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'Het karakter onzer Hollandsche school'. De Koninklijke Akademie van Beeldende Kunsten te Amsterdam, 1817-1870

Reynaerts, J.A.H.

Publication date 2000

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Citation for published version (APA): Reynaerts, J. A. H. (2000). 'Het karakter onzer Hollandsche school'. De Koninklijke Akademie van Beeldende Kunsten te Amsterdam, 1817-1870. in eigen beheer.

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'Thee Character of our Dutch School' Thee Royal Academy of Visual Arts of Amsterdam (1817-1870)

Introduction n

Thee Royal Academy of Visual Arts of Amsterdam was established in 1817 in the recently foundedd United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its aim was to rekindle the flame of the national schooll of Dutch painting - an agenda involving several presuppositions. Firstly, that there was suchh a thing as national feeling; secondly, that it could be expressed in art; thirdly, that this nationall feeling was experienced by Dutch artists; and lastly, that a new art academy would providee the best opportunities to regenerate the faded glory of Dutch art. Furthermore, the foundationn of the Royal Academy was part of a larger governmental reorganisation of the art educationall system, which suggests that during the reign of King William I there was some kindd of cultural policy. Thiss study concerns the above-mentioned presuppositions. I will concentrate mainly onn painting as taught at thee Academy, because this was the type of art in which the highest hopess for the future were invested. I will mention such other subjects as sculpture, engraving andd architecture only when relevant. Untill now there has been hardly any research on the Royal Academy of Amsterdam. Thiss is mainly because the reputation of the professors teaching there - the Pienemannen and KrusemannènKrusemannèn - started to dwindle in the middle of the nineteenth century, and because the Academyy itself produced few outstanding masters. In addition, the reputed conservatism of nineteenth-centuryy academies in general meant there has been a lack of interest in the history off the Royal Academy. However, now that art history has widened its field to include a more contextuall approach (such as the infrastructure of the art world), a study of the firstnationa l artt academy in the Netherlands is called for. Thee name of the Academy itself provides two starting points for my enquiry. Firstly, it iss an academy, an institution belonging to the long history of academicism and as such foundedd on academic doctrine. This doctrine assumes that art can be taught and should strive too achieve utmost perfection, such as that once attained in classical sculpture, and in the art of thee masters of the Italian Renaissance and such seventeenth-century masters as Nicolas Poussin.. According to this theory, history painting is the highest form of painting, the human beingg is its foremost subject and invention is the greatest quality an artist must cultivate. The academicc artist must therefore be an intellectual - kpictor doctus. Secondly,, the Royal Academy was a national institution. This status and the ensuing highh expectations inevitably led to the difficult definition of national art in nineteenth-century Holland.. The stylistic pluralism of the nineteenth century here as elsewhere resulted in uncertaintyy and never-ending debate. Heated discussions were held among the academicians themselves,, among the members of the Fourth Class of the Royal Dutch Institution (the fine artss department of the precursor to the Royal Academy of Sciences), on the artistic scene and,

297 7 finally,, in parliament. The participants used different criteria to define national art: one group consideredd Dutch landscape and genre painting as typically national, while others stressed historyy painting as the national art, even though it was usually regarded as 'foreign'.

II Amsterdam or Antwerp? The Foundation of the Royal Academy (1806-1817)

