The reception works : a revealing academic exercise
A reception piece was an obligatory academic exercise whose subject
was imposed by the director. Here, the painter had to demonstrate his
grasp of the dominant stylistic
tendencies. Classical French painting was based on a hierarchy of
genres. Historical painting was considered the most superior of genres
since it was reputedly more difficult to paint the human figure. Portraiture,
albeit inferior, was also high-ranking. For the Académie, still-life
and landscape were, by definition, inferior genres reserved for specialists
in those fields alone. A painter's reception piece exacerbated the debate
about genres because each artist was henceforth attributed with a specific
genre. However, all genres were represented in the Académie where
it was also possible to have a brilliant career even as a still-life painter,
Chardin being a prime example of this. The genre question was of utmost
importance for those painters who were difficult to classify. The Académie
was also responsible for enriching the artistic terminology with terms
as yet unheard of. Watteau, inventor of a new genre was thus admitted
as painter of "fêtes galantes". Many painters, whose
aim was to become history painters, were admitted
into several genres successively. Portraits almost systematically represented
other academicians. A particularly prized category of historical painting
was allegory used to evoke recent history or the royal patronage of the
Académie.
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