Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/68

 has retained the name of academic classicism. For many reasons, among which the discovery of Pompeii played no small part, the West at that time was passing through something like a second classical Renaissance. The characteristic culture of the eighteenth century—that strange, morbid, and yet charming blossom—was rapidly withering. The chilling approach of the nineteenth century was felt in the air. Roman republican ideas were pressing the monarchical principle hard; the gay, carefree rococo was pining away, giving place to the stern Vitruvius, and the graceful fashions of Watteau and DeTroy were being gradually replaced by "antique" tunics, while Lessing, Winkelmann, Mengs and David were expounding the æsthetics of the new age.

Academies had existed ever since the end of the sixteenth century, since the times of Carracci. But originally Academies were a wholly sane and desirable reaction against the dissolute mannerism of the late Renaissance. Gradually they became something in the nature of official departments of art. Here sat artists, well balanced, always ready to carry out, in strict conformity with the rules of the school, the bidding of the authorities, that is of the monarch and his court. Yet, for a long time the mediæval guild principle did not cease to guide these institutions. It was the best