

Key pieces exhibited in this string of shows include Le bal du moulin de la Galette (“Dance at the Moulin de la Galette”) and Le déjeuner des canotiers (“The Luncheon of the Boating Party”) by Renoir Rue de Paris, temps de pluie (“Paris Street Rainy Day”) by Gustave Caillebotte and Seurat's Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (“A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”). The Impressionists would continue to hold annual and biennial exhibitions until 1886.

Among these works was Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, a landmark landscape painting that inspired the movement's name. Set in the studio of Nadar, a contemporary French photographer, this exhibition comprised several paintings by 30 artists, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro. Unlike the former, which featured works rejected by the Salon, the latter skipped submission all together and showed works created and curated by the Impressionists themselves.

1 by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (“ The Luncheon on the Grass“) by Manet.Ĭlaude Monet, ‘Impression Sunrise,' 1872 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons )Eleven years after the Salon des Refusés, the Impressionists-originally known as the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs (“Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers”)- held their first independent exhibition. While originally mocked by the mainstream, today, many pieces presented in the Salon des Refusés are considered masterpieces, including Symphony in White, No. “His Majesty, wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints, has decided that the works of art which were refused should be displayed in another part of the Palace of Industry.” “Numerous complaints have come to the Emperor on the subject of the works of art which were refused by the jury of the Exposition,” his office said. Instead, it was put on by Emperor Napoleon III, who viewed it as a way to appease those upset with the limited works selected by the Salon that year. Ironically, this “Salon of the Refused” wasn't held by disgruntled artists or avant-garde sympathizers. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, “The Luncheon of the Boating Party,” 1880-1881 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons )The Salon des Refusés of 1863 was the first notable Salon alternative. This led to the decline of the Paris Salon in the 1880s, and, most importantly, culminated in a new tradition: Salon alternatives.

While the Academy would reject most modernist pieces, some famously managed to secure a spot, including Édouard Manet's nude Olympiain 1863 and John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Madame X, a contemporary portrait exhibited in 1884.įor the most part, however, pieces that did not adhere to the academy's traditional tastes were rejected, forcing forward-thinking artists to take the exhibition of their work into their own hands. The Academy's traditional taste was overwhelmingly accepted until the 19th century, when an increasing number of European artists began embracing the avant-garde. When selecting artwork, for example, they favored conservative, conventional subject matter-including historical, mythological, and allegorical scenes as well as portraiture-rendered in a realistic style. While the event's inclusivity increased over the years (in 1791, sponsorship switched from royal to government bodies, and, by 1795, submission was opened to all artists), its jury (established in 1748) rarely broke from tradition. Sponsored by the French monarchy and set in the Salon Carré (a recently built room in the Louvre), the show featured work by recent graduates of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Jean-André Rixens, “Opening day at the Palais des Champs-Élysées,” 1890 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons )The inaugural Salon opened to a limited public in 1667.
