Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism

In Paris in Ruins, Smee emphasizes the relationship between art and politics in late 19th-century France. He outlines how during the Second Empire under Emperor Napoleon III, the artistic establishment was closely tied to the forms and subjects favored by the empire, including during the Salon exhibitions. He demonstrates how artists like Berthe Morisot and Édouard Manet pushed the boundaries of what was possible within that system in keeping with their left-wing republican politics. Following the fall of the Second Empire and the Paris Commune, Berthe and other Impressionists launched their own exhibitions outside of the Salon system. This was seen as an expression of their republican values.

Smee emphasizes how the Salon’s jury during the Second Empire and for a time during the Third Republic “skewed conservative.” They adhered to rigid hierarchies, viewing “history paintings” as the highest form of painting, followed by “portraiture, genre painting, landscape, and still life, in that order” (71). They preferred techniques that layered paint and varnish over preliminary sketches. These works could, of course, not criticize the empire and had to generally uphold the conventional order.