Tea at Trianon: The Paris Salon

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, June 15, 2024

The Paris Salon

Charles X at the Louvre in 1824

From ArtNet:

In 1648, a nine-year-old Louis XIV backed the formation of the Royal Academy of Painting and of Sculpture at the behest of Charles Le Brun. Its initial function was to produce French artists who could execute royal commissions with nationalist flair—no more shelling out on Flemish or Italian masters. The Salon was a natural outgrowth of this system.
Beginning in 1667, the Academy held sporadic exhibitions, allowing its members to present their talents to potential patrons. After relocating his court to Versailles in 1682, the Sun King designated a section of the Louvre to the Academy. The gatherings became more formalized and frequent in the 1720s after moving into the Salon Carré, the rectangular-shaped room from which the exhibition derives its name.

In 1737, the Salon opened to the public and offered rare access to art in an era before museums. Paintings were selected by a jury of academics based off a strict hierarchy. First came history paintings (think biblical scenes, great battles, classical mythology). Next came portraiture (of royalty, naturally), then genre paintings and landscapes. The lowly still life was last. Every inch of the Salon Carré was filled with paintings arranged in keeping with this hierarchy, a clustered scene that in time became its own painterly subject. Held annually and later biannually, the event fomented intellectual debate and produced art criticism that in time spilled into the country’s newspapers.

Art, however, was not beyond the clutches of the revolutionary spirit that was sweeping France in the latter 1700s and in 1793 the Academy was abolished following Louis XVI’s execution. The Salon switched from royal to governmental supervision and in 1795 was opened to all artists, including those from outside of France. (Read more.)