The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts ( sv, Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna), commonly called the Royal Academy, is located in Stockholm, Sweden. An independent organization that promotes the development of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other fine arts, it is one of several
Swedish Royal Academies The Royal Academies are independent organizations, founded on Royal command, that act to promote the arts, culture, and science in Sweden. The Swedish Academy and Academy of Sciences are also responsible for the selection of Nobel Prize laureates i ...
. The
Royal Institute of Art
The Royal Institute of Art ( sv, Kungliga Konsthögskolan) is an institution in Stockholm, Sweden for higher education in art,
In 1735,
Carl Gustaf Tessin
Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (5 September 1695 – 7 January 1770) was a Swedish Count and politician and son of architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and Hedvig Eleonora Stenbock. He was one of the most brilliant personages of his day, and the mo ...
set up a drawing school at Stockholm Castle, naming it the Royal Drawing Academy. It was modeled after French academies of the day as a gathering place for established artists and art connoisseurs. The painters Guillaume Taraval, Johan Henrik Scheffel, and
Olof Arenius
Olof Arenius (16 December 1701 – 5 May 1766) was a Swedish portrait painter.
Biography
Arenius was born in the parish of Bro in Uppland, Sweden. His father was a vicar in Upplands-Bro. After a period of theology studies at Uppsala Universit ...
and the architect
Carl Hårleman
Baron Carl Hårleman (27 August 1700 – 9 February 1753) was a Swedish architect.
Biography
Hårleman was born in Stockholm, son of the garden architect and head of the royal parks and gardens Johan Hårleman, who had been ennobled in 1698. ...
taught there, and the first group of students included
Johan Pasch
Johan Pasch (12 March 1706, Stockholm - 16 January 1769, Stockholm) was a Swedish painter, etcher and Decorative painter, decorative artist. He is sometimes referred to as The Elder to distinguish him from another, minor, painter named Johan Pasch ...
.
In 1766, the academy expanded its activities following a parliamentary decree. In 1768, its name was changed to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1773, King
Gustav III
Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia.
Gustav was a vocal opponent of what ...
wrote the first statutes for the academy's organization. At the time, the curriculum spanned architecture, graphics, anatomy, theory of perspective, and cultural history. The late 18th century is considered the first golden age of the Royal Academy, when great artists of the time such as
Johan Tobias Sergel
Johan Tobias Sergel (; 7 September 1740 in Stockholm – 26 February 1814 in Stockholm) was a Swedish neoclassical sculptor. Sergels torg, the largest square in the centre of Stockholm and near where his workshop stood, is named after him.
Life
...
were elected as members and also taught there. In 1810, it was renamed again to Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts (Swedish: ), the name it still bears today.
By the 1830s, there was beginning to be opposition to the Royal Academy's commitment to traditional
academic art
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie ...
. In addition, while both men and women could be elected as members of the academy, at the time women could only study art by special permission before 1864, when women students where accepted.Bengtsson, Eva-Lena ”Konstakademien och Mejan”, i Kungl. Konsthögskolan Vårutställning 2005 (Utställningskatalog), 2005 The Stockholm Art Association was formed to offer exhibition alternatives, and an Impressionist artists' group known as
Opponenterna
('the Opponents') was a group of 84 Swedish artists who, under the leadership of Ernst Josephson, organized the Opponent Movement () in the 1880s. On 27 March 1885, the members submitted their written demands to the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine ...
('the Opponents') arose as well.
Location
In 1780, the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture moved from
Stockholm Palace
Stockholm Palace or the Royal Palace ( sv, Stockholms slott or ) is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch (King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia use Drottningholm Palace as their usual residence). Stockholm Pala ...
into a 17th palace designed by the architect
Nicodemus Tessin the Elder
Nicodemus Tessin the Elder () (7 December 1615 in Stralsund – 24 May 1681 in Stockholm) was an important Swedish architect.
Biography
Nicodemus Tessin was born in Stralsund in Pomerania and came to Sweden as a young man. There he met and wor ...
on Fredsgatan street in the city center. In the years 1842–1846 it was redesigned by the architect
Fredrik Blom
Fredrik Blom (24 January 1781 – 25 September 1853) was a Swedish officer, architect and professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.
Life
Fredrik Blom was born in Karlskrona. His father was a compass maker journeyman. He began his career as ...
and an extension was added in 1893–1896.
See also
*
List of Swedish artists
This is a list of notable Swedish visual artists.
A
* Emma Adbåge (born 1982), illustrator
*Ottilia Adelborg (1855–1936), illustrator
*Ulla Adlerfelt (1736–1765)
* Sofia Adlersparre (1808–1862), painter
*Mattias Adolfsson (born 1965), ...
Arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...