The 'mafia degli scarabocchi' (literally, the mafia of the scribblers: all those painters basically incapable to paint human figures) managed to destroy one of the most interesting artistic developments of the XIX century: the 'academic' painters.
Aided by the birth of photography, and beginning with the 'pointillism' and the 'impressionism', some soi-disant artists began to decry 'objective' interpretation of the reality around us, and to go for subjective, not objective, snapshots. For 'objective' wishes, they had the photography scapegoat ready.
So the scribblers managed -to this day- to convince every gullible soul that a good painter didn't really need to know how to paint.
Just to make one paradoxical example: Seurat's "Les poseuses" contains a clear critical reference to the various 'beauties' of the 'pompiers'. Unfortunately, and despite some nice pictures like his "Bathing place" one wonders if Seurat would have really had -as a painter- the 'photographic' capacity of an Alma Tadema.
The paintings I'm going to dig out here were hidden for many years in the back rooms and/or store rooms of some provincial museums, where annoyed directors, ashamed of even having them, would try to convince you that they were not 'worth' in comparison with some scribbler à la mode.
Today two 'academians' pictures: Giulio Bargellini (Image 00002 below: Pygmalion & Galatea) & Alma Tadema (Image on the right: Dolce far niente). Click on it and carefully observe the marble: no kidding.
No wonder the scribblers hated these painters :-)
Just to wet your appetite. More to follow.
Bibliography:
Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
Brooke, Anthea. Victorian Painting. Catalogue for exhibition November-December 1972. London: Fine Art Society, 1972.
The Classical Spirit in American Portraiture. Exhibition Catalogue, Providence: Brown University, 1976.
Girouard, Mark. The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981
Jenkyns, Richard. The Victorians and Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Spalding, Francis. Magnificent Dreams: Burne-Jones and the Late Victorians. Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1978.
Turner, Frank M. The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Gains and Losses: Novels of Faith and Doubt in Victorian England. New York: Garland, 1972.
Wood, Christopher. Olympian Dreamers: Victorian Classical Painters. London: Constable, 1983.
