Humans have been making art since the dawn of time, often with little education in materials, techniques, or theory, yet the notion of the “self-taught artist” is a relatively new phenomenon. In order to create art outside of the traditional channels, after all, you first need to create those traditional channels—by which we typically mean the established schools and academies that codify art education into defined standards and practices. And in the West, that history largely began in 1635 with the Académie Française, which radically professionalized the art field.