The Roman Art World in the 18th Century and the Birth of the Art Academy in Britain

Conference: British School at Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Introduces Paolo Portoghesi (Accademia Nazionale di San Luca)

This two-day conference focuses on the role of the Roman pedagogical model in the formation of British art and institutions in the long 18th century.

Even as Paris progressively dominated the modern art world during the 18th century, Rome retained its status as the ‘academy’ of Europe, attracting a vibrant international community of artists and architects. Their exposure to the Antique and the Renaissance masters was supported by a complex pedagogical system. The network of the Accademia di San Luca, the Académie de France à Rome, the Capitoline Accademia del Nudo, the Concorsi Clementini, and numerous studios and offices, provided a complete theoretical and educational model for a British art world still striving to create its own modern system for the arts. Reverberations from the Roman academy were felt back in Britain through a series of initiatives culminating in the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1768, which officially sanctioned and affirmed the Roman model.

This conference addresses the process of intellectual migration, adaptation and reinterpretation of academic, theoretical and pedagogical principles from Rome to 18th-century Britain. It responds to the rise of intellectual history, building on prevalent trends in the genealogy of knowledge and the history of disciplines, as well as the exchange of ideas translated across cultural borders. The conference concludes a series of events celebrating the 250th anniversary of the 1768 foundation of London’s Royal Academy of Arts.

It is also part of a series of conferences and exhibitions focusing on the role of the Accademia di San Luca in the spread of the academic ideal in Europe and beyond, inaugurated in 2016 with an exhibition and conference on the relationship between Rome and the French academies, held at the Accademia di San Luca and at the Académie de France à Rome.

Monday 10 December
BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME

BEFORE THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS

9:45 Registration

10:00-10:35
Welcome: Stephen Milner (Director, BSR), Adriano Aymonino, Carolina Brook

10:35-11:10
Eleonora Pistis (Columbia University, New York)
Visible and invisible Rome: British architectural education in the early eighteenth century and the Oxford Circle

11:10-11:45 Coffee Break

11:45-12:20
Barbara Tetti (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Roman influence on the development of the British academies: James Gibbs’ contribution

12:20-12:55
Ilaria Renna (Sapienza Università di Roma)
La collezione di disegni dei Clerk of Penicuik e la School of St Luke di Edinburgo: modelli classicisti romani in Scozia

13:00-14:30 Lunch Break

14:30-15:05
Jason M. Kelly (Indiana University)
The Dilettanti, art pedagogy, and Roman models for an art academy in London

15:05-15:40
Clare Hornsby (Independent Scholar, London)
The role of the Society of Antiquaries as an ‘academy of classical taste’ in mid 18th-century London

15:45-16:15 Tea Break

16:15-16:50
Alessandro Spila (Sapienza Università di Roma)
L’Accademia delle Romane Antichità di Benedetto XIV e la Society of Antiquaries. Antiquaria istituzionale e dibattito architettonico fra Roma e Londra alla metà del XVIII secolo.

16:50-17:25
Helen McCormak (University of Glasgow)
Northern Italian painting and naturalism: Robert Strange, William Hunter and the Royal Academy of Arts

17:25-18:00
KEYNOTE: Robin Simon (University College London)
Before the Royal Academy of Arts: the long search for an academy of arts in Britain

18:00-18:30 Final discussion

Tuesday 11 December
ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SAN LUCA

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS AND BEYOND

9:30 Registration

9:45-10:00
Welcome: Francesco Moschini (Segretario Generale, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca)

10:00-10:35
Katherine McHale (University of St Andrews)
‘The Truest Model of Grace’: Giovanni Battista Cipriani in London academies

10:35-11:10
Flaminia Conti (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Giovanni Battista Cipriani e Agostino Carlini: classicismo e tradizione accademica italiana presso la Royal Academy of Arts

11:10-11:45 Coffee Break

11:45-12:20
Donato Esposito (Independent Scholar, London)
Building a canon: Roman Baroque art, Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Royal Academy of Arts

12:20-12:55
Elena Carrelli (Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III, Naples)
British painters in Italy and the Royal Academy of Arts: landscape painting between academic practice and scientific empiricism.

13:00-14:30 Lunch Break

14:30-15:05
Martin Postle (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London)
Assembling the Antique: the role of the classical cast in the pedagogy of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1769 to 1780

15:05-15:40
Susanna Pasquali (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Crosscurrents: exchanges between British and Italian architects, 1757–1796

15:45-16:15 Final discussion

16:15-16:50 Tea Break

16:50-18:00
Tour of the exhibition ‘Roma-Londra. Scambi, modelli e temi tra l’Accademia di San Luca e la cultura artistica britannica tra XVIII e XIX secolo’ at the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca

18:00-19:00
Concert
ContempoArtEnsemble in quartetto plays Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Naxos Quartet No. 7, Metafore sul Borromini for String Quartet

Organisers: Adriano Aymonino, Carolina Brook, Gian Paolo Consoli, Thomas Leo-True

INFO: adriano.aymoninobuckingham.ac.uk or eventsbsrome.it