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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
Calligraphy 1

Calligraphy 1

Located in Atlanta, GA

Born in 1969 1991, Graduated top of his class at Iranian Society of Calligraphy, Tehran 1993, Graduated from the Wood Industry & Paper-making, Tehran Sol...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Academic Art

Materials

Oil

Jules TOULOT (1863-nc) Painting 19th century soldier uniform interior
Jules TOULOT (1863-nc) Painting 19th century soldier uniform interior

Jules TOULOT (1863-nc) Painting 19th century soldier uniform interior

By Toulot Jules

Located in Saint-Ouen, FR

Toulot Jules (1863-nc) Pianist officer in the Second Empire period Oil on canvas signed low right Old frame regilded with gold leaves Dim canvas : 65 X 43 cm Dim frame : 90 X 67 cm TOULOT Jules (1863-nc) French painter 19th century Born 11th November 1863 in Champeinx (Puy de Dôme...

Category

1880s Academic Art

Materials

Oil

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze

By Massimo Listri

Located in New York, NY

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze, 2009 C-print Signed, titled, dated and numbered edition of 5 on artist's label on verso. The photographer is based in Florence, and is f...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Academic Art

Materials

C Print

Street Costumes, Gay Nineties Fashion - Female Illustrator
Street Costumes, Gay Nineties Fashion - Female Illustrator

Street Costumes, Gay Nineties Fashion - Female Illustrator

Located in Miami, FL

Street Costumes by Ruth Kreps. Signed lower right. Most likely for a book published in the 1930's about turn of the century women's fashion. "Costume Design of the Gay Nineties" T...

Category

1930s Academic Art

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Board

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze

By Massimo Listri

Located in New York, NY

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze, 2009 C-print Signed, titled, dated and numbered edition of 5 on artist's label on verso. The photographer is based in Florence, and ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Academic Art

Materials

C Print

Pair of  Neoclassical  Terracotta  Bust of Emperor Caracalla and Cicero
Pair of  Neoclassical  Terracotta  Bust of Emperor Caracalla and Cicero

Pair of Neoclassical Terracotta Bust of Emperor Caracalla and Cicero

Located in Rome, IT

Pair of 19' century Italian Marble imitation painted Terracotta . Bust of Emperor Caracalla and Cicero . Measurements : cm 71 H x 60 Available also a pair marble imitation colum...

Category

1870s Academic Art

Materials

Terracotta

Walhalla - Ratisbona 2003
Walhalla - Ratisbona 2003

Walhalla - Ratisbona 2003

By Massimo Listri

Located in New York, NY

Walhalla - Ratisbona 2003 C-print Signed, titled, dated and numbered edition of 5 on artist's label on verso. 39.5 x 47.5 inches edition of 5 47.5 x 59 inches edition of 5 71 x ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Academic Art

Materials

C Print

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze

By Massimo Listri

Located in New York, NY

Biblioteca di Michelozzo a S.Marco, Firenze, 2009 C-print Signed, titled, dated and numbered edition of 5 on artist's label on verso. The photographer is based in Florence, and ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Academic Art

Materials

C Print

The Carpet Seller 19th Century Orientalist Antique Watercolor Painting on Paper
The Carpet Seller 19th Century Orientalist Antique Watercolor Painting on Paper

The Carpet Seller 19th Century Orientalist Antique Watercolor Painting on Paper

By Federico Bartolini

Located in Jacksonville, FL

Provenance John Welles Hollenback, New York The Painting is Signed FBartolini Lower Right Federico Bartolini (Italian, 1861 - 1908) Description: Federico Bartolini was a renowned ...

