Art Renewal Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Art Renewal Center is an organization dedicated to classical realism in art, as opposed to the Modernist developments of the 20th century. It exists primarily as an online art gallery.
The Center was founded in 2000 by a group of artists, art collectors, historians, and enthusiasts, and is chaired by Fred Ross. Its collection of images of artworks includes many works of Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Romantic and French Academic art. It includes some Impressionist artists such as Monet and Édouard Manet, but does not include any of the Post-impressionists, such as Gauguin or Cézanne, nor any other Modernist school such as the Surrealism exemplified by Salvador Dalí and Yves Tanguy. The group is critical of much 20th-century art on the grounds that it demonstrates weak technique and conveys ideas ineffectually if at all, and focuses on false, obscure, or trivial subject matter, in addition to being weird for weirdness' sake. Exceptions include such 20th-century artists as Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell, and a number of contemporary realist painters featured in its Living Masters List.
The ARC abides by a concept of art grounded in the art of the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo era. Philosophers from the Enlightenment are already criticized for bringing about a change in attitude towards art. To the ARC, oil painting is the summit of artistic achievement. Their concept of art is exemplified by this quote from their FAQ:
Specifically, the way that art accomplishes its expression is through the manipulation of a medium as a selective recreation of some aspect of reality. That is to say that the artist "fictionalizes" reality in order to highlight some idea he thinks is important, and to diminish ones he considers irrelevant to his intended message.
The latest great modern artists to be discussed on their site are the likes of Picasso, Rothko and Jackson Pollock, and they are uniformly dismissed. Later post-modern artists (like Jeff Wall, who achieves their objectives as to what is art in his carefully studied and arranged transparencies, which are however in the dismissed medium of photography) are not mentioned.
The group actively promotes the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau, believing him to be not only the greatest French artist of the nineteenth century, but also "unquestionably one of history's greatest artistic geniuses." Several Art Renewal Center members are involved with the "William Bouguereau Catalog Raisonné" project.
The Art Renewal Center also encourages the development of traditional painting styles and methods such as instruction by atelier for painters, and has held an annual ARC Salon Competition since 2003. Daniel Gerhartz won the Best in Show for 2004,[1] with Paul G. Oxborough winning the Best in Show for 2005.[2] Donato Giancola won first place at the figurative Category in 2004.
