It was at the free, open Salon exhibitions of the French Academy that artists were first consistently confronted by a "public"—a large and broadly based audience encouraged to look on works of art in an attitude of aesthetic contemplation. This book discusses the growth of public opinion about the arts in eighteenth-century France and the reciprocal effect of that opinion on official institutions and differing styles of painting.

As he analyzed the history of the Salon under the Old Regime, Crow discovers that it encompassed a complex process in which a number of groups of very different social character and political outlook sought to enlist painting as an expressive vehicle for their various agendas. Even the art of Watteau—seemingly so private in character—was decisively informed by new urban forms of artistic culture. The most important artists of the later eighteenth century—Greuze and David—were initially useful to the state in their common ability to grasp official priorities and embody them in a narrative art that was accessible to a broad public audience. But both artists, stimulated by the vigorous, new interest being shown in the Salons by Painters and public alike, also broke new ground with works that announced the advent of modernism.

Tracing the patterns and interplays between the ambitions of the artist and the wishes and tastes of the authorities, collectors, and crowds of salon visitors, Crow makes a fascinating and highly original contribution to art history.

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Author

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date February 1985 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780300033540

EISBN 9780300272376

Illustrations 125

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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