Category

19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

19th century ink portrait drawing male subject realism black and white
19th century ink portrait drawing male subject realism black and white

19th century ink portrait drawing male subject realism black and white

By Oscar Gustave Rejlander

Located in Milwaukee, WI

"Portrait of Baron Mayer de Rothschild, Rothschild Collection" by Oscar Gustave Rejlander is done in ink wash on paper. It is framed and matted. The portrait is a bust of Baron Mayer de Rothschild of the Rothschild banking dynasty, who lived 1813-1874. Art size: 11 3/4" x 8 3/4" Frame size: 20" x 17" "Rejlander, Oscar Gustav (1813-75), Swedish-born photographer, active in England and often known as ‘the father of art photography’, having pioneered practices such as combination printing and promoted photography's capacity to tackle subjects conventionally associated with painting. After studying lithography and painting in Rome, Rejlander arrived in England in the early 1840s and settled in Wolverhampton. A day's instruction with Nicolaas Henneman was apparently his only training before he turned to photography in 1853. Throughout his professional career, Rejlander combined studio portrait work and other commissions with particular artistic projects, importing ideas and inspiration from such sources as Flemish and late Renaissance art, 18th-century English narrative works, or contemporary cartoons from papers like Punch. His famous moral allegory The Two Ways of Life (1857) combines sophisticated combination printing with elaborately staged photographs. Although widely condemned as indecent—in Scotland only the ‘virtuous’ side of the picture could be shown—it was bought by Queen Victoria for Prince Albert. Rejlander vigorously defended photography's narrative capability, emphasizing artifice as a way to truth and creative expression, and works like Hard Times and The Dream (both 1860) convey unconscious states hauntingly and in a precociously modern way. In 1862 he left Wolverhampton for a London studio, where judiciously placed windows enabled him to create subtle lighting effects for portraiture. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and Alfred...

Category

1870s Academic Art

Materials

Ink

Mounted Jockeys Taking a Jump
Mounted Jockeys Taking a Jump

Mounted Jockeys Taking a Jump

Located in Saratoga Springs, NY

Bronze (After) Henri (Comte) Geoffroy De Ruille, Mounted Jockeys (French 1842-1922) "Mounted Jockeys Taking a Jump" 40"long x 26" high x 20 ½" wide 20th Century Medium: Patinaed B...

Category

Mid-20th Century Academic Art

Materials

Bronze

Attractive Young Woman Sitting in Chair and Looking Upwards in Domestic Setting
Attractive Young Woman Sitting in Chair and Looking Upwards in Domestic Setting

Attractive Young Woman Sitting in Chair and Looking Upwards in Domestic Setting

By Alice Barber Stephens

Located in Miami, FL

Female Illustrator of the Golden Age Alice Barber Stephens renders in an academic style and women sitting in a chair and responding to something outside of the frame. Signed lower left. Most likely done for a major newsstand magazine like Harper's, Century or Scribner's Monthly. Work is framed under glass in a simple black wood frame. Perhaps period. Matt is new. Frame size: 20.5 x 14.5 From: Wikipedia Alice Barber Stephens (July 1, 1858 – July 13, 1932) was an American painter and engraver, best remembered for her illustrations. Her work regularly appeared in magazines such as Scribner's Monthly, Harper's Weekly, and The Ladies Home Journal. Early life and education Alice Barber was born near Salem, New Jersey. She was the eighth of nine children born to Samuel Clayton Barber and Mary Owen, who were Quakers. She attended local schools until she and her family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At age 15 she became a student at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art & Design), where she studied wood engraving. The Women's Life Class (1879), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was admitted to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876 (the first year women were admitted), studying under Thomas Eakins. Among her fellow students at the Academy were Susan MacDowell, Frank Stephens, David Wilson Jordan, Lavinia Ebbinghausen, Thomas Anshutz, and Charles H. Stephens (whom she would marry). During this time, at the academy, she began to work with a variety of media, including black-and-white oils, ink washes, charcoal, full-color oils, and watercolors. In 1879, Eakins chose Stephens to illustrate an Academy classroom scene for Scribner's Monthly. The resulting work, Women's Life Class, was Stephens' first illustration credit. New Woman As educational opportunities were made more available in the nineteenth century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior by the art world, and to help overcome that stereotype women became "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer "New Woman". Artists then, "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives." Alice Barber Stephens, The Women Business, oil, 1897, Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania One example of overcoming women stereotypes was Stephens' Woman in Business from 1897, which showed how women could focus not only in the home, but also in the economic world.[8] As women began to work, their career choices broadened and illustration became a commendable occupation. People's ideas about education and art started to merge, and the outcome of a certain sensitivity to the arts began to be seen as uplifting and educational. By using illustration as a means to further their practices, women were able to fit the traditional gender role while still being active in their pursuits for the "New Woman". According to Rena Robey of Art Times, "The early feminists began to leave the home to participate in clubs as moral and cultural guardians, focused on cleaning up cities and helping African Americans, impoverished women, working children, immigrants, and other previously ignored groups." Stephens took advantage of the explosion of illustration opportunities, including the opportunity to work from home. Women's education Edwin Forrest House, formerly the home of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. Throughout the period before the civil war, textile and other decorative work became acceptable occupations for those who aspired to be in the middle class. The Philadelphia School of Design for Women, founded in 1848 by Sarah Worthington Peter was first among a group of women's design schools established in the 1850s and 1860s; others appeared in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. It began as a charitable effort to train needy and deserving young women in textile and wallpaper design, wood engraving, and other salable artistic skills, providing a means for training women who needed wage work. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) was established in 1805 by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush...

