Patriots, Pashas, and Peasants: French Painting from Delacroix to Courbet – Kathy Galitz

• Art/Photo

The 1820s witnessed the birth of Romanticism, as Delacroix, Ingres, and other French artists embraced new subjects, inspired by cross-Channel exchanges and the lure of the exotic. The Paris Salon of 1824 launched the battle between the Romantics and the Classicists, an aesthetic struggle that defined a generation of French artists. By mid-century, the modern-life subjects of Courbet and Manet threatened to subvert the artistic establishment, setting the stage for the Impressionist revolution.