The history of the hypocrite hierarchy of genres and the Academie des Beaux-Arts

The French Academy of Fine Arts (Academie des Beaux-Arts) is the premier institution of fine art in France. The brainchild of painter, designer and art theorist Charles Le Brun (1619-90), the Academy was founded in 1648 as the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture). The Academie des Beaux-Arts it had massive importance in the art world as every artist had to pass through the Páris Salon to become established, and consequently had to be approved by the Academy. 

The Salon was established in 1667 and was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. According to official data, at the 1761 Salon, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. From 1881 onward, it has been managed by the Société des Artistes Français. The Salon exhibited paintings floor-to-ceiling and on every available inch of space. The jostling of artwork became the subject of many other paintings, including Pietro Antonio Martini's Salon of 1785. Printed catalogues of the Salons are primary documents for art historians. Critical descriptions of the exhibitions published in the gazettes mark the beginning of the modern occupation of art critic. The French salon, a product of the Enlightenment in the early 18th century, was a key institution in which women played a central role. Salons provided a place for women and men to congregate for intellectual discourse.

The French revolution opened the exhibition to foreign artists. In the 19th century the idea of a public Salon extended to an annual government-sponsored juried exhibition of new painting and sculpture, held in large commercial halls, to which the ticket-bearing public was invited. The vernissage (varnishing) of opening night was a grand social occasion, and a crush that gave subject matter to newspaper caricaturists like Honoré Daumier. Charles Baudelaire, Denis Diderot and others wrote reviews of the Salons.

The 1848 revolution liberalized the Salon. The amount of refused works was greatly reduced. In 1849 medals were introduced. A new hero or villain appears in our story: The Société des Artistes Français. This is the association of French painters and sculptors established in 1881. Its annual exhibition is called the "Salon des artistes français" (not to be confused with the 1667 Salon). When the Société was established, it associated all the French artists. Its president was a painter and its vice-president a sculptor. The main task of the Société is to organize the Salon, since the French government ceased to do it.The increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted. The Salon opposed the Impressionists' shift away from traditional painting styles. In 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected. Before this, the increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted. The Salon opposed the Impressionists' shift away from traditional painting styles. In 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected. We could say therefore that the Société was the savior of artistic expression. In December 1890, the leader of the Société des Artistes Français, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, proposed that the Salon should be an exhibition of young, not-yet-awarded, artists. Ernest Meissonier, Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Rodin and others rejected the proposal and broke way to create the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, with its own exhibition, immediately referred to in the press as the Salon du Champ de Mars  or the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux–Arts. Soon, it was also widely known as the Nationale.

And this, this was the story of two decades in a nutshell. But returning to the 1660s, in a France of artistic oppression where the academy ruled supreme. Most of the artists homologated themselves in order to make a career, others hated it, the commoners were little interested in both. 

Something controversial and hypocritical, however, has in store the academy, and that is the hierarchy of genres. It was first announced in 1669, by the art-theoretician Andre Felibien, Secretary to the French Academy. Felibien ranked the genres as follows: (1) History Painting; (2) Portraiture; (3) Genre Painting; (4) Landscapes; (5) Still Life.

This ranking system - based on traditions of Greek and Roman art established during the era of the Florentine Renaissance - was used by the academies as a basis for awarding prizes and scholarships as well as spaces in their exhibitions (Salons). It also had a significant impact on the perceived monetary value of an artwork, in the sale rooms of auction houses. But more importantly, this system was permanent and indisputable, the power that the academy exercised was too much to be fought.

According to the precepts of Academic art this so-called 'hierarchy of the genres' was justified because it reflected the inherent moral force of each genre. An artist could communicate a moral message much more clearly through a history picture, a portrait or a genre painting, rather than a landscape or still life. In addition, following the traditions of classical antiquity, the Italian Renaissance believed that the highest form of art was the pictorial representation of the human form - in figurative sculpture, figure drawing and figure painting. Thus landscapes and still-lifes - which required no human figures - were viewed as lesser genres. Lastly, the Academic ranking system reflected each category's display value. History painting was the largest and most suitable genre for public disply, followed by portraiture, genre-works and landscapes, while still life canvases were typically the smallest and executed for domestic viewing only. This system has categorized works as a consequence only based on intangible rules and differentiating them into divided genres, thus dividing both the public and artists. 

