Rivals and Conspirators the Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre

458 Pages·2013·32.231 MB·English

by  Fae Brauer

Rivals and Conspirators

Rivals and Conspirators:
The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre

By

Fae Brauer
Rivals and Conspirators: The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre,

by Fae Brauer

This book first published 2013

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by Fae Brauer

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-5376-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5376-7
FOR JUSTIN FLEMING

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................................... ix

Glossary of Terms ........................................................................................................................................................ xi

Preface ......................................................................................................................................................................... xii
Visiting One Friday at the French Artists’ Salon
No. 1: State Fine Arts Undersecretary, Henri-Charles Dujardin-Beaumetz
Careerists and Lobbyists
Marginalizations and Ostracizations
Conspicuous Absences

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 1
The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre
“The Holy Place of its Time”: Paris and its Networks
“The Field of Cultural Production”: An Institutional Art History
Outline of Contents

Chapter One ................................................................................................................................................................. 12
The Persistence of Tradition: The Old Salon in the New Republic
Bouguereau’s “Grand Art”
Moral Order Salons and Impressionist Exhibitions: “Grand Art” and Popular Culture
“The Triumph of the Republic”: “The Glorification of the Arts”
Turquet’s “Turkey”: Overhauling the Salon

Chapter Two ................................................................................................................................................................ 67
The Persistence of Power: The New Salon in the New Republic
Forging a Universal Suffrage Salon
Opposing Gender Discrimination: Forming the Women’s Salon
The Return of “Rigour” and “Severity”: National Exposition of Living Artists
“Neither Jury, nor Awards”: The Independent Artists’ Salon
Failure of the “Universal Suffrage” Salon: The Persistence of Hierarchy and Meritocracy

Chapter Three ............................................................................................................................................................ 107
Patriotism and Dissonance: Forging the National Fine Art Salon
Patriots and Traitors: The Bouguereau-Meissonier Schism
“An exhibition is a patriotic work”: Boulangism and Meissonier’s “Ferocious Patriotism”
“Nothing more than an elegant club”: Gentlemen’s “Cercles” and the National Society
“All the world flocked to see the Salon of dissidents”: The Triumphant Opening

Chapter Four .............................................................................................................................................................. 138
Identity Crises: Elitists and Refusés
“A Salon as beautiful as the throne of Meissonier”: Redefining the French Artists’ Salon
Forsaking the “Universal Suffrage” Salon: The Fall of Bouguereau, the Rise of Bonnat
“A coterie more closed than the old Salon”: The Decorative Arts Salon and Anquetin’s coup
“What a salad!”: The Third Salon

Chapter Five .............................................................................................................................................................. 163
“Art By and For the People”: The Republic of Decorative Arts at the Salons
Proust’s Salon: Showcasing “New Tendencies” and “New Sculpture”
“Democracy in Oils” or “An Aristocratic Society”? The French Artists’ Identity Crisis
“A temple dedicated to Art-God”: Salon de la Rose+Croix
“L’Art dans tout”: Forging a Republic of Decorative Arts at the Salons
viii Table of Contents

Chapter Six ................................................................................................................................................................ 202
Chauvinists and Cosmopolitans: Art Nouveau, L’art dans tous and “L’unité de l’art”
“Solidarity among all the arts”:The Panama Scandal, Dreyfus Affair and “the dynamite years”
“L’unité de l’art”: L’Art dans tous and L’Art Nouveau
Infiltrating the French Artists’ Salon: The Caillebotte Legacy, Decorative Art and the Double Salon

Chapter Seven ............................................................................................................................................................ 230
The Spectacle of French Artists’ Supremacy: Staging the 1900 Universal Exposition
Stabilizing the Republic: The Universal Exposition and the Dreyfus “Battle”
Dividing the Spoils: Salon Equity at Universal Expositions
“The Takeover”: Hegemony of the “Pontiffs” at the Decennial
Counteracting the “Pontiffs”: Inverting the Stakes at the Centennial and Retrospective Expositions
Rancour and Revolt: Overthrowing the “Pontiffs”

Chapter Eight ............................................................................................................................................................. 282
New Rivals: The Salon d’Automne in the Radical Republic
Overcoming “The Death-Sentence”: The Salon d’Automne in the Bloc des Gauches
“The Field of Battle”: The Salon d’Automne and the “Bigwigs”
“Wild Beasts”: Dujardin-Beaumetz, Fauvism and the Salon d’Automne
“Invisible Hegemony”: The Subtefuge of Eclecticism and Transparency

Chapter Nine .............................................................................................................................................................. 329
Rivals as Conspirators: The Salons at War
“The French Decorative Art Crisis”: Morocco, Munich Designers and Cubists
“Made in Germany”: Pacifist Infiltration and Alien Artists
Hooligans and Transgressors: Lampué and Expulsion of the Salon d’Automne
Orphism and Pornography: Salon d’Automne and the Senate

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................. 386
Rivals and Conspirators: Revisiting One Friday at the French Artists’ Salon

Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................................. 404

