Academism and Classicism, the twin brothers
- Feb 9
- 11 min read
Academism and Classicism are intimately linked movements in contemporary art history, yet they represent distinct approaches to artistic creation despite their shared philosophical foundation.
Nostalgic of the 17th-century, Classicism is an art movement that values proportion, harmony of forms and the restraint in expressing. Johann Winckelmann, german art historian and archaeologist, wrote an important say in his essay Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst (1755) (in english: Thoughts on the imitation of Greek works in painting and sculpture) :
Among the most remarkable features of perfection that distinguish the works of Greek artists, there is one that deserves special attention because it is evident in all the finest statues and would be difficult to find elsewhere: I am referring to that noble simplicity, that tranquil grandeur, which we admire in their poses and expressions. [...] a beautiful Greek face always depicts a soul that remains grand and tranquil amid the most violent upheavals and the most terrible passions.
The noble simplicity and tranquil grandeur is, per essence, the nature. For artist, nature, as in the sense of human nature, is a source of beauty. It is the principle of the creator: everything is beautiful since it is created by the divine; therefore, it is up to the artist to recreate this beauty through the study of the human, the body, the line. And, who best than Classicism depicted the grandeur and the beauty trough human nature. Think of the statues of the Belvedere, the Venus and Jupiter sculpted by Romans and Greek artist at the Antiquity. Think of artists from the Renaissance who depicted God and biblical story in gigantism fresque and paintings.
In the occidental's mind at the XIXth century, and most probably for Napoléon III, Antiquity resonate as the grandeur per se. César, the figures from the greek mythology, God and the Bible, ... are ways he (Napoléon III, in its politics), and artist can imitate to revive that grandeur and serve political, cultural (and geographical) expansion.
This study of the principles of beauty in the human body, the perfections of proportions and aesthetics that surrounds Classicism will define a scope of references that will shape the way artist of the XIXth century will learn and execute arts.
In 1648, King Louis XIV founded the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (in english: The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) in Paris to control artistic production and safeguard artists, who were now recognised as individuals with genuine artistic identity rather than just craftsmen. The Academy advanced a new vision of the artist as a knowledgeable figure, aligning with the Renaissance's humanistic ideals. After the revolution of 1793 the Royal Academy is renamed to Académie des Beaux-Arts (in english: Academy of Fine Arts) who was in charge to dictates the rules that artists must scrupulously follow.
As a rule setter, the Académie des Beaux-Arts define what the Great Paintings should be. The institution do so by creating the hierarchy of genres, that artists will want to break down or subvert (e.g., with German and English Romanticism).
History painting was considered the most noble genre → Artists had to depict events from history or ancient literature.
followed by Portraiture,
and at the bottom were genre scene landscape, and still life, which were considered less important.
In each genre, the artist must emphasise the human figure, and the nude is highly prized because it is created by the divine.
The emphasis is on the nude and the human figure, rather than on the rest of the setting.
And just like that Academism was in gestation. But we will see, Academism, proud of its roots from the. Renaissance, will set codified “recipes” to avoid innovation in order to respect established tradition. While Classicism, with age and the emergence of new form of sensibilities from artists will hold out an hand to Romantism and Realism.
The "twin brothers", born from similar ideals of order and measure, will developing along somewhat different paths, each with its own character, internal contradiction, and, above all, legacy - one as an ideal, the other as an institution.
Academism's first steps
With the Académie royale and, later, the Académie des Beaux‑Arts, Classicism is no longer only an ideal; it becomes a programme. The study of antique sculpture, strict life drawing, and the hierarchy of genres are no longer individual choices but collective obligations if an artist wants recognition, prizes, or Salon visibility.
In each genre, the artist must emphasize the human figure, and the nude is highly valued, as it is created by the divine.
Candidates for the Royal Academy had to present a piece of agreement (i.e., a painting with a subject imposed by the professors) to demonstrate their abilities. Three years after, they'd execute a second work: the reception piece (works that artists accepted into the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture had to present and submit to obtain the title of academician). After this last piece, that the artist is definitively accepted into the Academy.
Here, at the Salon of 1787, the official salon, directed by the Royal Academy, showcases the productions of artists, as seen from floor to ceiling. Those who do not meet the criteria of the Academy's painting are not accepted and are therefore rejected.
The salon holds significant importance for artists as it is considered a key venue for distribution, commissions, and the reception of works, attracting critics from Paris and beyond, whether they are specialists or amateurs. It serves as an excellent opportunity for artists to gain recognition and sell their paintings. In the annual competition, the top students are awarded the Rome Prize, a coveted accolade for grand genre painting. Winners of the Rome Prize travel to Italy to the Villa Medici to study the masterpieces of the Renaissance and Antiquity. They continue to develop their skills in the grand genre. Upon returning to France, these artists typically embark on a successful career.
