About the Book
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If there were two men who were absolutely central to artistic life in France in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were Edouard Manet and Ernest Meissonier. While the former has been labeled the "Father of Impressionism" and is today a household name, the latter has sunk into obscurity. It is difficult now to believe that in 1864, when this story begins, it was Meissonier who was considered the greatest French artist alive and who received astronomical sums for his work, while Manet was derided for his messy paintings of ordinary people and had great difficulty getting any of his work accepted at the all-important annual Paris Salon. Manet and Meissonier were the Mozart and Salieri of their day, one a dangerous challenge to the establishment, the other beloved by rulers and the public alike for his painstakingly meticulous oil paintings of historical subjects. Out of the fascinating story of their parallel careers, Ross King creates a lens through which to view the political tensions that dogged Louis-Napoleon during the Second Empire, his ignominious downfall, and the bloody Paris Commune of 1871. At the same time, King paints a wonderfully detailed and vivid portrait of life in an era of radical social change: on the streets of Paris, at the new seaside resorts of Boulogne and Trouville, and at the race courses and picnic spots where the new bourgeoisie relaxed. When Manet painted Dejeuner sur l'herbe or Olympia, he shocked not only with his casual brushstrokes (described by some as applied by a "floor mop") but with his subject matter: top-hatted white-collar workers (and their mistresses) were not considered suitable subjects for "Art." Ross King shows how, benign as they might seem today, these paintings changed the course of history. The struggle between Meissonier and Manet to see their paintings achieve pride of place at the Salon was not just about artistic competitiveness, it was about how to see the world. Full of fantastic tidbits of information (such as the use of carrier pigeons and hot-air balloons during the siege of Paris), and a colorful cast of characters that includes Baudelaire, Courbet, and Zola, with walk-on parts for Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Cezanne, The Judgment of Paris casts new light on the birth of Impressionism and takes us to the heart of a time in which the modern French identity was being forged. |
About the Author
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Born and raised in Canada, Ross King has lived in England since 1992. He has published two novels, Domino and Ex-Libris, and several bestselling works of non-fiction: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture (winner of the 2001 Book Sense Nonfiction Book of the Year) and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2003). Of his most recent book, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism, the New York Times has said: "It is hard to imagine a more inviting account of the artistic civil war that raged around the Paris Salons of the 1860's and 70's, or of the outsize personalities who transformed the way the world looked at painting." His latest book, Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power, will appear in June 2007. |