Inn the first chapter, the problem of national art will be considered in a political- and cultural- historicall context. Even before the actual founding of the Royal Academy in 1817 there had beenn initiatives to establish a national art academy, with a view to raising the level of the arts, whichh had declined in the eighteenth century. Concrete action had been taken during the reign off Louis Napoleon (1806-1810), but had been thwarted by a group of mainly Amsterdam artists,, who preferred a better position for their own Stadstekenakademie (City Drawing Academy)) rather than an umbrella organisation run by the State. Their resistance tallies with thatt of contemporaneous cultural societies and universities, which also preferred to be independentt rather than a state institution. Louis Napoleon's plans were put on hold because off his abdication in 1810. Later (in 1817), the new king William I incorporated them in a new governmentt system of Dutch art education. Onee of the most enterprising artists consulted by the Dutch government on this reform wass the Antwerp painter Matthijs van Bree, professor at that city's academy. He combined a predilectionn for the colourism of the Antwerp School with a convinced academicism, consideringg history painting the highest form of painting. In 1816 he devised a scheme in whichh Dutch art education was divided into three levels, with two Grandes Académies at the top.. One of these should be the academy of Antwerp. Its regulations would serve as the examplee for the other grand academy to be established in Amsterdam. Vann Bree's idea was almost completely adopted by the Government and was subjected too the opinion of the Amsterdam artists, who had been raised in the Dutch art tradition and whosee views on art were therefore diametrically opposed to those of Van Bree. However, they weree in a difficult position to object, because the founding of a Grande Académie was connectedd with the very important and not to be refused Prix de Rome. In the end, both Royal Academiess - as they were to be known - acquired an individual accent: the one in Antwerp wass to concentrate on history painting, and the one in Amsterdam would also teach landscape andd genre painting. The last stipulation was something new in the history of art academies. Thee reorganisation of the educational system obviously provided the Dutch governmentt - which at the time was faced with a new territorial state and a population with a strongg sense of locality - with one of the best opportunities to realise a national culture. This wass already the case with primary schools and Dutch universities. But it also applied to art education,, because since the later eighteenth century it had been believed that art has a civilisingg effect on a people as a whole, and was therefore considered a valuable asset in the processs of national unification. William I added utilitarian arguments to support the reorganisation:: at both lower levels of the new system - the so-called drawing schools and drawingg academies - craftsmen and drawing masters rather than artists would be trained, and

298 8 theyy would propagate good taste. Consequently, the arts and crafts would flourish and the desiredd industrialisation would develop faster. Thus,, the Royal Academy had to take care not only of the aesthetic education of the nation,, but also of the reputation of the Netherlands as a land of art-loving, art-producing people.. With this goal in mind and influenced by the patriotic movement, from the 1780s onwardss the eighteenth-century classicistic orientation gradually changed into orientation towardss seventeenth-century art. Painting from the seventeenth century became the example too follow for early nineteenth-century artists, though selectively: from the legacy of the Goldenn Age, mainly landscape and genre painting were considered sufficiently 'Dutch'. Consequently,, the representation of seventeenth-century art in nineteenth-century eyes was ratherr limited. Here, the principle of invention of tradition is vital. Thiss designed image of the art-historical past posed the Royal Academy its own problems.. As an institution, it was supposed to be equal to the great academies of Antwerp, Pariss and London. As a Dutch art school, however, its example was provided by seventeenth- centuryy Dutch painting genres, which were considered definitely non-academic in the rest of Europe. .

III History or Landscape? The Debate on National Art (1820-1840)

Thiss dilemma soon surfaced at the beginning of the academic meetings in 1820. Members of thee Governing Board and the professors - who according to an old tradition were called directorss - did not agree on the course the new academy should follow. The Board members weree not artists but dilettantes, for example, the State Museum's director Cornelis Apostool andd the art lovers Jeronimo de Vries and Jacob de VosWz. These men came from a higher middle-classs background and were very often versed in the classics. However,, they too had their differences, just like the painters-directors, the painter Jan Willemm Pieneman being the most important. He had built a solid reputation for himself with battlee scenes from the Napoleonic wars, and was appointed first director. In an elaborate memorandumm on academic education, he showed himself to be an advocate of history paintingg in academic fashion, with subjects chosen from national history. He was supported byy Van Bree and De VosWz., who in lectures on contemporary national art expressed a similarr preference. Apostool,, De Vries and most of the other directors on the other hand defended the Dutchh tradition, as exemplified in the class of landscape painting. Unfortunately, however, the directorr of the landscape class Jan Hulswit died in 1823, leaving a vacancy at the very start of thee academic session. Discussions on his successor and later on the desirability of the landscapee class in general, clearly demonstrate the incompatibility of the goals of the Royal Academy.. Even though landscape in the eighteenth century had risen in the academic hierarchyy of genres and had not been banned from the Dutch drawing academies in the past, it wass never rated as high as history painting. This meant that teaching landscape painting as an academicc subject would lower the position of the Academy not only compared to the powerfull art academies in Europe's capitals, but also compared to the drawing academies of

299 9 thee second level in the Dutch art educational system, where landscape was taught to drawing masters.. It follows that Hulswit was not succeeded, and that landscape painting - notwithstandingg the innovative regulations of 1817 - was never actually taught at the Royal Academyy of Amsterdam. Att the same time, a choice for history painting faced its own dilemma. It might possiblyy give more standing to the Academy, but in the Netherlands there was hardly any appreciationn of this form of painting. The Fourth Class of the Royal Dutch Institute asked the governmentt a number of times for support and patronage for history painting and sculpture, butt to no avail. Consequently, supply and demand on the art market were the decisive factors forr a young artist choosing his specialisation. Disregarding the pleas of their academic teachers,, they chose not history but landscape and genre painting. Very often they neglected theirr academic studies and left the Academy early in their training in order to earn money. Thuss the most important subjects of the Academy - i.e. the study of historical composition and off theory (art history, anatomy and proportions) - were not developed, due to the lack of studentss and the fact that most of the directors paid little attention to them.

