seen as increasing competition from street culture. They were then held annually every year (except 1744)
until 1748. The 1749 Salon was canceled in response to virulent criticism (provoked by La Font de Saint
Yenne) of works displayed the previous year. In an attempt to improve the general standard of entries the
exhibitions became biennial, from 1751 to 1791: artists would have more time to work on their
submissions. Lenormand de Tournehem established in 1748 a selection committee, with a similar view to
improving quality. There was a tradition in France (unlike other countries such as Italy) of active royal
control of academy exhibitions. From the 1770s d’Angiviller (thenDirector of Public Buildings) made
special efforts to regulate the moral standards of works exhibited and tried to distance the Salons further
from the taint of commerce by forbidding the display of copies of former works, a practice regarded up to
that point as perfectly respectable. Artists’ selfportraits were increasingly frowned upon, as they were
seen as devices of selfpromotion. Paintings with explicit or implicit political themes were regarded
with increasing suspicion, as prompts to popular unrest.
Figure 3.4 GabrielJacques de Saint Aubin (1724–1780): View of the Salon of 1767, ink drawing, color
wash and gouache highlights, 24.9 × 46.9 cm, 1767. Rouen, Musée des BeauxArts.
Source: © 2015. © Photo Josse/Scala, Florence.Catalogue sales provide a rough guide to the numbers visiting the Salons. From 1755 to 1787 between
7690 and 21,940 livrets (guides) were sold each year, with an estimated average figure of just over 10%
of the population visiting the exhibitions (Berger, 1999, 168). In this period portraits and works on
sentimental themes attracted the crowds. Occasionally members of the royal family and other esteemed
guests (or those with the right connections, such as the art critic Denis Diderot) secured a private view.
While the Salons were the main means by which artists could show their works in public, relatively few
of these works, in the first few decades of the eighteenth century, were made specifically with the Salon in
mind, and many visitors were unable to decode history paintings without the explanations of subjects
offered in the livrets. Learned patrons used the exhibitions as an opportunity to reflect upon and
consolidate their own elevated tastes. Some of the best French works exhibited were for the Royal