The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (333 page)

National Academy of Design
, New York.

A professional association of artists founded in New York in 1825 in opposition to the conservative American Academy of the Fine Arts (which ran from 1802 to 1841; see
TRUMBULL
). The National Academy was originally called the Society for the Improvement of Drawing; it adopted its present name in 1828. For most of the 19th cent. it was the leading art institution in America, its annual exhibitions helping to make New York the country's major art centre.
Morse
was first President, and most ambitious artists of the time sought membership. However, its views became unprogressive, prompting certain artists to break away (notably to found the
Eight
in 1908). Today it exists mainly as a historical institution.

 
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National Gallery
, London.

The national collection of European paintings from
c.
1300 to
c.
1900 (it also includes a few earlier pictures and has recently started to acquire works from the early 20th cent.). It was founded in 1824 when the government purchased thirty-eight paintings from the collection of John Julius Angerstein , a merchant who died in 1823. They were first displayed in his former house at 100 Pall Mall. Further bequests (including that of SirGeorge
Beaumont
) soon necessitated larger premises, and the present building in Trafalgar Square, designed by William Wilkins , was opened in 1838; the gallery shared the premises with the
Royal Academy
until 1869, by which time it had grown into one of the great collections of the world. Since then there have been various enlargements of the building and in 1991 a major extension was opened—the Sainsbury Wing, the gift of Sir John , Simon , and Timothy Sainsbury . This wing now houses the gallery's early paintings, up to about 1510. The collection as a whole now has about 2,000 pictures. This is a fairly small number compared with some of the great Continental galleries based on former royal collections, but the National Gallery's paintings surpass those of any other gallery in giving a comprehensive view of the mainstream of European painting from
Giotto
to
Cézanne
. Best represented of all are the early Italian and Dutch Schools. The representation of the British School is selective because of the existence of the
Tate Gallery
as a separate National Gallery of British art. Other well-known national galleries, with their dates of foundation, are: the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh (1859); the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (1859); the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin (1864); the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (1880); the National Gallery of Art in Washington (1937); and the Australian National Gallery in Canberra (1976).

 
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National Portrait Gallery
, London.

The national collection of portraits of eminent British men and women. It was founded in 1856 at the urging of the historian and politician Philip Henry Stanhope , 5th Earl Stanhope, who was the first chairman of the trustees. The collection was originally housed at 29 Great George Street, Westminster, and the present premises, adjoining the National Gallery, were opened in 1896. The criterion for inclusion in the gallery is the celebrity of the sitter rather than the quality of the portrait, so as works of art the pictures in the collection vary enormously, from an acknowledged masterpiece such as
Holbein's
cartoon of Henry VIII to the wholly amateurish representation of the three Brontë sisters by their brother Branwell . Nevertheless, because portraiture has played such a great part in the history of British art, many illustrious artists are well represented there. Recently the NPG has begun to commission portraits of living sitters, and since 1980 it has organized a series of annual portrait awards for artists under 40 years old. The NPG has four outstations: Montacute House in Somerset, Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire, Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire, and Bodelwyddan Castle in Wales. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery was established in Edinburgh in 1882, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in 1962.

 
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(1685–1766).
French portrait painter. His father,
Jean
(
c.
1642–1705), was a painter and his mother,
Marie Courtois
(
c.
1655–1703), was a
miniaturist
. He was one of the most successful artists at the court of Louis XV, excelling in the vogue for painting women in mythological or allegorical fancy dress—or undress—transforming his matrons into goddesses (
Mme de Lambesc as Minerva
, Louvre, Paris, 1737). His portraits are little concerned with individual characterization, but they show fluency, vivacity, and a relaxed charm. He was at his best with women and has been accused of ‘painting with make-up’, a comment that suggests the pastel-like delicacy of his handling. Taste was turning against him towards the end of his career and some of his later work shows signs of fatigue. His brother
Jean-Baptiste
(1678–1726) was also a painter; he committed suicide after being expelled by the Académie.

 
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naturalism
.

Term denoting an approach to art in which the artist endeavours to represent objects as they are empirically observed, rather than in a stylized or conceptual manner.
Bellori
(1672) was the first to apply the term to a particular type of painting in discussing the followers of
Caravaggio
, with reference to their doctrine of copying nature faithfully whether it seems to us ugly or beautiful. Naturalism, however, is not inconsistent with the
idealization
of nature, for Greek sculpture may be naturalistic in its command of anatomy, but idealistic in that it sets up a standard of physical beauty remote from the everyday world. Nor need the term imply minute attention to detail, although this is often part of a naturalistic approach. The shade of meaning to be attached to the word can thus vary greatly according to context; when used in its broadest sense it may suggest little more than that a work is representational rather than
abstract
. The terms ‘naturalistic’ and ‘realistic’ are often used more or less synonymously, but
Realism
with a capital ‘r’ has a specific meaning in the history of art and should not be used loosely.