page_title: Chilean art
section_title: Chilean Academy of Painting
hierarchical_section_title: Chilean art / Chilean Academy of Painting
caption_attribution_description: Español: mujer en la playa
context_page_description: Chilean art refers to all kinds of visual art developed in Chile, or by Chileans, from the arrival of the Spanish conquerors to the modern day. It also includes the native pre-Columbian pictorial expression on modern Chilean territory.
context_section_description: The Chilean Academy of Painting was the first institution to teach art professionally in Chile. It opened on 17 March 1849 and was sponsored by the government of Manuel Bulnes as part of a state plan to promote fine art and other intellectual activities to the young Chilean population. In this period, the University of Chile (1842) was also founded along with the School of Arts and Crafts (1849), the Conservatory of Music (1850) and architecture and sculpture classes at the University of Chile, under the direction of French architect François Brunet Debaines and French sculptor Auguste François respectively.  The academy was originally located in the building belonging to the San Felipe University, in what is today the Municipal Theatre of Santiago. Various changes led the academy to merge with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts) in 1910, and then later to hand its administration over to the University of Chile in 1932.
  The academy would produce the country's first national artists. It would be the starting point for some of the most prominent Chilean painters, including the four great masters of Chilean painting (Pedro Lira, Juan Francisco González, Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma and Alberto Valenzuela Llanos), their pupils, and also the future “Generación del 13” (13 Generation). The academy's first directors were the Neapolitan artist Alejandro Ciccarelli; the German artist Ernesto Kirchbach; the Florentine Juan Mochi; Cosme San Martín, the first Chilean to hold this position; and the Chilean sculptor Virginio Arias.
  With the establishment of the Academy of Painting, under the direction of Ciccarelli, came the first attempt at the unification and creation of a unique national style, with the academy promoting a neoclassical style. In Europe, academies focused on uniformity, establishing fixed and strict rules to ensure “the true art” followed a straight path. The Chilean academies tried to implement this idea using French methodology.
  To begin with, courses consisted of three classes. The first class was “Studies of heads, extremities and the human form”, the second was “Sculpture”, and the third, “Life drawing, natural attire and anatomy”. Later, after the Academy joined forces with the National Institute, courses were extended and more teachers were taken on due to the growing number of students.
caption: Escena de playa con figura (Beach Scene with Figure) by Pedro Lira
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