École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the
Beaux-Arts style
Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporat ...
in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
The most famous and oldest École des Beaux-Arts is the
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French '' grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Scien ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, now located on the city's left bank across from the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...
, at 14 rue Bonaparte (in the 6th arrondissement). The school has a history spanning more than 350 years, training many of the great artists in Europe. Beaux-Arts style was modeled on classical " antiquities", preserving these idealized forms and passing the style on to future generations.
History
The origins of the Paris school go back to 1648, when the Académie des Beaux-Arts was founded by Cardinal Mazarin to educate the most talented students in drawing, painting, sculpture, engraving, architecture and other media.
Louis XIV
Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
was known to select graduates from the school to decorate the royal apartments at
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...
, and in 1863,
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...
granted the school independence from the government, changing the name to "L'École des Beaux-Arts". Women were admitted beginning in 1897.
The curriculum was divided into the "Academy of Painting and Sculpture" and the "Academy of Architecture". Both programs focused on classical arts and architecture from Ancient Greek and Roman culture. All students were required to prove their skills with basic drawing tasks before advancing to figure drawing and painting. This culminated in a competition for the ''Grand Prix de Rome'', awarding a full scholarship to study in Rome. The three trials to obtain the prize lasted for nearly three months. Many of the most famous artists in Europe were trained here, including Géricault, Degas, Delacroix, Fragonard, Ingres, Moreau, Renoir, Seurat, Cassandre, and Sisley.
Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
however, applied on three occasions but was refused entry.
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
applied twice but was turned down. Bernard was suspended for stylistic "errors".
The buildings of the school are largely the creation of French architect Félix Duban, who was commissioned for the main building in 1830. His work realigned the campus, and continued through 1861, completing an architectural program out towards the Quai Malaquais.
The Paris school is the namesake and founding location of the Beaux Arts architectural movement in the early twentieth century. Known for demanding classwork and setting the highest standards for education, the École attracted students from around the world—including the United States, where students returned to design buildings that would influence the history of architecture in America, including the
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
, 1888–1895 (
McKim, Mead & White
McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), Wil ...
), the Supreme Court of the United States, (Cass Gilbert, Cass Gilbert Jr., and John R. Rockart), and the New York Public Library, 1897–1911 (
Carrère and Hastings
Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère ( ; November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture firms. Located in New York City ...
). Architectural graduates, especially in France, are granted the title ''élève''.
The architecture department was separated from the École after the May 1968 student strikes at the Sorbonne. The name was changed to
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French '' grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Scien ...
. Today, over 500 students make use of an extensive collection of classical art coupled with modern additions to the curriculum, including photography and hypermedia.
Institutions
* ENSA École nationale des beaux arts de
Dijon
Dijon (, , ) (dated)
* it, Digione
* la, Diviō or
* lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920.
The earlie ...
* ENSA École nationale des beaux arts de Bourges
* ENSBA
École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon
The École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon is a school of art and design in Lyon, located in Les Subsistances, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, in the Rhône-Alpes region of France. It is part of the École des Beaux-Arts tradition ...
* European Academy of Art (EESAB) in Lorient, Rennes, Quimper, and Brest
* ESADMM École supérieure d'art et de design Marseille-Méditerranée
* ENSA École nationale des beaux arts de Nancy
*
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French '' grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Scien ...
(ENSBA), Paris
* ESAD , Valence
* EBABX École supérieure des beaux-arts de
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectu ...
Pierre Alechinsky
Pierre Alechinsky (born 19 October 1927) is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction.
Life
Alechinsky was born in Schaerbeek. In 1944 he ...
Louis-Jules André
Louis-Jules André (24 June 1819 – 30 January 1890) was a French academic architect and the head of an important ''atelier'' at the École des Beaux-Arts.
Biography
Born in Paris, André attended the École des Beaux-Arts and took the Prix ...
Léon Bonnat
Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat (20 June 1833 – 8 September 1922) was a French painter, Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur and professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Early life
Bonnat was born in Bayonne, but from 1846 to 1853 he lived in M ...
Pierre Carron
Pierre Carron (16 December 1932 – 19 March 2022) was a French sculptor and painter, especially known for his portrayals of children and natural landscapes.
