Rijksakademie 150 Years
Activating Pasts, Practising Futures

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    ‘Activating Pasts, Practising Futures’ celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Rijksakademie in 2020.

    Activating Pasts

      Founding act 1870

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      On May 26th 1870 the Rijksakademie was established by law by King Willem III.

      Here it is, our founding act, already in our possession for 150 years! Seventeen clauses (and four pages) counts this law that was introduced on May 26, 1870 by King Willem III at Paleis Het Loo and heralds the official start of the Rijksakademie. Article 2 states that lessons will be given in sculpture, painting, engraving, aesthetics, art history, anatomy and ‘translucency’ (if the latter does not immediately ring a bell, it concerns perspective drawing). In the here and now we could supplement the list of practices with performance, sound, Virtual Reality, 3D and robotics, to name but a few. Some thirty years after the foundation, around 1900, the law already contained 67 clauses, as a result of every new director wanting to leave their mark by making shifts in emphasis in the programme.

      The Rijksakademie was the successor to the Royal Academy of Visual Arts (1820-1870), the Stadstekenacademie (1765-1820) and the Konstkamer (17th century). When the Academy was founded in 1870, the then Minister of the Interior and President of the Royal Academy, the liberal politician Cornelis Fock (from 1866-1868 also mayor of Amsterdam), remarkably stood for studio education, inspired by the medieval master-apprentice principle. Young artists would work in studios. Older artists would assist them with advice and practical help. The idea turned out to be too innovative for the nineteenth century. The then prevailing idea about education was adhered to. A self-respecting country had to have a national academy at all costs, with the same status as the university, including professors. Preferably there would be an internationally recognised artist at the helm, who would fulfill a didactic role.

      After the famous Dutch-British painter Laurence Alma Tadema declined the offer, this internationally renowned artist became painter, etcher and lithographer Bastiaan de Poorter (1830-1880). Earlier in the same year he published a beautiful, pompous exposé on what the curriculum should look like for this successor to the Royal Academy, entitled: 'De Kunst en de Kunstakademie' (The Art and the Art Academy). It was, as it were, his application for the directorship. De Poorters original ideas were actually in line with those of Fock. He intended to allow the artists to develop freely. It was necessary to deviate from the rigid academy structure that had dominated the Royal Academy. De Poorter's actions nevertheless turned out to be more conservative than his pen. In practice, little came of it. In fact, it took more than a hundred years before the academy structure at the Rijksakademie was abandoned and Fock's starting point was realised.