Académie des Beaux-Arts in the context of "Paris Salon"

Academic art, academicism, or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. This method extended its influence throughout the Western world over several centuries, from its origins in Italy in the mid-16th century, until its dissipation in the early 20th century. It reached its apogee in the 19th century, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In this period, the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts were very influential, combining elements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, with Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres a key figure in the formation of the style in painting. The success of the French model led to the founding of countless other art academies in several countries. Later painters who tried to continue the synthesis included William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Thomas Couture, and Hans Makart among many others. In sculpture, academic art is characterized by a tendency towards monumentality, as in the works of Auguste Bartholdi and Daniel Chester French.

The academies were established to replace medieval artists' guilds and aimed to systematize the teaching of art. They emphasized the emulation of established masters and the classical tradition, downplaying the importance of individual creativity, valuing instead collective, aesthetic and ethical concepts. By helping raise the professional status of artists, the academies distanced them from artisans and brought them closer to intellectuals. They also played a crucial role in organizing the art world, controlling cultural ideology, taste, criticism, the art market, as well as the exhibition and dissemination of art. They wielded significant influence due to their association with state power, often acting as conduits for the dissemination of artistic, political, and social ideals, by deciding what was considered "official art". As a result, they faced criticism and controversy from artists and others on the margins of these academic circles, and their restrictive and universalist regulations are sometimes considered a reflection of absolutism.

The Musée Marmottan Monet (French pronunciation: [myze maʁmɔtɑ̃ mɔnɛ]; English: Marmottan Monet Museum) is an art museum in Paris, France, dedicated to artist Claude Monet. The collection features over three hundred Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings by Monet, including his 1872 Impression, Sunrise. A number of Impressionist works by other painters are also displayed; the museum hosts the largest Berthe Morisot public collection in the world.

The museum finds its origin in the 1932 donation by art historian Paul Marmottan of his father's pavillon de chasse, that he transformed into an hôtel particulier and which now houses the museum, to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, along with a sizeable family collection from the Renaissance and the Napoleonic era. The museum opened in 1934; its fame is the result of a donation in 1966 by Michel Monet, Claude's second son and only heir.

The Salon, or sometimes Paris Salon (French: Salon de Paris [salɔ̃ d(ə) paʁi]), 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 art event in the Western world.

At the Salon of 1761, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. From 1881 onward, it was managed by the Société des Artistes Français.

Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ʃaʁl adɔlf alfɑ̃]; 26 October 1817 – 6 December 1891) was a French engineer of the Corps of Bridges and Roads. As a close associate of Baron Haussmann and later as Director of Public Works at Paris City Hall from 1871, he was instrumental in the large-scale renovation of Paris in the second half of the 19th century. In 1889, Alphand was elevated to the rank of Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. In 1891, shortly before his death, he succeeded Haussmann as a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Paul Marmottan (French pronunciation: [pɔl maʁmɔtɑ̃]; 26 August 1856 – 15 March 1932) was a French art historian, collector and patron. Both through his taste and his writings, he was a precursor in the knowledge and study of the First Empire period.

On his death, he bequeathed his collection, his Parisian mansion and his villa in Boulogne to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which turned them into the Musée Marmottan (current Musée Marmottan Monet) and the Bibliothèque Marmottan respectively. His donations to the Assistance publique also enabled the creation of the Marmottan Hospital in Paris.