ABSTRACT
Instruction books, academic treatises, and the academies themselves provided the only formal theory of art education available to the American artist until the rise of landscape painting in the 1830’s. The elementary precepts of academic theory—involving concepts of geometry, the regulating line, correct outline--were utilized by the American artist because of their adaptability. The primary disseminator of academic theory in America and therefore the cause of more artistic conflict than any other single source was Sir Joshua Reynolds Discourses, a collection of fifteen essays originally delivered by the president of the Royal Academy to the students at the prize-giving ceremonies from 1767–1790. As long as academic theory remained the undisputed authority on matters of art, that is, at least until around 1830, artists in America continued to make their individual forays into the grand style, until each in turn was forced by the demands of his patrons to revert to the painting of portraits, landscape, or genre.