Illl Change of Mind, Change of Course (ca. 1840)

Thee differences of opinion that had laid dormant during the first decades of the Academy's historyy erupted in around 1840. A move to a new building necessitated changes and the directorss accordingly made a new plan, in which they imposed the supremacy of history paintingg on the academic curriculum. By that time Pieneman had been joined by a couple of neww directors, the portrait and history painter Jan Adam Kruseman and the sculptor Louis Royer,, both of whom had been educated in the classical tradition. They shared Pieneman's viewss on the supremacy of academic painting and were fully opposed to romanticism and the picturesque,, and to the exclusive example off seventeenth-century Dutch landscape and genre painting.. In their opinion, this kind of art merely needed talent and skill, whereas the academicc painter was a studied and learned artist. Thee choice for history painting also seems to have been made for emancipatory reasons.. The directors were very concerned about the social status of the Academy and its artists.. For example, to raise the Academy's social standing they wanted to charge fees in orderr to attract students from a higher social level. Very important is the fact that the directors,, by taking the initiative to impose new regulations, escaped the grasp of the dilettantes,, who until then had set academic policy. This need for segregation was more general:: in the same year in which the directors put their new proposals before the Board, they alsoo founded Arti et Amicitiae, the first artist society in the Netherlands to be run solely by artists. . Soo most importantly the choice for history painting ensured a true academic programmee on equal terms with that of other national academies. Secondly, it meant that the academicc and learned artist could aspire to a higher social position than the merely mechanical,, skilled landscape or genre painter. Thirdly, the new stress on history painting

300 0 wouldd made it possible to contribute substantially to the representation of a national culture, byy making paintings of patriotic heroes for public places. Too a certain extent, the attempt at emancipation succeeded. The directors' plan was acceptedd in 1842, after much resistance from some of the Board members. Outside the Academy,, artists were now given positions formerly reserved for dilettantes. For example, Krusemann became the first artist-chairman of the Fourth Class, and for a short time Pieneman wass director of the State Museum. Royer earned the new title of King's Sculptor. The success off history painting and of the Academy itself, however, proved to be less great.

IVV To Rome or not to Rome? The Great Prize (1823-1849)

Thee achievement of the Academy is best measured by the results of the Great Prize (Groote Prijs).Prijs). This Dutch version of the Prix de Rome gave the Royal Academy international distinction.. But again the history of the Great Prize also demonstrates the dilemma of national art,, as told in the preceding three chapters. Thee Great Prize had its precedent in the élèves-pensionnaires system of Louis Napoleon,, which enabled promising young artists to study for two years under renowned masterss in Paris and for two years in Rome. The subsidy was intended for all kinds of artists, includingg landscape and genre painters. In this way, Louis Napoleon tried to guard the characteristicss of Dutch art. Although quite a few artists profited from this system, some (e.g. thee painters Antonie Smink Pitloo and Abraham Teerlinck) never returned to the Netherlands, butt remained in Italy and earned a good income painting Italianate landscapes. Thee climate in Holland after 1813, changing as a consequence of the dominant orientationn towards Dutch seventeenth-century art, was expressed by the heavy criticism these élèves-pensionnairesélèves-pensionnaires met with. They were called 'un-Dutch* and their landscape painting was consideredd standardised and mannered. It is also significant that although unlike most Dutch painterss of the time these painters had enjoyed a truly academic art education, none received ann invitation to become a painter-director at the Royal Academy. The way these artists were treatedd was an omen for the problematic way the Royal Academy would deal with the Great Prize. . Duringg the period in which the prize was awarded (1823-1849), the academicians were primarilyy concerned with the corrupting influence of a sojourn in foreign parts. They feared nott only for the youthful artists, but also for Dutch art in general. Artists could go to Italy, but shouldd return as quintessentially Dutch. Also, unlike Louis Napoleon, the Board members and directorss were not convinced of the need to send every kind of artist to Italy. Obviously, sculptorss and architects would greatly benefit from the Italian examples, but this was not so clearlyy the case for engravers and painters, especially landscape and genre painters. Again the academicianss could not agree among themselves: whereas Apostool thought a study abroad wouldd be useful for landscape painters but dangerous for history painters - who would be moree easily contaminated with foreign manner - others deemed that for landscape painters to goo travelling was a waste of time.

