Art slowly separated from craft at the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the early modern period. The artist became aware of himself and his creative power. With the recourse to antiquity, attention turned to how art should be taught. Theoretical rules, practical exercises such as model-based drawing, anatomical, geometric and perspective studies became the content of newly emerging academies. The workshop apprentice became the academy student. In addition, the curriculum included drawing based on the natural world as well as copying from model templates. The first art academies were established in Italy in the second half of the 16th century.

In many European residence cities, art schools were set up under the protection of the nobility during the 17th and 18th centuries. In Graz we owe it to the engraver Johann Veit Kauperz that his own drawing academy was opened in 1785 with the support of the Styrian government.