19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Oil

19th Century gouache of a visit to Pompei on the Grand Tour
19th Century gouache of a visit to Pompei on the Grand Tour

19th Century gouache of a visit to Pompei on the Grand Tour

Located in Petworth, West Sussex

Neapolitan school (early 19th Century) A visit to Pompei on the the Grand Tour Gouache on paper Inscribed ‘Porzione del quartiere a Pompei’ and ‘In Nap...

Category

19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Gouache

"Robert Rauschenberg" Christopher Felver, Portrait of Famous Artist
"Robert Rauschenberg" Christopher Felver, Portrait of Famous Artist

"Robert Rauschenberg" Christopher Felver, Portrait of Famous Artist

By Christopher Felver

Located in New York, NY

Christopher Felver Rauschenberg Photo, 2003 Signed, dated and titled on verso Photography 13 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches Provenance Estate of Carolyn Brown, New York 2025. Mary Caroline (...

Category

Early 2000s Academic Art

Materials

Photographic Paper

Venice with characters

Venice with characters

By Charles Cousin

Located in Saint-Ouen, FR

COUSIN Charles (1807-1887) Venice With Characters Oil on canvas signed low right Old frame gilded with leaves Dim canvas : 76 X 60 cm Dim frame : 96 X 83 cm COUSIN Charles (1807-188...

Category

1880s Academic Art

Materials

Oil

Antique SUNSET VIEW OF SAN LAZZARO, VENICE
Antique SUNSET VIEW OF SAN LAZZARO, VENICE

Antique SUNSET VIEW OF SAN LAZZARO, VENICE

Located in New York, NY

Up for sale is a wonderful Italian Venetian Sunset painting by Bernhard Stange (1807-1880). Painting for sale depicts SUNSET VIEW OF SAN LAZZARO, VENICE It is absolutely colorful a...

Category

1870s Academic Art

Materials

Oil

Seashore, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

Seashore, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

By Karen Darbinyan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Karen Darbinyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2023 Style: Impressionism Title: Seashore Size: 16" x 21.5" x 0.8'' i...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Stack, Landscape Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

Stack, Landscape Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

By Karen Darbinyan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Karen Darbinyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2023 Style: Impressionism Title: Stack Size: 16" x 21" x 0.8'' inch, ...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Lavenders, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

Lavenders, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

By Karen Darbinyan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Karen Darbinyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2023 Style: Impressionism Title: Lavenders Size: 15.5" x 23.5" x 0.8'...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Beehives, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

Beehives, Original oil Painting, One of a Kind

By Karen Darbinyan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Karen Darbinyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2023 Style: Impressionism Title: Beehives Size: 12" x 17" x 0.8'' inc...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Flower Sellers, Figurative, Original Painting, One of a Kind
Flower Sellers, Figurative, Original Painting, One of a Kind

Flower Sellers, Figurative, Original Painting, One of a Kind

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Ara H. Hakobyan Work: Original Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Year: 2019 Style: Impressionism Title: Flower Sellers Size: 16" x 20" x 0.8'' inch, (41x51x2cm), Unframed, Stretched on wooden bar, Ready to Hang, Artist Bio Ara H. Hakobyan is an Armenian artist and art critic, Doctor of Sciences (arts, 2017), professor (2018) and a member of Artist Union of the Republic of Armenia (1999). Ara H. Hakobyan was born in 1973 in Yerevan in the family of art historian Hravard Hakobyan. In 1997 Mr. Hakobyan graduated from the Yerevan State Academy of Arts, Department of Painting. During 1997-2000 Ara Hakobyan...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Flowers on a white table cloth, Original Oil Painting, One of a Kind
Flowers on a white table cloth, Original Oil Painting, One of a Kind

Flowers on a white table cloth, Original Oil Painting, One of a Kind

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Ara H. Hakobyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Canvas Year: 2019 Style: Impressionism Title: Flowers on a white table cloth Size: 24" x 30" x 0.8'' inch, (61x76x2cm), Unframed, Stretched on wooden bar, Ready to Hang, Artist Bio Ara H. Hakobyan is an Armenian artist and art critic, Doctor of Sciences (arts, 2017), professor (2018) and a member of Artist Union of the Republic of Armenia (1999). Ara H. Hakobyan was born in 1973 in Yerevan in the family of art historian Hravard Hakobyan. In 1997 Mr. Hakobyan graduated from the Yerevan State Academy of Arts, Department of Painting. During 1997-2000 Ara Hakobyan...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Flowers with a Statue, Still Life, Original Oil Painting, One of a Kind
Flowers with a Statue, Still Life, Original Oil Painting, One of a Kind

Flowers with a Statue, Still Life, Original Oil Painting, One of a Kind

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Ara H. Hakobyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Canvas Year: 2019 Style: Impressionism Title: Flowers with a Statue Size: 24" x 30" x 0.8'' inch, (61x76x2cm), Unframed, Stretched on wooden bar, Ready to Hang, Artist Bio Ara H. Hakobyan is an Armenian artist and art critic, Doctor of Sciences (arts, 2017), professor (2018) and a member of Artist Union of the Republic of Armenia (1999). Ara H. Hakobyan was born in 1973 in Yerevan in the family of art historian Hravard Hakobyan. In 1997 Mr. Hakobyan graduated from the Yerevan State Academy of Arts, Department of Painting. During 1997-2000 Ara Hakobyan...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

City Park, Impressionism, Original Painting, One of a Kind
City Park, Impressionism, Original Painting, One of a Kind

City Park, Impressionism, Original Painting, One of a Kind

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Artist: Ara H. Hakobyan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Year: 2019 Style: Impressionism Title: City Park Size: 16" x 20" x 0.8'...

Category

2010s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Solitude
Solitude

Solitude

By Guillaume Seignac

Located in New Orleans, LA

Signed “G-Seignac” (lower right) Oil on canvas French Academic painter Guillaume Seignac was renowned for his masterful treatment of the idealized nude. His languishing female subje...

Category

19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Portrait of Bertold Brecht

Portrait of Bertold Brecht

By Josef Breitenbach

Located in New York, NY

Silver print Stamped in black ink, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Josef Breitenbach (1896-1984) was a German photographer and member of the Su...

Category

Mid-20th Century Academic Art

Materials

Black and White

Pair of Kate Greenaway original watercolour artworks 'Under the Window', 1879
Pair of Kate Greenaway original watercolour artworks 'Under the Window', 1879

Pair of Kate Greenaway original watercolour artworks 'Under the Window', 1879

Located in Petworth, West Sussex

Kate Greenaway (British, 1846 – 1901) ‘Prince Finikin and his Mamma sat sipping their bohea..’; and ‘You see, merry Phyllis, that dear little maid, Has invited Belinda to tea..’ Penc...

Category

19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Watercolor, Pencil

Original French Anatomical Study of a Horse's Limb
Original French Anatomical Study of a Horse's Limb

Original French Anatomical Study of a Horse's Limb

By Robert Ladou

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Title: Original French Anatomical Study of a Horse's Limb Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Pencil on paper Size: 20 (Height) x 13.75 (Width) Signed: No Condition: Lig...

Category

20th Century Academic Art

Materials

Pencil, Color Pencil

Academic art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Academic art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of purple, blue, orange, pink and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Karen Darbinyan, Owen Jones, Paul Jones b.1921, and Mark Beard. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Academic art, so small editions measuring 1.5 inches across are also available. Prices for art made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $11 and tops out at $700,000, while the average work sells for $1,444.