Praised and Ridiculed

Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism – these are still the most important stylistic labels which acted as slogans for French painting during the 19th century. At that time Delacroix, Courbet, Manet and many others left the “straight and narrow” of painting, the academic-neo-classical manner. Highly controversial at the time, today these painters are celebrated worldwide as precursors of Modernism. The situation is very different when it comes to the Salon painters like Meissonier, Cabanel, Gérôme and Bouguereau, who were highly regarded at the time. Today they have been consigned to the fringes, especially in the German-speaking region – unjustifiably, because they play an outstanding role with regard to our understanding of developments in art at the time.