The Artistic Revolution in France

Two social events would impact artists and art, especially in France.  The first event was the French Revolution, which forced artists to choose between King and Country and eliminated the traditional patrons, the Church and the aristocrats.  The second event was a long, ongoing process: the rise of the middle class as a group that would dominate economically and politically and thus constitute a new buying public for art.  In the decades before the French Revolution, the middle class had made itself known to the artists.  Although impressed by history painting, this class was interested in domestic themed art for middle class interiors.  In addition to being pushed by new collector demands, the artist was increasingly beholden to the opinions of art critics.  Any artist who wished to succeed in the Salon had to go through a set of educational and professional motions, including the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Prix de Rome and recognition in the Salon by the established powers—-the State, the Church, and the wealthy patrons.  The French Revolution upended the state-based system of educating and rewarding artists, but only for a time.  During the Revolution, artists either participated in propagandizing the aims and ideals of the cause or risked being denounced and imprisoned.  One of the most important painters for the French Royal family,  Jacques-Louis David,  proved to be an agile and adroit political opportunist and quickly turned his coat and put himself in the service of the Revolution.  He even went to far as to sign warrants which led to the imprisonment of his colleagues while he designed and built huge works of public art, rather like the Rose Bowl floats of today, that advertized the Revolution and awed the spectators.  At the end of the worst part of the Terror, David joined his imprisoned colleagues in the Luxembourg Palace.  He was lucky not to have been beheaded as were his sponsors.  David’s pupils, Jean-Antoine Gros and Anne-Louis Girodet Roussey de Trison, were able to ride out the Revolution in Italy, safely away from the changing fortunes of artists unwise enough to play politics.

David emerged from prison somewhat chastened but quickly attached himself to the next rising star, Napoleón Bonaparte, already a patron to Gros.  The end of the Eighteenth Century was an age of hero worship and Napoleón rewarded those who worshiped him.  Once sanity returned and stability replaced civil war and chaos, the new régime, the Directory quickly restored the system of art education, complete with the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Rome Prize, and all of the academic rules and regulations that, if followed, would lead to Salon success.  But the demands upon the artist had changed.  The old patrons were gone and new powers awaited the artists.  The state under Napoleón embarked upon nearly two decades of propagandistic art, celebrating the new Emperor and his court. Neoclassicism, already an important style before 1789, had been employed as the style of the Revolution by David, who was now the most important artist of the Empire.  Responding to the needs of the new heroes, Neoclassicism retained its carefully classical style—-clear outlines and cool colors and balanced composition—-but was dramatized by exciting narratives suitable to an age of glory and conquest.

It is here, in these military narratives, that the germs of Romanticism can be discerned.  Early Neoclassicism did not favor diagonals and action and motion, but under the Emperor, excitement and drama ruled.  That said, the official style of the Empire was given over to the same traditional role as had always been expected of artists—–supporting the established powers.  Although during these Napoleónic years, ideas of Romantic aesthetics from Germany were imported to France, art-for-art’s-sake and artistic freedom were still in the future.  The artists had to please new masters, the Emperor, the Salon jury, and the bourgeoisie.  Most of all the artist had to conform to the Salon system itself, now refined and more important than ever.  By the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, a new power, the middle class, the bourgeoisie, was firmly in social, economic, and political power, despite the comings and goings of various emperors and kings.  This middle class was an art-loving class.  They knew little about art but knew that they like to be entertained.  Thousands came to art exhibitions called Salons that were state-run and state-supported advertisements for academically trained artists.  The Salon was the only avenue of economic opportunity for the French artist who needed to make a living.  Scheduled for every year or every other year, depending on which régime was in power, the Salons were huge exhibitions drawing from artists around the world.  The French public crowded in by the thousands, expecting to be delighted and amused, rather like we are pleased (or not) by contemporary film.

For the French artist, the annual Salon was the one chance to show and to become known.  To be refused—rejected from the Salon—was to be a failure, a refusée, until the following year.  Merely being accepted was not a guarantee of success.  Paintings were hung floor to ceiling and, of course, each painter wanted his/her work to be hung at eye level and not “skied,” that is, hung high, or hung low.  Prominent artists could demand that their works be hung where the public could see them easily.  The most successful painters were those who pleased both the public and the Academy juries.  Sculpture in the Salons adhered to the Neoclassical style but what the audience saw were small-scale works or casts or maquettes for future public projects.  Often the smaller works would be placed upon a crowded table and the sculptors suffered from the same kind of limitations to ideal viewing as the painters.  The Salon was a room of hierarchies that went beyond what the jury liked or not.  History painting reigned supreme, prized because the difficult and didactic compositions, crowded with ancient notables, mostly partially nude, displayed the artist’s erudition and education.  Only an artist educated in the Ecole would be capable of drawing and composing a group of figures.  Only an artist educated in the Ecole would be educated enough to understand the minutia of ancient history.  Other artists, especially women, would be confined, due to lack of education to lower ranking genres, such as genre scenes and portraiture and still lives.  In these years before modern art galleries and collecting, the Salon was the only game in town and artists had little choice but to accept the rigorous rule of a conservative elite, disinclined to be open-minded to new artistic ideas.

But new ideas were already present to those who were alert to such things.  The clash of realism and romanticism was present in the propaganda art of Gros, the blatant eroticism of Girodet, and the offbeat choice of content by Théodore Géricault.  The French Revolution may have ended in yet another oppressive regime under a new Emperor but it had introduced the idea of individual rights and freedom.  Neoclassicism essentially ended with the reign of Napoleón, and an artistic revolution began to emerge.  Denied political rights and freedom, artists began to resist the demands for the status quo from the Salon juries and took a more independent path.  Born of political disillusionment, a new attitude began to take shape.  The artist demanded the right to freedom of expression as an art maker, which, in these early years of Romanticism, played itself out mostly along the lines of style and the way in which materials were handled. Both inside and outside the Academy there was the pressing and urgent quarrel between the Poussinistes (the proponents of line in art and discipline in society) and the Rubenistes (the proponents of color in art and individual freedom in society).

This quarrel was a challenge to the dominance of Neoclassicism and the Salon system, which controlled artists.  But the quarrel was more than stylistic; it was political.  The dominant art form was connected to the dominant social system. These conflicts, no matter how they are labeled, seem to break down into philosophical positions, which seem to extend far beyond any disagreements as to style or subject matter.  Neoclassicism vs. Romanticism is really a conflict about emotion vs. reason, which is really a conflict about which should be supreme in art, color (emotion) or line (reason)?  The question of line versus color is really a political conflict about who should rule, the people  (feelings) or the state (order) were social conflicts concerning democracy vs. the ruling caste. The conflict over individual freedom opposed to the state’s traditional control over the art makers is really a conflict between the lone, romantic genius artist inventing new forms as opposed to the powers of the Academy.  During this era, the beaux-arts had a far more important and prominent place in society than today; and the State government of France kept careful control over artistic production, understanding all too well that an artist could speak directly to the people.

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Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette and Art History Unstuffed.  Thank you.
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