Academic training in art, particularly in drawing and sculpture, begins with reproducing engravings of the human body in various poses. This foundational exercise ensures artists thoroughly understand human anatomy, capturing muscle details, body curves, and joint proportions. Studying antique sculpture is crucial, offering insights into classical techniques. Students engage deeply with relief work principles and use live models to enhance their grasp of movement and posture, allowing for accurate and expressive depictions. Mastery of shadow and light is also essential; artists learn to manipulate shadows for depth and drama, using chiaroscuro to create mood and atmosphere. This rigorous training equips artists with the skills to translate observations into compelling art, combining engraving reproduction, antique sculpture study, and light exploration for a comprehensive understanding of the human form.
And so, after drawing from the antique and from sculpture, it is time, in a second stage, to learn to draw from the live model; from this comes the study of the male nude, which becomes one of the Academy’s specialties. This canvas, probably painted by one of Thomas Couture’s students, shows his studio, where pupils, each at their easel, devote themselves to drawing from the live model, both male and female nudes.
Thomas Couture (one of the last classicists of the 1840s–1850s) was a pupil of Antoine‑Jean Gros and also of Paul Delaroche. Antoine‑Jean Gros, moreover, had taken over David’s studio when David went into exile in 1815. Couture’s own studio opened in 1847 and welcomed, among others, Édouard Manet and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
We can see, then, that artists such as Manet, known for his modernity and “anti‑classicism,” as well as for his flat areas of colour and characteristic black outlines and Puvis de Chavannes, famous for his large monumental frescoes, both bear the mark of the discipline of drawing.
Cabanel’s studio shows another atelier, that of Alexandre Cabanel, active between 1864 and 1889, lit by natural light, where the study of the nude takes place. The model stands (or reclines) on a raised platform so that all the artists, whether seated or standing, can study and represent the man or woman before them. This practice of the live model is itself an inheritance of the Renaissance and of the question of man’s place above all things, which underpins the importance of the hierarchy of the arts and, at its summit, history painting.
Often, complex poses and movements were chosen in order to study, above all, the muscles and anatomical rendering, as in the case of Jacques‑Louis David in 1778, already a Prix de Rome laureate, when he painted the male academy known as Patroclus, after the Dying Gaul, a Roman copy. In this study, it is clear that he is not primarily interested in the individual hero and his tragedy, but rather in his physiognomy, in his “face” or rather its expression, in his feelings. Here, in particular, the focus is on the muscles, the contortion, and the bodily forms. David later reused this famous pose to suggest the warrior’s pain without showing his face.
Classicism: noble simplicity and quiet grandeur
Since Johann Winckelmann, between about 1755 and his death in 1768, art history has been organised as a narrative of the emergence, development, flowering and decline of Greco‑Roman art. For him and for later artists, the question of imitation is not about servile copying, but about approaching an ideal of beauty embodied by both ancient sculpture and human nature itself. In the case of Ingres, for example, to represent nature and beauty is to acknowledge that nature is the source of beauty: everything created by the divine is beautiful, and it is therefore the artist’s task to recreate that beauty through the disciplined study of line. To imitate beauty is thus to imitate nature, above all human nature, rather than external nature understood simply as landscape.
This aesthetic theory is rooted in the artistic principles of Neoclassicism, as studied in Rome and at the Royal Academy in Paris, particularly the legacy of ancient statues praised by Winckelmann. One of the earliest "canons" is the Apollo Belvedere, admired for its contrapposto (the weight supported by one leg while the other is free and slightly bent), and for the movement suggested by the turning torso and outstretched arm. Although the statue is incomplete, missing the bow and arrows, it became a model of ideal, dynamic male beauty. Another canonical work is the Belvedere Torso (likely Hercules). Winckelmann described this torso in the distinctly Enlightenment language that contributed to his status as one of the first true art historians: “In seeking to represent Hercules, the artist has formed an ideal body above Nature, or if you will, a virile body in the perfection of age.”
In his Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (1755), Winckelmann articulates a sentence that has become essential for art history students studying Neoclassicism: “Among the most striking traits of perfection which distinguish the productions of Greek artists, there is one which deserves particular attention, because it may be observed in all the best statues, and it would be difficult to find it elsewhere: I mean that noble simplicity and quiet grandeur which we see in their attitudes and expressions.” He follows with a well-known analogy: just as the ocean depths remain calm while a storm disturbs the surface, the expression of a beautiful Greek figure reveals a soul that remains great and tranquil amid the most violent shocks and the most terrible passions.
Though not widely read today, Winckelmann still provides art history students with a formula that encapsulates the ambition of Neoclassical history painting: noble simplicity and quiet grandeur. In David’s Male Academy (so-called Patroclus), we do not see suffering on the face; instead, it is conveyed through the muscular and controlled body, a calm nobility of form rather than a grimace of pain. Emotions are restrained; what prevails is the demonstration of moral strength and virtue, which is precisely what is celebrated in the great tradition of history painting.