Index .......................................................................................................................................................................... 418
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A project of this scale and complexity would have been impossible without the support of many people,
institutions and organizations, not least those who continue to manage the art societies and salons in Paris. Professor
Christopher Green at The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, nurtured its early growth during my PhD
under his excellent supervision. As this project matured into a book, he proved a wonderful sounding board for
mulling over ideas emanating from the research. At The Courtauld Institute of Art, I was also fortunate to reap the
benefit of the immense knowledge of the Salon and Salon des Artistes Français of the late John House and the deep
knowledge of modernism, particularly Cubism, of the late John Golding. Marie-Claude Genet-Delacroix, Professeur at
the Université de Reims, raised many insightful points about the operation of the State’s art institutions, particularly
the Conseil Supérieur des Beaux-Arts. Others who readily did so were the late Filiz Burhan, Anthea Callen, Neil
McWilliam and Virginia Spate.
The pioneering research on the State’s relationship to art and on the Salons conducted by Pierre Vaisse, Professeur
de l’histoire de l’art contemporain at the Université de Genève, provided a constant source of reference and of
inspiration. The publications of James Kearns on the early salons and the book published by him and Vaisse, “Ce
Salon à quoi tout se ramène”: Le Salon de peinture et de sculpture, 1791-1890 proved immensely helpful in relation
to the early salon and its demise, as did the excellent conference convened in September 2013 by Kearns at the
University of Exeter, The Paris Art Salon, 1791-1881. The research and publications by Gilles Plum on the Grand
Palais were able to bring to light many architectural and institutional details about this State Palace on Paris Municipal
terrain that would have otherwise remained obscured. All of Albert Boime’s publications were an incessant source of
information and inspiration, particularly Art and the French Commune: Imagining Paris after War and Revolution, as
were Debora Silverman’s, particularly her outstanding treatise, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siècle France: Politics,
Psychology and Style, and Richard Thomson’s recent books, particularly Art of the Actual: Naturalism and Style in
Early Third Republic France, 1880-1890 and The Troubled Republic: Visual Culture and Social Debate in France,
1889-1900. Other publications that proved seminal were Autour de Roger Marx : Regards de critique d’art 1859-1913,
and the Nancy catalogue, Roger Marx, un critique aux côtés de Gallé, Monet, Rodin, Gauguin…, by Cathérine
Méneux, L’Art dans tous : Les Arts décoratifs en France et l’utopie d’un art nouveau by Rossella Froissart Pezane,
Monumental Intolerance: Jean Baffier, a Nationalist Sculptor in Fin-de-Siècle France by Neil McWilliam,
Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France: Art Nouveau to Le Corbusier by Nancy Troy, The Studios of Paris: the
Capital of Art in the late Nineteenth Century by John Milner Early Impressionism and the French State by Jane Mayo
Roos, Impressionism: Paint and Politics and Landscapes of France: Impressionism and its rivals by John House,
Gabriel Weisberg’s books and articles on Dagnan-Bouveret, the transformations of academic genres and Art Nouveau,
Patricia Mainardi’s books and articles on the Salons and Martha Ward’s books on the politics of Impressionism and
Neo-Impressionism.
My research on Jules Grün’s painting, Un Vendredi au Salon des Artistes Français was readily assisted by the
cordiality and generosity of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, particularly Catherine Régnault, Assistante de
conservation, who was able to guide me through their archives on Grün. During my research on the Salon des Artistes
Français conducted in its bureau at the Grand Palais, the Président of the Société des Artistes Français, Christian Billet
and the Secrétaire, Corinne Picaud, never hesitated to provide generous access to the archives of this Society and the
documentation of its Salons. Often the Society archivist, Christian Ehlïnger, provided useful points about the history
of this Society and its artists. The Président of the Salon des Indépendants, Jean Monneret, and the Secrétaire générale,
Suzanne Vincent, offered great encouragement for this project in its early stages. The Salon d’Automne provided me
with ready access to their catalogues and other archives stored at the Grand Palais. The research I was able to conduct
at these Societies was corroborated and expanded by the generosity of staff at the Archives Nationales de France;
Archives du Louvre; Bibliothèque Forney; Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris; Bibliothèque Kandinsky at the
Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou; the Archives and Bibliothèques at the Académie des Beaux-
Arts, Institut de France, and at the École Nationale Supérieur des Beaux-Arts; Bibliothèque de l’institut national
d’histoire de l’art collections Jacques Doucet and the Fonds Roger Marx; Musée d’Orsay Documentation; Musée
Picasso; Réunion des Musées Nationaux; Documentation and Collections at the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand;
Bibliothèque Nationale de France – site François Mitterand and site l’Arsenal and the invaluable Witt Library at The
Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.
In order to be able to spend the extensive time in Paris required for this research, I was assisted by Special Studies
Project awards from The University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts, as well as a residency at The
University of New South Wales studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts. The Président of the Cité Internationale des
Arts, Madame Simone Brunau, always endeavoured to find studios at the Cité Internationale des Arts whenever I
needed a base in Paris for further research. I was also greatly assisted by two writer’s residencies awarded by the
Fondation Stiftung Dr. Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr at the Casa Zia Lina, Isola d’Elba. The award of an Australian
Research Council Large Grant gave me the time to continue to research this project and to integrate this research into