Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly. Oscar Wilde from An Ideal Husband.

Is It Possible to Be Too Modern?

        Mention the term the sixties, and most would recall a period of political upheaval in western society. It was a decade in which a world superpower would lose an unpopular foreign war, when university campuses were the breeding ground for social change, and when special-interest groups that had hitherto been marginalized demanded to be heard. And in the need to be both modern and relevant, Western artists addressed themselves, not to the elite, but to the working classes and bourgeoisie.

Canadian-born author Ross King writes eloquently about the sixties in his award-winning study The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism. But it is the 1860’s that Ross investigates, though clear parallels can be drawn between the decades a century apart. A failed war in a far-off land, political leadership that is both unscrupulous and hidebound, social unrest that undermines the country’s prestige on the world stage and class warfare characterise both decades.

Ross chooses to view changes to 19^th century French society through the eyes of artists scrabbling to win public and official recognition. We are introduced to two artists of very different social positions and artistic temperaments. Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier is the most recognised and collectable artist of the Second Empire of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, a member of the Academie and École des Beaux Arts. His story is told in contrast to that of Edouard Manet, seventeen years younger and studio-trained. Both seek to establish themselves as artists by having work shown in Paris’ prestigious Salon, the annual display of France’s finest artists sanctioned by the government. Success in the Salon ensured commissions and sales, and promised a lucrative career.

Ross’s study is more history than art. He has little to say about Manet’s art, save for the occasional comment about technical lapses. And his references to Meissonier’s oeuvre serve only to remind us that he continued to look to the past for his inspiration, and that the popularity for this type of art was on the wane. More attention is paid to the class conflict of the protagonists ; Meissonier was of the wealthy elite; Manet was of the bourgeoisie but preferred the bohemian lifestyle of the working poor. This is of particular interest because it allows us to understand the motives of those who came after Manet. Was Impressionism strictly an artistic rebellion, or was it motivated by class distinction, contemporary events, or the desire to remove the government from the rôle of artistic censor and arbiter of taste?

Judgement is well-written and informative though somewhat dense at times. Ross provides a detailed account of 19^th century Parisian life for both the favoured and the poor. And he dispels romantic notions of the starving artist, misunderstood by all but striving manfully nonetheless. The rebel Manet is a well-heeled bohemian who inherits a substantial sum in his youth; he continues to live lavishly on the beneficence of a wealthy aunt while he struggles to achieve acceptance. Like Meisonnier, whom he eventually meets, he undergoes a sea change while manning the barricades, defending Paris from the invading Prussians in 1870. By the time the city is liberated much of Parisian society has changed, and its taste for the glories of France’s past subsided. Manet and the later Impressionists reflect the new dynamic.

The Judgement of Paris is worthy of our attention because it raises so many questions about the arts in Canada today. Who or what directs change in artistic sensibility? What role should government play in supporting artists – a question of relevance given the Canadian government’s current financial position on the arts – or should artists be entirely independent of government involvement? Is artistic sensibility driven by class consciousness? And perhaps most importantly, is being avant-garde a necessary and sufficient reason for artistic change?

Inherent in Ross’s narrative, however, is a remarkable irony. The avant-garde of the 1860’s urged the end of the Paris Salon, authoritarian control of art display, and juried exhibitions, so that the government eventually withdrew its sponsorship of the annual Salon by 1881. The Salon continued to be organised by artists alone, until 1890, when a secessionist group calling itself Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts continued to exhibit under the name of the Salon. It too, was succeeded by the Salon d’Autumne in 1903. Are artists naturally rebellious, or was Oscar Wilde correct in his observation about being “too modern”?

The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism. Ross King. Random House, Canada. 2006. 374 pp.