Academism: the guardian brother
During the Second Empire, young painters began to emerge and express themselves across various genres. While the idea of a “permanence of Classicism” lingered in the background, these artists explored a blend of idealism and historical themes, increasingly engaging with reality as the nineteenth century progressed.
Hippolyte Flandrin (1809–1864), a student of Ingres, is a prime example. His work, Young Male Nude Seated beside the Sea (1835–1836, Louvre), depicts a youth in a contemplative pose, caught between dreaming and meditation. This painting has become one of his most renowned pieces, similar to how Ingres’s bathers (the Half‑Length Bather of 1807 and the Valpinçon Bather of 1808) have become iconic representations of the female nude. Ingres, a staunch classicist, moved from depicting ancient nymphs to bathers and odalisques, using these figures to study and portray the female form in various compositions.
The influence of the master is evident: in Flandrin’s work, we observe the same detailed realism and the smooth contrast of forms, such as the curve of the back against the angular line of the knee. This intense stylisation is often compared to the drawings of John Flaxman, the English neoclassical artist who illustrated Dante’s Inferno with figures like Belacqua, depicted hunched over to symbolise his slowness to repent. Within the Beaux-Arts curriculum, Flandrin also created Polites, Son of Priam, Observing the Movements of the Greeks towards Troy (1834, Saint-Étienne), a large canvas where a nude youth stands against a “primitive” landscape, possibly inspired by Raphael or other Italian Renaissance artists. Polites, though not a prominent Iliadic hero, enters history painting here as his pose serves as a reason to depict the male nude; once again, the focus on form, beauty, and proportion outweighs the nuances of colour.
These artists were students of Ingres, dedicated followers who significantly contributed to his posthumous reputation and carried on his legacy. The term Ingresism often describes an artistic approach centered on imitating nature and beauty, thorough study of past masters, and prioritizing drawing over color. Ingres opened his studio in 1825, closing it only when he became the director of the French Academy in Rome from 1834 to 1841; he later taught at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1830 to 1851. Throughout these years, he trained many artists of the early nineteenth century, and by the 1850s, his former students were exhibiting extensively at the Salon.
Ingresism, however, evolved beyond personal rules imposed on his pupils. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, it became almost synonymous with Academism. Between approximately 1860 and 1900, the leading figures of academic painting were Alexandre Cabanel, William Bouguereau, and Paul Baudry. They were the prominent representatives of official art, while the pre-Impressionists and Impressionists (like Manet and others) remained on the fringes. Although we now view Impressionism as “official” art, at the time, the true stars of the art world, particularly for collectors and juries, were Cabanel, Bouguereau, and Baudry, whose works were also highly sought after by American buyers.
Cabanel, who trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, won the Rome Prize in 1845 (after two unsuccessful attempts) and followed the traditional academic path through the Villa Medici. His Birth of Venus (1863, Musée d’Orsay) was a major success at the 1863 Salon and was promptly acquired by Napoleon III for his private collection. The goddess rises from the waves, surrounded by cupids; the composition is perfectly balanced, her red hair draping along her body, and her nudity is depicted with a silky, continuous modelling that exemplifies official taste. A significant detail is her gaze: Venus looks at us, the viewers, from her pose of apparent abandonment. However, she appears mostly unreal, especially when compared to Courbet’s Bather (1853), whose dirty feet and very real body shocked academic critics. Since Titian, nudes in paintings had been idealised, untouchable women, emerging from water or the artist’s imagination like Venus; Courbet’s bather was scandalous because she resembled a real woman, which was precisely what the academic establishment did not want to see. The same issue would arise with Manet’s Olympia.
Bouguereau, a professor at the private Académie Julian, revisited the same myth in his Birth of Venus (1879, Musée d’Orsay), where the goddess rises from the shell, celebrated by sea creatures and airborne figures. Once again, Venus is both seductive and artificial, existing somewhere between reality and illusionism; the focus is on her perfectly idealised body and the chorus of admiring figures around her. Paul Baudry’s Fortune and the Child (1857, Musée d’Orsay) conveys similar ideals through an allegory inspired by La Fontaine; his Italianate treatment of the landscape and figures evokes Titian, Correggio, and Raphael, demonstrating how deeply academic painters remained connected to Renaissance models.
Twin brothers: same principles, different roles
Classicism and Academism share the same family resemblance: admiration for Antiquity, belief in the primacy of drawing, faith in proportion and measure, conviction that beauty can be taught through rules and examples. Both speak the language of noble bodies, controlled gestures, and carefully ordered compositions.
Yet their roles diverge.
Classicism uses the classical vocabulary to pose new questions about virtue, politics, and human nature, as David did when he transformed Roman legends and revolutionary events into moral dramas.
Academism is the guardian brother: it stabilises that vocabulary into a canon, polices its correct use, and, in doing so, risks turning living ideals into formulas, as in many mythological nudes and Salon “machines” of the 19th century.
The two are not simple opposites, but different destinies of the same heritage, one open and exploratory, the other protective and sometimes defensive.
