The Paris Salon

In 1667 the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture held its first exhibition. From 1725 it was held in the Salon Carré of the Louvre and became known as the Salon; it opened to the public in 1737, and from 1748 a jury chose the works. The jury favored history painting and classical subjects, and smooth surfaces that hid the brushwork were most admired. By the nineteenth century more and more works were being turned away. In 1863 Napoleon III had that year's rejected works shown separately, as the Salon des Refusés, Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe among them. In 1874 Monet, Degas, and others stopped waiting for the jury and held an exhibition of their own, later called the first Impressionist exhibition. From 1881 the Salon was run by the Société des Artistes Français, an association of artists.

Find one painting from the academic tradition and one Impressionist painting, and compare their brushwork up close: in one the brushstrokes almost disappear, in the other you can see them.

If this painting had been sent to the Salon of its day, what do you think the jury would have said?