Biography
Born in Fécamp, Normandy, France, he primarily studied drawing at the Écol ...
Claude Closky
Claude Closky (born 22 May 1963) is a French Contemporary Artist who lives and works in Paris, France.
Reception
Closky won the "Grand prix des Arts plastiques" (1999) and the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2005) awarded by the ADIAF.
Dike Blair wrot ...
*
Jules Coutan
Jules-Félix Coutan (22 September 1848 – 23 February 1939) was a French sculptor and educator.
Life
As a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, Coutan was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1872; after his return to Paris he executed the f ...
Fabrice Hybert
Fabrice Hybert, also known by the pseudonym Fabrice Hyber, is a French plastic artist born on 12 July 1961 in Luçon (Vendée). At 56, he was elected to the Academy of Fine Arts on April 25, 2018.
Attached to nature, economics, commerce and scie ...
Michel Marot
Michel Marot (29 January 1926 – 24 August 2021) was a French architect.
Biography
In 1945, Marot was admitted to the Beaux-Arts de Paris and graduated in 1950. After his degree, he studied at Harvard University. He earned the Prix de Rome to ...
*
Annette Messager
Annette Messager (born 30 November 1943) is a French visual artist. In 2005 she won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale for her artwork at the French Pavilion. In 2016, she won the prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. ...
*
Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau (; 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence".Cassou, Jean. 1979. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism.'' ...
*
Jean-Louis Pascal
Jean-Louis Pascal (4 June 1837 – 17 May 1920) was an academic French architect.
Life
Born in Paris, Pascal was taught at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts by Émile Gilbert and Charles-Auguste Questel. He won the Grand Pri ...
*
Auguste Perret
Auguste Perret (12 February 1874 – 25 February 1954) was a French architect and a pioneer of the architectural use of reinforced concrete. His major works include the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the first Art Deco building in Paris; the ...
,
*
Emmanuel Pontremoli
Emmanuel Pontremoli (13 January 1865 – 25 July 1956) was a French architect and archaeologist.
Biography
Born in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, a student in the ''atelier'' of Louis-Jules André, in 1890 he won the Prix de Rome in the architect ...
Paul Richer
Paul Marie Louis Pierre Richer (17 January 1849 – 17 December 1933) was a French anatomist, physiologist, sculptor, medallist, and anatomical artist who was a native of Chartres. He was a professor of artistic anatomy at the École nationale s ...
* Louis Sullivan, American architect, left after one year
*
Pan Yuliang
Pan Yuliang (, 14 June 1895 – 22 July 1977), born as Chen Xiuqing, and was renamed Zhang Yuliang (張玉良) when adopted by her maternal uncle after the early passing of her parents. She was a Chinese painter, renowned as the first woman in t ...
Wahbi al-Hariri
Wahbi al-Hariri-Rifai ( ar, وهبي الحريري آلرفاعي; 1914 – 16 August 1994) was a Syrian American artist who has often been called "the last of the classicists". As an artist he was remarkably prolific in the last years of his li ...
Nadir Afonso
Nadir Afonso, GOSE (4 December 1920 – 11 December 2013) was a Portuguese geometric abstractionist painter. Formally trained in architecture, which he practiced early in his career with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, Nadir Afonso later studi ...
Émile André
François-Émile André (August 22, 1871 – March 10, 1933) was a French architect, artist, and furniture designer. He was the son of the architect of Charles André and the father of two other architects, Jacques and Michel André.
Life a ...
Frederic Charles Hirons
Frederic Charles Hirons (March 28, 1882 - January 23, 1942) was an American architect, based in New York City, who designed the Classical George Rogers Clark National Memorial, in Vincennes, Indiana, among the last major Beaux-Arts style public ...
Alexander Bogen
Alexander Bogen ( he, אלכסנדר בוגן; born 24 January 1916 – 20 October 2010) was a Polish- Israeli visual artist, a decorated leader of partisans during World War II, a key player in 20th century Yiddish culture, and one of the trail ...
Bernard Buffet
Bernard Buffet (; 10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor.