Category

Early 1900s Academic Art

Materials

Charcoal, Board

Istambul View with characters
Istambul View with characters

Istambul View with characters

Located in Saint-Ouen, FR

Alfredo CALDINI (1917 - NC) View of Istambul with Characters Oil on canvas signed low left Old frame regilded with gold leaves Size canvas : 46 X 65 cm...

Category

1950s Academic Art

Materials

Oil

A. LEONARD - Flower Girl and her Dog
A. LEONARD - Flower Girl and her Dog

A. LEONARD - Flower Girl and her Dog

Located in Saint-Ouen, FR

A. LEONARD (19th-20th) Flower Girl and Her Dog Oil on canvas signed low left Old Frame regilded with Leaves Dim canvas : 46 X 38 cm Dim Frame : 55 X 46 cm

Category

Late 19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Oil

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provencale No. 6
French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provencale No. 6

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provencale No. 6

By Pascal Plazanet

Located in Paris, IDF

Rapidography & acrylic on paper + white frame Pascal Plazanet is a French artist born in 1963 who lives and works in Paris, France. For more 30 years, he constantly uses rapidograph pens in his artworks on paper or onto canvas. The rapidograph is a special pen with a capillary tubular tip in which flows a black pigment, an ancient drawing tool...

Category

1990s Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provencale No. 12
French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provencale No. 12

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provencale No. 12

By Pascal Plazanet

Located in Paris, IDF

Rapidography & acrylic on paper + white frame Pascal Plazanet is a French artist born in 1963 who lives and works in Paris, France. For more 30 years, he constantly uses rapidograph pens in his artworks on paper or onto canvas. The rapidograph is a special pen with a capillary tubular tip in which flows a black pigment, an ancient drawing...

Category

1990s Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Chateau de Foix
French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Chateau de Foix

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Chateau de Foix

By Pascal Plazanet

Located in Paris, IDF

Rapidography & ink on paper + white frame Pascal Plazanet is a French artist born in 1963 who lives and works in Paris, France. For more 30 years, he constantly uses rapidograph pens in his artworks on paper or onto canvas. The rapidograph is a special pen with a capillary tubular tip in which flows a black pigment, an ancient drawing tool...

Category

1990s Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Ink

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Place des Vosges

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Place des Vosges

By Pascal Plazanet

Located in Paris, IDF

Rapidography & ink on paper Pascal Plazanet is a French artist born in 1963 who lives and works in Paris, France. For more 30 years, he constantly uses rapidograph pens in his artworks on paper or onto canvas. The rapidograph is a special pen with a capillary tubular tip in which flows a black pigment, an ancient drawing...