301 1 Ironically,, the whole issue was purely academic because of the lack of teaching in landscapee and genre, which meant that a Great Prize contest was never held for any of these subjects;; it was held only in history painting. The Academy thus unintentionally adjusted itselff to the traditional Prix de Rome Historique as formulated in most European countries. Evenn a four-yearly Prix de Rome Paysage Historique - such as that introduced in 1817 in Paris,, partly because of the success of the Dutch élèves-pensionnaires system - was never plannedd for the Netherlands. Thee effect of travelling on young Dutch artists was varied, but rarely very elevating. Forr example, neither the 1825 nor the 1832 prize winner (Jean Désiré de Fiennes and Hendrik Willemm Cramer, respectively) became well known. De Fiennes went straight to Rome to study andd copy the great Italian masterpieces, while Cramer decided to make a Grand Tour and endedd up producing hardly anything at all. In Rome, Cramer met the older artist Cornells Kruseman,, who at the time - together with Pieneman - was the most celebrated Dutch history painter.. He found most of his inspiration while working in Italy. Both Cramer and Kruseman weree amazed by French and Italian contemporary art, which in Holland was virtually unknown.. After some years abroad they were indeed influenced by the new artistic developmentss - in which Ingres, the Nazarenes, Goethe and Schelling were important - and hadd distanced themselves somewhat from the ideal of Dutch seventeenth-century art. Other prizee winners, such as the engraver Johan de Mare and the painter Jan Hendrik Koelman, neverr or only after many years returned home and became successful in France and Italy. Inn the 1840s these poor results of the Great Prize led to criticism. One of the most outspokenn critics was Cornells Kruseman, who had had first-hand experience of the winners inn his encounters with Cramer and others in Rome. He suggested replacing the annual contest withh a prize for a whole oeuvre, and also made it clear that young artists in Italy should not be leftt to their own devices, but needed guidance. AA prize for an oeuvre, however, would not have been to the Academy's advantage, becausee it would have meant that history painters would have been outdone by the more popularr genre and landscape painters. This would certainly have damaged the Academy's prestige.. The Academy's way to improve the conditions of the contest was to set an entrance examination.. On two occasions, however, this examination led to difficulties and discord, firstlyfirstly because it revealed the inadequacy of the architectural course (1845), and secondly becausee there was no winner of the 1847 prize for history painting even though all contestants hadd passed the examination. Such a disastrous outcome aroused the press, which criticised the Academyy in no uncertain terms. When the 1849 sculpture contest was won by an artist who wass not only too old according to the regulations but died of cholera almost immediately, the Greatt Prize died with him.

VV Liberal Art and Free Trade: the Demise of the Royal Academy (ca. 1845-1870)

J.R.. Thorbecke - who was Minister of Interior Affairs - abolished the Great Prize in 1851. He wass the leader of the new political movement of the Liberals, who had been in power since 1848.. The Liberals advocated self-support in general as well as in the arts. Furthermore, they

