The Demise of Salon
Eduoard Manet (1832-1883) was the son of privilege and after a brief naval career, to his
parents chagrin, set off to become a painter. In art school, he violently disagreed with the
educational philosophy of the time. Monet, a fellow art student remembers his teacher
modifying his accurate drawing of a model to make it more idealized. “Remember, young man,
that…one must always think of antiquity. Nature, my friend, is good as a tool for study, but it is
of no interest. Style, you see, is the thing that matters.” And it was true that getting into the
Salon required an academic style similar to the Italian Renaissance with stoicism as the
prevailing emotional message. A German Neoclassical theorist had said “Perfect beauty is like
pure water: it has no taste.”
Manet found in inspiration in the works of the Spanish master,
Velazquez who dabbed on rich patches of colors rather than the
smoothly blended finished “brown gravy” colors of Neoclassicism. In
1859, Manet painted The Absinthe Drinker which was rejected by the
Salon. It was predictable considering it was a picture of a homeless,
drunken rag-picker at a time when art glorified the myths of Greece and
Rome. And unlike resilient optimism of the Romantics, which the
Salon grudgingly allowed into the Salon, Manet’s work depressingly
portrayed one of France’s many anonymous, public eyesores. When his
teacher say the work, he said to Manet ”The only drunkard is you”
which led to Manet storming out of the school never to return.
In 1863 Manet painted Luncheon on the Grass that pictured two modern
Parisian gentlemen picnicking with a stark naked woman. What shocked Paris
was not that a woman was painted in the nude (which occurred even before
the Renaissance) but that it was all too real. It wasn’t a Biblical, mythological or historical topic. It and
two other works by Manet were refused by the Salon, but were exhibited in the Salon des Refuses two
weeks later. 4000 people visited the Salon des Refuses on its opening day, most to laugh and mock.
Manet’s canvas became the centerpiece of the Salon des Refuses because of the controversy it sparked.
“Shocking” and “Indecent” were the milder criticisms and the majority of the critics accused Manet of
intentionally trying to cause scandal. But this phenomenon of a “success de scandale “, to be repeated
over and over again in the history of modern art, turned Manet from an unknown artist to one that
Paris’s most notorious. In 1865, Manet submitted the equally shocking and in-your–face painting titled
Olympia. The nude model’s few clothing items, pet cat and setting identified her as a Parisian
prostitute, staring shamelessly as the viewer with dead eyes. Its style suggested that the viewer was
right in the room, not looking at it from afar or through a window. (It may be of some significance that
Manet died of syphilis in his 51st year). Perhaps to avoid further controversy, and because the general
public would see it anyways at the Salon des Refuses, this work was exhibited in the Salon where it drew
howls of outrage from the critics.
In ancient Rome they had chariot races and gladiator contests in the coliseum. Today, the Super
Bowl and NHL playoffs grab peoples’ attention. In Paris, the Salon and the art scene provided the
general public with the drama, entertainment and celebrity heroes and villains. Manet and his stature
as a rebel gained him a following of disciples who now are categorized as the impressionists: Paul
Cézanne, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Renoir, and Frederick Bazille. .
They were an eclectic and odd band of men the met at the Café Guerbois. They never really became the
home team, but they did gain a small cheering section,
sometimes based more an affinity for radical politics rather
than artistic taste. The impressionists got their name from
an art critic, Louis Leroy who often felt that many of their
works looked unfinished or rushed. He took the title of a
painting by Monet, titled “Impression, Sunrise” (1872) and
used is to label the group of artists that were exhibiting in
the Salon des Refuses. Sometimes their style was called
the Art of Immediacy. It is characterized with broad brush
strokes of pure color, little or no blending and very ordinary
present day subject matter, kind of like what happens in
fairly random camera snap shots. And not only that; rather than being a visual record of the world the
way a snap shot is, impressionist art tended towards being a snapshot of how the artist felt at that
moment.
Manet was living off his parents’ fortune, and didn’t have to worry about making a living off his art.
At times he would finance his shows from his parents’ fortune, and leave the country to avoid the
controversy. Paul Cezanne and Edgar Degas were born into money so they didn’t have financial
struggles. It was different for Monet. At one time he was so poor and depressed he tried to commit
suicide. His poverty forced him to move to the country to live with his aunt while his mistress was
expecting his son. When his son was born he was too poor to visit as he couldn’t afford a train ticket to
Paris. However, Monet, who lived till 1926, saw the prices of his paintings increase dramatically. For
example, one painting which he sold for 10 francs was being priced at 100,000 by the dealer during his
lifetime. Monet, who was too poor to buy paint and at time had to live of bread given to him by Renoir,
by the late 1880s began to experience financial
success.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir initially trained as a
porcelain decorator and this carried over into his
impressionist paintings. They have a feminine
quality to them and Renoir never tired of painting
women. The Bal du Moulin de la Galette, painted
in 1876 is typical of Renoir’s style, in general,
happier pictures than Manet and Degas, where
the viewers seemed to be looking through slightly
frosted glass.
Degas seemed to
dislike women and
his pictures seem to
delight it capturing
them in less than
complementary
lights. His painting,
The Tub from 1886,
lacks the traditional
delicate portrayal
(and painterly praise) of women’s beauty. His subjects often have
an air of isolation. This is seen in his 1884 painting of Women Ironing as well as his frequent pictures of
the ballerinas and people congregating in cafes.
A careful and technical eye will often spot some perspective errors in Degas’ works, but they are less
dabbing and muddy
than the works of
Camille Pissarro. His
works tend to be
landscapes such as the
Carriage of Louvecienes
(1874) (right) or
cityscapes such as
Avenue de l'Opéra
painted in 1898 (left). Pissarro was the elder statesman of
the group and was of Creole and Jewish descent, born in the West Indies to a father with French
citizenship.
Alfred Sisley was the lone Englishman in the group and had a shy and reclusive temperament that suited
his “plein air” landscape paintings. His paintings have some of the dabbieness of impressionism
combined with the detailed observation of nature from the English
tradition of landscape paintings. The
Flood at Port Marly (1876) is typical of
Sisley’s works.
Frederick Bassile was both a wealthy
patron and member of the impressionist
gang of painters. Unfortunately his life
was cut short when he was killed in 1870
during the Franco-Prussian war and he left few painting behind. The Girl in
the pink Dress (1864) is one example
Paul Cezanne was a rich landowner who was perhaps the
choppiest dabber among
the impressionists and is
considered the father of
cubism. The Card Players
(1892) and Les Grand
Baingneuses (1898-1905)
displays his apparently
clumsy and awkward
draftsmanship as well as
why he is considered to be the forerunner of art styles that departed more and more from visually
accurate representations of what the eye sees. Although he was one of the early band of
impressionists, his work is often classified as post impressionism.
The impressionists did have their day in the sun, but eventually they gave the floor to the post
impressionists, who rebelled even more for artistic traditions. Often the post impressionist artist would
deliberately break the rules for the sake of breaking the rules. Eventually there were less and less rules
to break. The prices of the impressionist works slumped somewhat until the 1950 when well moneyed
American and other international collectors began driving the prices up. Now they can go for as much
as 100 million dollars.
Copy in your sketchbook one work by an impressionist artist and write about what elements place it in
the impressionist camp.