The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (417 page)

(1844–1910).
French painter, the most celebrated of
naïve
artists. His nickname refers to the job he held with the Paris Customs Office (1871–93), although he never actually rose to the rank of ‘Douanier’ (Customs Officer). Before this he had served in the army, and he later claimed to have seen service in Mexico, but this story seems to be a product of his imagination. He began to paint as a hobby, self-taught, when he was about 40, and from 1886 he exhibited regularly at the
Salon
des Indépendants. In 1893 he took early retirement so he could devote himself to art. His character was extraordinarily ingenuous and he suffered much ridicule (although he sometimes interpreted sarcastic remarks literally and took them as praise) as well as enduring great poverty. However, his faith in his own abilities never wavered. He tried to paint in the academic manner of such traditionalist artists as
Bouguereau
and
Gérôme
, but it was the innocence and charm of his work that won him the admiration of the avant-garde. He was ‘discovered’ by
Vollard
and members of his circle in about 1906–7, and in 1908
Picasso
gave a banquet, half serious half burlesque, in his honour. Rousseau is now best known for his jungle scenes, the first of which was
Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised
!) (NG, London, 1891) and the last
The Dream
(MOMA, New York, 1910). These two paintings are works of great imaginative power, in which he showed his extraordinary ability to retain the utter freshness of his vision even when working on a large scale and with loving attention to detail. He claimed such scenes were inspired by his experiences in Mexico, but in fact his sources were illustrated books and visits to the zoo and botanical gardens in Paris. His other work ranges from the jaunty humour of
The Football Players
(Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1908) to the mesmeric, eerie beauty of
The Sleeping Gypsy
(MOMA, 1897). Rousseau was buried in a pauper's grave, but his greatness began to be widely acknowledged soon after his death.

 
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(1812–67).
French landscape painter, the central figure of the
Barbizon School
. He was one of the pioneers of landscape painting in the open air (see
PLEIN AIR
), and because of the nonacademic outlook of his work it was consistently rejected by the
Salon
, earning him the nickname ‘le grand refusé’. From 1836 he worked regularly in the Forest of Fontainebleau, specializing in wooded scenes, and in 1848 he settled permanently in the village of Barbizon, where he was a close friend of
Millet
and
Diaz
. Success came to him during the 1850s. His output was enormous.

 
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Roussel , Ker-Xavier
.

See
NABIS
.

 
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(1756–1827).
English
caricaturist
, whose pre-eminence in social satire matched that of
Gillray
in political satire. He began as a painter, mainly of portraits, but he turned to caricature to supplement his income (he was a notorious gambler), and finding his sideline highly successful he gave his career over to it completely. His talent for exuberant and flowing line had affinities with the French
Rococo
of
Fragonard
(Rowlandson had studied in France), but his rollicking humour and delicate tonal effects were distinctively English; the marvel of his art is that there is no inconsistency between the bawdiness or boisterousness of the subject matter and the beauty of his watercolour technique. He created an instantly recognizable gallery of social types, such as the old maid, the hack writer and the crabbed antiquarian, and his buxom wenches have their descendants in the fat ladies of today's saucy seaside postcards. His repertory of themes was inexhaustible and his
œuvre
has been termed the English equivalent of Balzac's
Comédie humaine
. He was a friend of George
Morland
and travelled about England and also in France, Germany, and the Low Countries making rapid and brilliantly illuminating sketches of country life. In addition he produced series of illustrative drawings for publishers, notably
The Comforts of Bath
(1798) and the series on
The Tours of Dr Syntax
(1812–20). Rowlandson's output was huge, but it was only towards the end of his career that the quality of his work suffered because of overproduction.

 
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Royal Academy of Arts
, London.

The national art
academy
of England, founded in 1768. Membership was limited to forty Academicians, who had to be artists by profession, and thirty-six were named in the Instrument of Foundation, signed by George III. Their motive in founding the Academy was to raise the status of their profession by establishing a sound system of training and expert judgement in the arts and to arrange for the free exhibition of works attaining an appropriate standard of excellence. Behind this conception was the desire to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation and interest in the public based on recognized canons of good taste. The
Society of Artists
was a forerunner in those aims.
The Royal Academy was first based in Pall Mall. Its annual summer exhibition, to which anyone can submit works, has been held every year since 1769 and the RA Schools have also existed from the beginning. The Academy transferred to Somerset House in 1780, shared with the
National Gallery
its premises in Trafalgar Square 1837–69, and moved to the present site of Burlington House in 1869. The first President of the Academy was Sir Joshua
Reynolds
, who held the office until his death in 1792. His famous
Discourses
, delivered over the period 1769–90, laid down the basic conception of the Academy as a body of professional men which, ‘besides furnishing able men to direct the student’, was to form ‘a repository for the great examples of the Art’. The latter function was important, since until the foundation of the National Gallery in 1824 there was no public collection of masterpieces available to students and schools. Although the most celebrated work owned by the Academy is a marble
tondo
by
Michelangelo
of the Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist (the Taddei Tondo,
c.
1505), the collections are chiefly important for their representation of work by Academicians, the custom being that each new Academician deposits a work (called a Diploma Work) on admission.
Regarding itself as the main repository of national tradition in the arts and the safeguard of sound standards of professional competence in execution, the Royal Academy, in common with other official establishments, has been cautious of innovation. During the latter decades of the 19th cent. the reputation of the Academy sank very low and it began to be regarded as the bulwark of orthodox mediocrity in opposition to creative and progressive art. The
Slade
School and the
Royal College of Art
became more important as teaching institutions, and organizations, such as the
New English Art Club
, and later the
London Group
, were formed to accommodate progressive trends. Since the presidency (1944–9) of
Munnings
, who was notorious for his opposition to modern art, its policy has become more liberal and the conflict between official ‘Academy’ art and creative art has narrowed. The summer exhibition remains a popular social event and the Academy regularly organizes major loan exhibitions (the first was in 1870).