The Art Renewal Center® is devoted to the following principles and beliefs
1
To promote a return of skill-based training, standards and excellence in the visual arts. The rich artistic heritage of 2,500 years of accumulated knowledge in creating traditional, realistic images touching upon universal and timeless themes.
2
To promote visual literacy in public and private school classrooms and to the public at large.
3
To unite the realist art movement into a synergistic community of like-minded organizations and individuals.
4
To provide responsible views opposing those of the Modernist art establishment when warranted, especially as expressed in aesthetic philosophy and to rebut the idea that development in art requires destruction of boundaries and standards or pointless emphasis on 'newness'.
5
To advance the understanding that great art begins with great themes, expressing them poetically through mastery of all aspects of technique.
6
To provide a forum for dialogue and exchange of expert information among educators, scholars, curators, collectors and artists.
7
To promote scholarship and research on the artists of the past and the rediscovery and preservation of their techniques and methods.
8
To create the largest reference database on the Internet for realistic art, including an on-line museum with thousands of high quality images of works by the greatest painters and sculptors in human history, alongside an encyclopedic online art reference library of historical texts, essays, biographies and articles, providing a technical and historical resource for artistic information.