“Paris in Ruins,” by Sebastian Smee (Norton, 384 pages) Soon after the French Revolution, the Paris Salon emerged as one of the most prestigious annual art exhibitions in the western world. Acceptance by the jury depended as much on politicking as merit, on what was permissible as what was au courant. Rejected artists could mount a solo show, which rarely flourished, or a breakaway group exhibition — one of which succeeded in spectacular fashion in 1874.
That year, the likes of Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and the lesser-known Berthe Morisot signed on to the first of eight exhibitions that established one of today’s most beloved movements: Impressionism. The environment that cultivated the birth of modern painting is one facet of “Paris In Ruins,” the new book from Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee. As its title suggests, the book presents the Impressionist movement as rising from the ashes, in this case out of the chaos and bloodshed that began with the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in the summer of 1870 and concluded with the internecine violence of the Paris Commune in the spring of 1871.
For large parts of the book, artists take a backseat to armies, but when the focus is painting, Smee’s story circles around the relationship between Morisot and Édouard Manet, the one prominent Impressionist who passed on 1874’s groundbreaking exhibition. When the two meet in 1869, Morisot is establishing herself while Manet has spent the decade turning out.
