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

This book on France’s cultural colonization reveals that far from the salons ceasing when the old Salon closed in 1880, they burgeoned to play an integral role in France achieving its ‘civilizing mission’ during the Third Republic. In attracting international artists to Paris, the five major Salons exercised a magnetizing centripetal power, educating artists who could be despatched to French colonies and protectorates, and sending art to America, Australia, Britain, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and throughout Europe. This book examines the network of power relations in which the Salons became inextricably interwoven with the State, art dealers and the press, and exposes the intense rivalries between them for awards, acquisitions, commissions, travel grants, medals, titles and positions. It refutes the belief that those who attained and maintained the greatest “cultural capital” and art power until 1925 were Modernists, but shows how academic artists such as Léon Bonnat, Fernand Cormon and Gabriel Ferrier were powerful. It also reveals that the polemic between avant-gardes and arrière-gardes was not waged over Modernist “formalism”, but the dissolution of boundaries between the beaux-arts and decorative arts and the integration of interdisciplinary aesthetics with utilitarian art advocated by Radical Republicans.

Research from this book has been published as essays, for example, ‘One Friday at the French Artists’ Salon: Pompiers and Offical Artists at the Coup de Cubisme’, Academics, Pompiers, Official Artists and the Arrière-garde,Defining Modern and Traditional Art in France, 1900-1960 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 - see: http://www.worldcat.org/title/academics-pompiers-official-artists-and-the-arriere-garde-defining-modern-and-traditional-in-france-1900-1960/oclc/438642586).

Related conferences include ‘Networks and Networking: Negotiating Paris, 1900-1950’, (Australian National University, 2009), keynote lectures include ‘Un vendredi au Salon des Artistes Français: The Cultural Politics of the Paris Salons’ (University of London in Paris, 2011 – see: http://weblearn.ulip.lon.ac.uk/calendar/view.php?view=day&cal_d=24&cal_m=11&cal_y=2011), and resultant papers include ‘Bouguereau’s Butter: Lubricating the Salon des Artistes Français’ (The Open University, 2012 - see: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/2012-conference/academic-sessions-2012/academic-session-5-ou-2012).