Recently I finished reading 'The Judgment of Paris' by Ross King,
which chronicles the syzmic ****ft in the taste of the French public
and the fortunes of two very different painters - Edward Manet and
Ernest Meissonier at the end of the ninetieth century. It is a
cautionary tale of fickle fame. In the 1860's Meissonier was one of
the richest and most famous artists in the world. He lived a life of
luxury in a French ch=E2teau, which had two ornately fitted out studios.
His paintings were bought and sold for astronomical sums, and the
Emperor Napoleon III had work by him. His work was greeted with
universal acclaim. The salon of the nineteenth centaury had three
times the visitors that a major exhibition of the Impressionist today
could hope to achieve - so painters work was more intensively viewed
and talked about than any New York or London painter today could dream
of. Painting was still central to culture - in a way it no longer is
today, it was the subject of the gossip columnists, the caricaturists
and the broadsheets. The top ****trait painters of the day were like
super stars and often millionaires by today's standards. Moreover art
was still firmly in the control of the academies, and the tradition of
apprentice****p and seven years spent drilled in realist skills had not
yet collapsed.
But things were about to change dramatically in the space of a few
decades. The first reason was the relative new nature of the salon.
Before the salons, art had been privately commissioned from the artist
and held in relatively private spheres like a Church, state room or
ch=E2teau - endorsed by the powerful and elevating them in return. But
the public salon created art as 'spectator-s****t' instigating what we
know as art critics with writers like Did*****. Art lost its dignity
and authority and was made the subject of intense critism, praise or
laughter. Since access to the salon was the life-blood of the
individual artist - it is not surprising that so many started
revolting when their work was rejected. By running counter 'salon des
refuses' artists challenged authority and left it to the public what
art they would sup****t. By the twentieth century the prestige of the
salons was slowly replaced by the chic glamour of the private art
gallery and the media stage. But it is still the art public who judges
the ultimate fate of the latest fad or fa****on.
But back to Manet and Meissonier. As Ross points out, these two
artists became opposite figure heads in a battle over the level of
finish acceptable in a modern oil painting. Meissonier painted with
the smooth brushless finish of a Dutch master of realism, which he
mixed with French glamour and an obsession with retelling the famous
battles of Napoleon. Manet as we know was the father to an
Impressionist fracture of sketchy brushstrokes and desire to catch the
moment. Where as all of Meissonier's paintings took years to create,
Manet's paintings sometimes took less than a day (though they were
often much more substantial taking years as well). But Meissonier's
military subjects where soon to lose the public's interest as the new
subjects of the Impressionists took hold of the their imagination. As
we all know now - Impressionism with subjects taken from everyday
petite bourgeoisie reality was to win the battle against the academics
painting photo-realistic allegorical ****s and battle scenes. The key
victim of this massive change in fortunes was Meissonier. He gained a
little kudo's when Dail later rated him as one of the greatest artists
of all time - up there with Vermeer, Rapheal, Velasquez and Dali
himself of course. But given Dali's eccentrity his praise has never
restored Meissonier's reputation. Here in Dublin the National Gallery
has a small (12" x 16") oil painting by Meissonier - and do you know -
it is actually a very good painting. Depicting a troop of French
Calvary in the snow, it is in perfect condition (an indication of the
soundness of Meissonier's technique). As a man who spent years playing
with toy soldiers, I enjoy looking at it, something my female
companions never seem as interested in doing! Lol. But the values this
and other paintings contain are held in aspic. Their world has gone
and they speak only of a dead set of values. Manet's work by contrast
still shocks me with its modernity and novel deployment of painterly
skill. Manet's work is just as skillful as Meissonier's, but he makes
what he does look so easy (I have tried - it is very hard). Where as
Meissonier's paintings blurt out their dull worth chant of skill - in
fact they are not quite as skillful as they appear to be and are
significantly less intellectual.
The turn of the twentieth centaury (as highlighted in an exhibition
and catalogue like '1900, Art At The Crossroads' which toured in
2000), saw a slow declined in the fortunes of academic art and the
reputations of ****trait painters, and a commensurate rise in the
fortune of 'wild-beasts' like Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso and Sountine
- who systematically assaulted the tradition of the easel painting.
While painters like Sargent and Bouguereau lived their lives rich and
adored, the art they defended became desecrated by the modernist like
Van Gogh and Soutine who while living in poverty most of their lives,
where to win the historical battle. For Meissonier the final insult
came in the mid twentieth centaury when a statue of him was removed
from its place in the Louvre - how the mighty had fallen.
So, the history of art is a capricious mistress, often quick to raise
up and often just as quick to drop. The history of art is littered
with artists who achieved a sizeable measure of acclaim, critical
kudos, and sales but who are now nothing but footnotes in art history.
There are also artists like; Guido Reni, Bartolome Murillo, Anton
Raphael Mengs, Lord Frederic Leighton, Ernest Meissonier, Alexandre
Cabanel, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Hans Makart, Ferdinand Hodler,
Bernard Buffet, Jules Olitski, and Julian Schnabel who were critically
lauded in their day and lavished with official awards and financially
successful beyond the dreams of most struggling artists, but who are
now forgotten and ridiculed when remembered. Likewise there are
artists like Pontormo, La Tour, El Greco, Vermeer, and Friedrich, who
were moderately known in their local area in their lifetime but who
sank into oblivion after their deaths, only to be rediscovered in the
early twentieth century. In fact even the very greatest artists of art
history Giotto, Raphael, Michelanglo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Poussin,
Ingres and Picasso have all fallen in and out of critical favour
sometimes for centuries (only Titian seems to have avoided this).
Moreover there is a small list of artists like Grunewald, Vermeer,
Friedrich, Blake, Constable, van Gogh, and Modigilian who were
unappreciated in their own life times but who in time have become
famous, admired, copied and central to the canon of art.
I suppose that is the fun of art history and of art in general. It is
up to everyone to make their own minds up. Personally I like this
uncertainty to be emphasised in art galleries. Which is why the Musee
d'Orsay is so crucial an example - by placing the art of the
Impressionists up against the salon art it overthrow, it at least
offers the dead a right of appeal.
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