302 2 endedd the isolation policy former governments had favoured since the Belgian separation movementt of 1830-1839. The Liberals' political agenda no longer included promoting the nationall identity; on the contrary, they tolerated other cultures and subcultures, for example thee Roman-Catholics. Elsewheree the ideal of a national culture also lost ground. At the 1855 Universal Exhibitionn in Paris, exhibits were still arranged according to national schools of art, but the schoolss were judged on artistic rather than national criteria. The Dutch selection had a poor receptionn and was criticised as being 'bien vieux, Men usé et bienfastidieux' [Delécluze]. At thee same time the Universal Exhibition was a manifestation of realism in art, in the works of Courbett and the painters of the Barbizon School. Young artists and critics were not interested inn the house of cards national culture had become, but thought of art as universal. In Holland thesee ideas were followed by the painters of The Hague School. Inn this increasingly hostile climate, the Royal Academy had to defend its aspirations. Jann Adam Kruseman and Louis Royer were the last protectors of an old art theory, in which drawingg was considered the most important training and history painting and sculpture the foremostt national arts. The Academy's base became smaller and more unsteady, and the situationn was worsened by the reduction of the government's subsidy and a shortage of staff. Inn 1860 a governmental committee judged the Academy severely by calling it an old- fashioned,, eighteenth-century drawing academy rather than a contemporary, higher institution forr the arts. Under the influence of reorganisations effected in other European academies, the Royall Academy suffered many reform schemes in the last ten years of its existence; these schemess stressed more individual teaching, more training in painting and a more scientific approachh to art. At the same time, voices demanding the abolition of the Academy grew louder.. Nevertheless, as a consequence of growing wealth and a softening of the strict Liberal doctrinee of self-support, the desire for a state-subsidised art academy persisted. However, this wass not to be the Royal Academy, which was dissolved in 1870.

Epilogue e

Thee Royal Academy was almost immediately succeeded by the State Academy (Rijks Akademie),, which after a difficult start partly accomplished the goals of its predecessor. At thee end of the century Dutch art finally experienced a revival in The Hague School and the so- calledd Impressionists of Amsterdam. These painters did not choose historical scenes for their subjects,, however, but painted landscapes, town views and genre - the traditional 'Dutch' themes. . Inn the concluding paragraphs, I will base my assessment of the Royal Academy on the achievementt of its goals: i.e. the establishment of a national art through art education, the improvementt of the status of the artist and the defining of the character of the Dutch school of art. . Thee idea of national art did not turn out to be so unequivocal as the academicians, amongg others, had been led to believe at the beginning of the century. At first, one undivided nationall culture was aimed for; but later, features of this culture continually changed. Dutch

303 3 culturee was typified as the opposite of doctrinal and as diverse, but sometimes its main characteristicc was no more than being different from other European nations. In the first half off the nineteenth century, this attitude can be related to the political situation of the United Kingdomm of the Netherlands, which was very uncertain and dependent on the strategic manoeuvringg of the European powers. Fear of foreign influence and of loss of identity dominatedd thoughts on national culture. For an academic institution subject to disparaging academicc criticism on Dutch art, it was even more difficult to combine in one programme a highh position and a distinguishing Dutch character. When in the late 1840s the ultimate goal off the Academy - i.e. the revival of national art - disappeared from the agenda of the Liberal government,, the position of the Academy became untenable. Referringg to the academic doctrine, in 1839 the directors aspired to produce intellectuall artists, and therefore opted for the supremacy of history painting. They hoped this changee of direction might gain respect in foreign countries and make it possible to secure largee orders for paintings which adulated the national past from, for example, the government. Mostt importantly, it would give the history painter - and thus the Royal Academy - a higher sociall standing, in this way creating not only apictor apictor doctus but also apictor emancipatus. Thesee arguments explain the choice of the directors, but it is still a surprising option consideringg the nineteenth-century Dutch art market, of which history painting made up only aa small percentage. The endeavours of the Academy and of the Fourth Class to promote historyy painting only resulted in negative publicity, because their actions merely indicated the lackk of orders for and interest in this genre. Nor was the ideal of the learned painter achieved: thee classes in theory and historical composition were not properly attended, and students mostlyy opted for a career in landscape and genre. But the alternative was also unattainable. An emphasiss on landscape and genre painting would have kept the Academy on the lower level of f thee city academies and made its attempt at emancipation a failure. Inn addition, there was the complicated notion of forming a Dutch school of art. In earlyy nineteenth-century Dutch art theory, the idea of a school was considered negatively and too be synonymous with standardisation, partiality and mannerism. For a nation that described itss artistic character as being diverse and individual, the thought of a school was difficult to interpret.. This attitude would lead to ambivalence and xenophobia, best illustrated by the ups andd downs of the Great Prize. A journey and a stay abroad were supposed to be an internationall education for the artist and a stimulus for indigenous art, but at the same time the academicianss were deadly afraid of letting in a Trojan Horse, Thee idea of a national school of art furthermore lost significance from the 1850s onwards.. Young artists lost interest, the art market became more internationally oriented and thee romantic qualities of originality and individuality gained importance. The aims with which thee Royal Academy had set out, turned out be incompatible and impossible to achieve.

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