Founding of the Royal Académie:
a time of heroism
Of the twenty-six artists who founded the Académie, only six kept their
promise to donate their reception works. Donations therefore threw down
the basis of the collection rather than competition pieces. Donations
were also an act of faith because the Académie found itself in
great danger during the Fronde
and no-one at the time could have predicted such longevity for the
institution.
The portrait of Louis XIV depicts the celebratory role of the first ceremonial portraits of the patrons commissioned to decorate the walls of the reception hall in the Académie. Religious painting made its appearance with the reception piece by Philippe de Champaigne, a founder member of the Académie. The Académie aimed to exalt the nobility of painting above the common crafts. Allegory was used to convey this type of message in poetic form. Nicolas Loir thus boasts the prosperity of the arts under the illuminated authority of the monarchy.
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