The Academic ranking system aroused considerable controversy and discontent among artists and schools, as many would expect.

To begin with, it was accompanied by a series of other rules, which dictated how paintings were to be painted. For example, a painting's theme, layout, composition, colour scheme and finish was carefully regulated by academies, to reinforce the system of aesthetics for which they stood. Artists who did not comply with these conventions found it extremely difficult to forge a career as an artist as they were not accepted by the Academy. They were, for instance, excluded from the Paris Salon, and from any list of 'recommended artists' for official posts in teaching, or for any official commissions.

Secondly, the insistence of the academies on ranking a painting according to its ability to convey a 'moral message' introduced a completely un-artistic element, into the practice of art. As a result, mediocre history paintings received preferential treatment over outstanding landscapes and genre paintings. Even worse, the whole system discouraged experimentation and innovation, preferring instead conformity and repetition. Later, during the 19th century, the whole academic system gradually fell into disrepute as brilliant (but non-conforming) artists - such as Manet, Monet and Cezanne - were excluded from the Paris Salon, while lesser figures had their works exhibited. (Note: Almost no history paintings were produced by Impressionist painters.) Such was the controversy that in 1863 the French Emperor Napoleon III organized an 'alternative' salon - known as the Salon des Refusés - to exhibit works rejected by the French Academy.

Marking a break from the Academic taste, the Salon des Refusés, held in 1863 Paris, proved to be the first of this string of art shows of great significance as well as a pivotal event in the development of contemporary art.

Among the exhibitors were Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Armand Guillaumin, Johan Jongkind, Henri Fantin-Latour, James Whistler, and Édouard Manet, who exhibited his famous painting "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe", officially regarded as a scandalous affront to taste.

Fearful of disdain, hundreds of artists decided not to join the counter-show and withdrew their works; but the Salon des Refusés proved to be a massive exhibition nonetheless, featuring almost 800 works by more than 400 artists including soon-to-be infamous painters as the ones I have mentioned above.

The critics’ reaction to the show was, predictably, negative to the point that the writer Émile Zola – one of the few who actually praised the event – reported that many visitors, influenced by the conservative academic standards, went there only to have a sneering laugh. This negative reaction from the public was clearly caused by the aesthetic standards that the academy had forced over the years. However, despite the initial ridicule, the Salon des Refusés attracted more than a thousand curious spectators a day and constituted the beginning of the end for the official Salon’s prestige and the dominance of its aesthetic arbitration.

Despite the rather unfavourable reception by public and critic, the 1863 Salon des Refusés represented the first groundbreaking step for the development of contemporary art. First of all, it minimised the role of the jury in determining which artists and artworks were worthy of recognition, therefore encouraging free individual experimentation regardless of strict academic rules and stylistic classification. Artists acknowledged their own right to engage freely in personal artistic research and to display the results without fear of judgement: freedom of exhibition became synonymous with freedom of artistic expression. Once the Salon’s monopoly was broken, young artists began to set up new, independent, and jury-free exhibitions, and finding in Manet a leading figure to take over the position that Courbet had held for almost fifteen years.

Progressively, qualities of spontaneity and originality overtook the meticulous rigidity of the conservative academic taste, ultimately paving the way for Impressionism and the avant-garde experiences that followed.

Historically, decorative arts have been seen as lesser than painting and sculpture. There are all kinds of hierarchies embodied in museum collections, but those hierarchies have largely broken down. Artists today can work in any discipline, and they usually choose to work in a multimedia way. And when it is true that even today art is categorized between low art and high art (Fine Art), the limitations are almost nil, so much so that it is often the low art that sells more.

The hypocrisy of establishing a ranking system to divide art and artists while seeking artistic expression, was ironically the beginning of contemporary art and the end of the academy itself.