He produced a varied and extensive body of work. His style was exclusively figurative. The artist enjoyed worldwide popularity early in his caree ...
Alfred Choubrac
Alfred Choubrac (Paris, 30 December 1853 – Paris, 25 July 1902) was a French painter, illustrator, draughtsman, poster artist and costume designer. Together with Jules Chéret he is considered to be one of the pioneers of the modern coloured a ...
, poster artist and costume designer, French
* Léon Choubrac, illustrator and poster artist, French
*
Araldo Cossutta
Araldo Cossutta (January 11, 1925 – February 24, 2017) was an architect who worked primarily in the United States. He worked at the firm I. M. Pei & Partners from 1956 to 1973. I. M. Pei has been among the most honored architects in the world. ...
Cyrus Dallin
Cyrus Edwin Dallin (November 22, 1861 – November 14, 1944) was an American sculptor best known for his depictions of Native Americans. He created more than 260 works, including the ''Equestrian Statue of Paul Revere'' in Boston, Massac ...
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
Henry d'Estienne
Henry d'Estienne (1872 in Conques-sur-Orbiel – 1949 in Paris) was a French painter and a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Biography
Henry d'Estienne was the son of a French sculptor.
left, ''Portrait de Grand-mère'' (1899)
D'Es ...
Ernest Flagg
Ernest Flagg (February 6, 1857 – April 10, 1947) was an American architect in the Beaux-Arts style. He was also an advocate for urban reform and architecture's social responsibility.
Early life and education
Flagg was born in Brooklyn, N ...
, architect, American
*
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732
(birth/baptism certificate)
– 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific ...
, painter, French
*
Yitzhak Frenkel
Yitzhak Frenkel ( he, יצחק פרנקל; 1899–1981), also known as Alexandre Frenel, was an Israeli painter and sculptor, seen as the father of modern art in Israel. One of the most important Jewish artists of the l’École de Paris and i ...
André Godard
André Godard (21 January 1881 – 31 July 1965) was an archaeologist, architect and historian of French and Middle Eastern Art. He served as the director of the Iranian Archeological Service for many years.
Life
Godard was born in Chaumont. A ...
Thomas Hastings Thomas Hastings may refer to:
*Thomas Hastings (colonist) (1605–1685), English immigrant to New England
*Thomas Hastings (composer) (1784–1872), American composer, primarily of hymn tunes
* Thomas Hastings (cricketer) (1865–1938), Australian c ...
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance fa� ...
Sadik Kaceli
Sadik Kaceli (14 March 1914 – 24 December 2000) was an Albanian artist. He studied in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (1936–1941).
Kaceli is one of Albania's best known painters, receiving many decorations as People's ...
Jules Lavirotte
Jules Aimé Lavirotte (March 25, 1864 in Lyon – March 1, 1929 in Paris) was a French architect who is best known for the Art Nouveau buildings he created in the 7th arrondissement in Paris. His buildings were known for his imaginative and exube ...
, architect, French
*
Paul Leroy
Peter John Kay (born 2 July 1973) is an English actor, comedy writer and stand-up comedian. He has written, produced and acted in several television and film projects, and has written three books.
Born and brought up in Bolton, Kay studied ...
painter, French
*
Charles-Amable Lenoir
Charles-Amable Lenoir (22 October 1860 – 1926) was a French painter. Like his mentor, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, he was an academic painter and painted realistic portraits as well as mythological and religious scenes. His artistic career w ...
Albert Marquet
Albert Marquet (27 March 1875 – 14 June 1947) was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturali ...
Annette Messager
Annette Messager (born 30 November 1943) is a French visual artist. In 2005 she won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale for her artwork at the French Pavilion. In 2016, she won the prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. ...
Yasuo Mizui
was a Japanese stone sculptor who lived in France. He preferred abstract form in public sculpture within architectural contexts and took part in several symposia on sculpture in Europe, the US, Israel, and Japan.
Biography
Yasuo Mizui entered i ...
, sculptor, Japanese
*
Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau (; 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence".Cassou, Jean. 1979. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism.'' ...
Victor Nicolas
Victor Edmond Nicolas (2 February 1906 – 16 July 1979) was a French sculptor.
