Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Antwerpen
Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Antwerpen (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp) is a Belgian art school. The academy has existed since 1663 and is the fourth oldest art academy in Europe after the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma in Rome , the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence .
It was founded in 1663 by David Teniers the Younger , court painter to Archduke Leopold-Wilhelm von Habsburg and Juan José de Austria . Teniers, master of the Guild of St. Luke , asked the Spanish King Philip IV , then ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, to issue a royal edict for the establishment of an academy of fine arts in Antwerp.
Jacob Jordaens , Artus Quellinus I , Ambrosius Brueghel , Gonzales Coques and many others taught at the academy . The teachers issued the first regulations for the academy on December 11, 1684, which came into force on November 6, 1690. Thanks to loans, new resources and classrooms, a new class was opened at the beginning of the 1694 winter course, which was drawn from the plaster model and was intended as a preparation for drawing based on the living model. In 1699 the winter courses had to be suspended due to financial problems. The total impoverishment of the Guild of St. Luke forced them to hand over the academy in 1741.
At the suggestion of the sculptor-architects Jan Peter van Baurscheit the Younger and Alexander van Papenhoven, six Antwerp artists suggested that the guild be allowed to take over and run the academy themselves. The guild initially agreed and entrusted the management and the premises to this group of artists. The class reopened on October 2, 1741. After this success, the guild tried to regain control of the academy, but on January 8, 1742, the city decided to entrust the administration to the six artists. On January 25, 1757 Jacob Van der Sanden was appointed first secretary of the academy. It was taught by the sculptor Jan Tassaert and the painters Marten Jozef Geeraerts , Andries Cornelis Lens and Willem Herreyns . From 1769 the academy also received an annual grant from the state.
The academy is now part of the Artesis Hogeschool Antwerp . It offers three different programs: Fine Arts and Design, Conservation Studies, and a one-year teacher training course. 540 students (230 of them international) work in the four main buildings in the heart of the city: Mutsaardstraat (photography, silversmithing / jewelry, theater costume design and fine arts), Nationalestraat (fashion) and Keizerstraat (graphics / design).