802 Ch. 20 • Responses to a Changing World
seemingly casting doubt upon his divinity. More than this, Renan argued
that the Scriptures had to be studied like any other historical document.
Impressionism
During the French Second Empire, a group of artists developed impression
ism, a remarkable artistic movement that lasted until the end of the century.
Like the realists of the Barbizon school, impressionist painters rejected tra
ditional religious and historical subjects and formal presentation. Instead,
they depicted rural and urban landscapes, offering scenes from everyday
existence, but generally integrated individual figures into landscapes.
Embracing subjectivity, the impressionists preferred direct observation and
the study of nature’s effects to studio composition and imitation of classic
styles. Edouard Manet (1832-1883), another dandy and flaneur, aspired to
create what a contemporary called an art “born of today.” The impression
ists painted what they saw, and how they saw it at first glance, such as the
way sunlight falls on inanimate objects (thus reflecting their interest in
science). They put lighter and brighter colors on large canvases (which pre
viously had usually been reserved for historical themes), applying many
small dabs of paint to convey an impression of spontaneity, energy, and
movement.
Although the impressionists did not begin to exhibit their paintings with
the self-consciousness of an artistic group until 1874, their movement was
shaped by official rejection. The Salon was a state-sponsored exhibition upon
which artists depended in order to attract purchasers. In 1863, the jury for
the official Salon turned down several canvases by Manet. After certain com
plaints reached the emperor, he allowed some of the paintings to be shown in
other rooms. The “Salon of the Refused” included works by Manet, Auguste
Renoir, and Paul Cezanne. Some critics raged against what they saw, but at
least the public could now make up its own mind. Manet’s Olympia (1863)
generated a chorus of complaint. This study of a nude shocked public
opinion—the outraged Empress Eugenie, not to be outdone by her husband,
Napoleon III, who had attacked a Courbet canvas with a riding-crop, struck
Manet’s painting with her fan. Manet’s Dejeuner sur I’herbe (1863) drew
scathing commentary because it showed a nude female sharing a picnic with
two fully dressed, upper-class males. Here, Manet, even more than the real
ists, challenged the hierarchy of subjects imposed by classicism.
Manet chose provocatively contemporary subjects, including very ordi
nary people, clients, and cafe waitresses enjoying themselves. He and his
younger friend Claude Monet (1840-1926) painted the Gare Saint-Lazare,
the point of entry each day for thousands of commuters, vacationers, and
other visitors. Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Manet’s sister-in-law, placed
her subjects, most of whom were women, in private gardens, in the Bois de
Boulogne, boating on the Seine, and at the resorts of the Norman coast,
which had been “discovered” by wealthy Parisians.