The Making of an Artist: The Great Tradition
5 August 2020 — 31 December 2022
The Making of an Artist: The Great Tradition
Does great art begin with studying nature, or studying the great art of the past? Decide for yourself in this gallery, bringing together highlights from the RA Collection.
Please note:
• We plan to reopen this free display on Tuesday 18 May. • You must book a free ticket to visit. • Sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social to be first to hear when tickets become available.
What makes great art? Our first President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, believed that the art of the past was the most important source of inspiration, but this was challenged by later Academicians like JMW Turner and John Constable. Although both still included references to historic art in their work, they also drew inspiration from nature, spending long hours capturing the world they saw around them. The Making of an Artist: The Great Tradition presents the people who founded the RA, their ideas about art, and how those ideas changed over the next 50 years.
The gallery includes many of the RA’s exemplars of earlier art, including Michelangelo’s Taddei Tondo and an almost full-size 16th-century copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper and casts of key classical sculptures, notably the Belvedere Torso. It also shows the results of Constable’s determination to work from nature, including several of his cloud studies, and Turner’s Dolbadern Castle, given to the RA on his election as a Royal Academician.
The display is curated by Christopher Le Brun PPRA, who observes that when the RA was founded, the main carrier of ideas in art was the nude male figure, but in the hands of Constable, the main carrier of meaning became “the stuff of nature”, including the most transient effects such as clouds and passing rain showers.
5 August 2020 — 31 December 2022
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm
Free but booking is required. Your free ticket gives you access to all our free displays, shops and cafés.
Collection Gallery, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
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Take a virtual tour of the Collection Gallery
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Gallery
![Angelica Kauffman RA, Design]()
![Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA, Self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA]()
![Mary Moser RA, Spring]()
![J.M.W. Turner RA, Dolbadern Castle, North Wales]()
![, Cast of Belvedere Torso]()
![Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA, Satan summoning his Legions]()
![Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John, known as the Taddei Tondo]()
Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John, known as the Taddei Tondo, c.1504–05.
![Giampietrino and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Copy of Leonardo's The Last Supper]()
Giampietrino and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Copy of Leonardo's The Last Supper, c.1515-20.
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![Grayson Perry RA, A Map of Days]()
Grayson Perry RA
'Map of Days': a work in focus
This display looks at Grayson Perry’s RA Diploma work, Map of Days (2013) which he has described as a “self-portrait as a fortified town”. Alongside Perry’s large-scale etching are a selection of prints and books from the RA Collection. Some of these relate to Perry’s sources in creating Map of Days while others look at how artists traditionally created a sense of their identity in self-portraits.
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Try Smartify in the galleries
Learn more about each work, or take a tour
During your visit, you can use the Smartify app app with your smartphone or tablet camera to “scan” the artworks in The Great Tradition and discover the stories behind them.
Look out for Mary Beard’s mythology trail in Smartify too: the historian tells the stories behind key classical works around the RA. Works included in the trail are marked on labels on the walls.
Smartify is available to download for free through the Android and Apple app stores.
![Smartify in use in the Collection Gallery]()
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![Angelica Kauffman RA, Design (detail)]()
The Making of an Artist
The Making of an Artist encompasses three new displays of the RA Collection, exploring ideas about what makes great art and art training. In addition to The Great Tradition, you’ll find:
Learning to Draw
The Julia and Hans Rausing Hall
The RA has always had an art school. This display illustrates how art has been taught here over the past 250 years and gives a glimpse of what happens now.Learning about Architecture
Dorfman Architecture Court
Aspiring architects in the 18th-century RA Schools honed their craft by copying casts taken from classical buildings. This display brings those casts together, revealing another aspect of traditional artistic training.
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Donate to the RA
The RA is a charity, run by artists and funded by art-lovers. Your donation supports our future, to continue to create, debate and exhibit great works of art and to champion art and artists.
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Large-print guide
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Start exploring the RA Collection
read more- Explore art works, paint-smeared palettes, scribbled letters and more...
- Artists and architects have run the RA for 250 years.
Our Collection is a record of them.