Image credit: Royal Academy of Arts
Academies were artist-led organisations committed to improving the professional status of artists and offering opportunities to exhibit their work. Replacing the medieval artists' guilds, academies were first established in Italy during the Renaissance and became widespread in Europe by the seventeenth century. The French Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, established in 1648, was the most powerful academy, providing artistic training but also creating a hierarchy of genres – in which history painting was lauded.
As a result, academic art privileged the study of classical antiquity and life drawing.
