Salon

The Salon was the official art exhibition whose name derives from the Salon Carré in the Louvre in Paris, where from 1725 the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture displayed the works of its members. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it became the most prestigious and influential public art exhibition in Europe: a jury of academicians selected the works, and acceptance or rejection could make or break an artist's career. The exhibitions were accompanied by vigorous debate, and it was here that the profession of art critic emerged, with writers such as Denis Diderot and later Charles Baudelaire producing extended reviews. The rigid conservatism of the jury provoked resistance. In 1863, under pressure from rejected artists, Napoleon III authorised the Salon des Refusés, which showed Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe among other controversial works. Later, independent bodies created their own venues, notably the jury-free Salon des Indépendants (from 1884) and the Salon d'Automne (from 1903), which became platforms for the Fauves and Cubists. The term "salon" thus came to symbolise the conflict between official academicism and the avant-garde, and it also became a model of the public art institution that shaped cultural life in other countries, including Eastern Europe and Ukraine.