Biography
Victor Nicolas was born in Brignoles, the son of Nicolas Bertin (1879–1918), professor of mathematics Mort pour la France, and Victorine Tardieu ( ...
, sculptor, French
*
Francisco Oller
Francisco Oller (June 17, 1833 – May 17, 1917) was a Puerto Rican painter. Oller is the only Latin American painter to have played a role in the development of Impressionism. One of the most distinguished transatlantic painters of his d ...
Jean-Louis Pascal
Jean-Louis Pascal (4 June 1837 – 17 May 1920) was an academic French architect.
Life
Born in Paris, Pascal was taught at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts by Émile Gilbert and Charles-Auguste Questel. He won the Grand Pri ...
Neel Reid
Joseph Neel Reid (October 23, 1885 – February 14, 1926), also referred to as Neel Reid, was a prominent architect in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 20th century as a partner in his firm Hentz, Reid and Adler.
Reid was born in Jacksonville, Al ...
, architect, American
*
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionism, Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially femininity, feminine sensuality ...
Gustave Rives
Bernard Auguste Rives, known as Gustave Rives (1858–1926), was a French architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who designed residential, institutional, and commercial buildings in France in a style described as "opulent eclecticism ...
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. From a French-Irish family, Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York City, he tra ...
Amrita Sher-Gil
Amrita Sher-Gil (30 January 1913 – 5 December 1941) was a Hungarian-Indian painter. She has been called "one of the greatest avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century" and a pioneer in modern Indian art. Drawn to painting from an ear ...
Roland Topor
Roland Topor (7 January 1938 – 16 April 1997) was a French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, who was known for the surreal nature of his work. He was of Polish-Jewish ...
Guillaume Tronchet
Guillaume Tronchet (22 October 1867 – 7 February 1959) was a French architect. His work was part of the architecture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
Life
Tronchet was born in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, Lot-et-Garonne. ...
William Van Alen
William Van Alen (August 10, 1883 – May 24, 1954) was an American architect, best known as the architect in charge of designing New York City's Chrysler Building (1928–30).
Life
William Van Alen was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1883 to ...
Lydia Venieri
Lydia Venieri (born 1964) is a Greek artist.
Personal life
Background
Venieri was born in Athens, Greece. She studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. She has lived in Paris and is currently living in New York. Her web s ...
Carlos Raúl Villanueva
Carlos Raúl Villanueva Astoul (May 30, 1900 – August 16, 1975) was a Venezuelan modernist architect. Villanueva went for the first time to Venezuela when he was 28 years old. He was involved in the development and modernization of Caracas, ...
, architect
*
Lucien Weissenburger
Lucien Weissenburger (2 May 1860 – 24 February 1929) was a French architect.
Weissenburger was born and died in Nancy. He was one of the principal architects to work in the Art Nouveau style in Lorraine and was a member of the board of ...
Norval White
Norval Crawford White (June 12, 1926 – December 26, 2009) was an American architect, architectural historian and professor. He designed buildings throughout the U.S., but he is best known for his writing, particularly the ''AIA Guide to New Yor ...
, architect, American
* Ivor Wood, animator and director, Anglo-French
*
Alice Morgan Wright
Alice Morgan Wright (October 10, 1881 – April 8, 1975) was an American sculptor, suffragist, and animal welfare activist. She was one of the first American artists to embrace Cubism and Futurism.
Early life and education
Wright came from an ...
Jacques Zwobada
Jacques Zwobada, also spelt in other ways, such as Swobada and Zwoboda (6 August 1900 – 6 September 1967), was a French sculptor and designer.
Life
Zwobada was born in a Czech familyAcadémie des Beaux-Arts
* Architecture of Paris
*
Beaux-Arts architecture
Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorpo ...
*
Comité des Étudiants Américains de l'École des Beaux-Arts Paris
The Committee of American Students of the School of Beaux-Arts, Paris (''Comité des Étudiants Américains de l'École des Beaux-Arts Paris'' 'C.E.A. à l'E.D.B.A.'' was an organization of American art students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in ...
*
Paris Salon
The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial ar ...