Category

1990s Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Ink

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provençale No. 20
French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provençale No. 20

French Contemporary Art by Pascal Plazanet - Provençale No. 20

By Pascal Plazanet

Located in Paris, IDF

Rapidography & watercolor on canvas Pascal Plazanet is a French artist born in 1963 who lives and works in Paris, France. For more 30 years, he constantly uses rapidograph pens in his artworks on paper or onto canvas. The rapidograph is a special pen with a capillary tubular tip in which flows a black pigment, an ancient drawing...

Category

1990s Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Watercolor

Stipple Drawing in Black and White of the First Lady of Haiti - African American
Stipple Drawing in Black and White of the First Lady of Haiti - African American

Stipple Drawing in Black and White of the First Lady of Haiti - African American

By Lois Mailou Jones

Located in Miami, FL

1942 Calendar illustration featuring the First Lady of Haiti (Madame Elie Lescot]) rendered in a precise stipple effect and celebrating African-American women which was titled "Twelve American Women." It was executed during the hight of World War II. Lois Mailou Jones...

Category

1940s Academic Art

Materials

Ink, Pencil

Studious Girl Reading a Book  - Women's Education  - Female Illustrator
Studious Girl Reading a Book  - Women's Education  - Female Illustrator

Studious Girl Reading a Book - Women's Education - Female Illustrator

By Elizabeth Shippen Green

Located in Miami, FL

The work represents a carefully rendered and meticulously observed environmental portrait of a young girl absorbed in study in front of a book case. It celebrates the intelligence of womanhood from a woman's perspective. Initialed in cartouche lower right literature: "The Silver Pencil", Hardy, Harper's Monthly, June 1912, pg. 22 Elizabeth Shippen Green (September 1, 1871 – May 29, 1954) was an American illustrator. She illustrated children's books and worked for publications such as The Ladies' Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post and Harper's Magazine. Education Green enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1887 and studied with the painters Thomas Pollock Anshutz, Thomas Eakins, and Robert Vonnoh.[2] She then began study with Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute where she met Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith. New Woman As educational opportunities were made more available in the 19th century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became “increasingly vocal and confident” in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer “New Woman”.[4] Artists "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman...

Category

1910s Academic Art

Materials

Paper, Chalk, Charcoal

Young St. John the Baptist by Domenico Menconi
Young St. John the Baptist by Domenico Menconi

Young St. John the Baptist by Domenico Menconi

Located in New Orleans, LA

Masterfully carved with remarkable detail, a youthful Saint John the Baptist folds his hands in prayer in this stunning marble by the important Italian sculptor Domenico Menconi. The...

Category

19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Marble

Watercolour painting by Henry Ryland
Watercolour painting by Henry Ryland

Watercolour painting by Henry Ryland

By Henry Ryland

Located in London, GB

This watercolour painting is by the English artist Henry Ryland, celebrated in his day and since for his Neoclassical pictures. Ryland was a contemporary of Lawrence Alma-Tadema and ...

Category

Early 20th Century Academic Art

Materials

Watercolor, Board, Laid Paper

The Potter
The Potter

The Potter

Located in New Orleans, LA

Léon Olivié-Bon 1863-1901 French The Potter Oil on canvas Signed and dated "Olivie-Bon 1888" (lower right) This monumental masterpiece by French artist Léon Olivié-Bon is one of ...

Category

19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Maiden with hat
Maiden with hat

Maiden with hat

Located in Roma, RM

Luigi Preatoni (Novara 1845 - ?), Maiden with hat Marble bust 66 x 43 x 36 cm signed (L Preatoni) on edge of dress.

Category

Late 19th Century Academic Art

Materials

Marble

Landscape of the Valley in French Normandy
Landscape of the Valley in French Normandy

Landscape of the Valley in French Normandy

By Eugène Jules Delahogue

Located in Saint-Ouen, FR

DELAHOGUE Eugène Jules (1867-c1930) " Landscape of the Valley" Oil on canvas signed low right Frame gilded with leaves Dim canvas : 91 X 150 cm Dim frame : 110 X 172 cm DELAHOGUE Eu...

Category

1910s Academic Art

Materials

Oil

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.