The Academy and the Limits of Painting in Seventeenth-Century France is the first study in over a century devoted to the creation of one of the most important European institutions of art, the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Founded in 1648, the Academy institutionalized the discourse around painting and thus had an immediate impact on the making of art in France, becoming a decisive influence on painting until the close of the nineteenth century. In the process of forging an identity for itself, the Academy redefined almost every aspect of art making: the nature of art training, the sources of patronage, the social standing of the artist, and the place of the arts in national life.