The artists of the French Academy and the artists of the French Avant-garde are often presented as being protagonists, but, in fact, each group defined itself in terms of the other. The French Academy was the bastion of the establishment, of rules and regulations and of order. The Avant-Garde bohemians were the original outsider artists, misfits without credentials, who were able to break the rules of art and change the course of art. But the Academy absorbed and co-opted and softened the concepts and techniques of the avant-garde artists, making the “radical” changes acceptable to the general public.
Posts Tagged ‘Salon Exhibition’
Oct
16
2009
Podcast 5 Romantic Aesthetics
Aesthetics, as a branch of philosophy, was established in 1735 by Alexander Baumgartner in Germany. The early development of aesthetics evolved from moral stances on art, espoused by Lord Shaftsbury and Winckelmann, became the basis for the modern definition of “art.” This new definition of art was articulated by Kant and extended by Schiller. Ideally suited to a modern world, ruled by the middle class, modern aesthetics ushered in the era of the independent Romantic artist and the concept of “art-for-art’s sake.”