Artistes Pompiers: French Academic Art in the 19th Century

Until recently the masters of nineteenth-century salon painting have been overshadowed by the Impressionists and other pioneering art movements of the time. This book reassesses their importance in the light of the academic tradition which they inherited and fostered and examines the full scope of their achievements in the following chapters: I. Introduction II. The Olympians and the Historians III. The Academic Treatment of the Modern Life Subject IV. The Orientalists V. Prix de Rome chronology VI. Biographies of the artists Over 150 illustrations with 24 pages in colour.