Aesthetics and exhortations: Dutch artists' academies in the eighteenth century

By the beginning of the eighteenth century new venues for artists' training had appeared---artists' drawing academies---which co-existed with such traditional venues as workshops, apprenticeships and guild training. These academies were intended to provide training of both the hand and the mind. Drawing from casts of antique sculpture and the male nude were combined with lectures on art and anatomy. After mid-century nearly all artists in the United Provinces attended academies as the main path to a career. These academies were founded by community leaders, art patrons and leading artists as a means to spur economic development through artistic and intellectual education. In this manner, academies were seen as a way to inspire a return to the values of the "Golden Age" of the Dutch nation and stop its decline.;Dutch academies differed from their contemporary European counterparts in important ways. Without the centralizing sponsorship of a strong monarchy or the Roman Catholic Church, Dutch academies were unable to dominate the aesthetics and artistic production in the nation as did the French, English and Italian academies. Nonetheless the academies became a significant presence in the social and intellectual life of the Dutch people.;Just as in other European artists' academies of the time, however, the Dutch academies sought to embrace the classical principles of ancient Roman and Greek art and the art of the Renaissance in order to inspire artists to create works that reflected higher societal values. As the century wore on, however, academies came to terms with the discrepancy between their teachings and the prevailing tastes of the wealthy Dutch burghers who were their primary patrons.;These patrons preferred art that recalled works by the great Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. Their taste was for realistic depictions of everyday life and the Dutch countryside over works that reverberated with classical forms, themes and treatments promoted in all other European academies. The taste for the art of the Dutch "Golden Age" was ultimately promoted by Dutch academies and eventually led their academicians to articulate what became identified as a Dutch national "style." This style represented the Dutch equivalent of "classicism," in that it created a referential stream from the contributions of their greatest economic, social and artistic period throughout the eighteenth century, providing pleasure and creative sustenance to the nation.