The Cosmopolitan Outlook of a National Academy

Abstract

Abstract Beyond the metropolitan and national spheres the Academy also operated within a European framework: its cultural patriotism needs to be understood in relation to its cosmopolitan outlook. Cosmopolitanism ‘encapsulates an attitude of detachment towards national prejudice ... and an intellectual investment in the idea of a common European civilisation’. Eighteenth century art societies such as the Royal Academy strove to embody a cosmopolitan patriotism which promoted the glory of a country in terms of its conformity to universal values. In enlightened thinking it was possible to reconcile the recognition of differences between nations, and individual communities’ pride in their national characters and achievements on the one hand, with notions of a common humanity on the other. In the eighteenth-century art world, the increasing international availability of prints and art reports facilitated the creation of a cosmopolitan European visual imagination. This fostered awareness both of common artistic standards and of the distinct characteristics of national schools. As in England and Scotland so too elsewhere in Europe, the constitution of ‘national character’ was seen to be bound up with the development of a nation’s visual culture.