Art Review: ‘Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment’ Exhibit at National Gallery

This past April, I started a series of stories about Impressionism, the movement launched — unofficially, anecdotally, and circumstantially — in April 150 years ago at an exhibition in Paris of around 200 works by 30 artists, some renegades, some misfits, some mainstream, some simply mad as hell. What is now called the first Impressionist salon — there were to be eight, the last in 1886 — ran from April 15 to May 15, 1874.

Enough by-the-numbers. The collective was called the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc., a joint-stock company whose investors — the artists, painters, sculptors, printmakers, and whatever et cetera slapped down a few sous — could display and sell works of their own choosing, unjuried by the heavy hand of official taste.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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This past April, I started a series of stories about Impressionism, the movement launched — unofficially, anecdotally, and circumstantially — in April 150 years ago at an exhibition in Paris of around 200 works by 30 artists, some renegades, some misfits, some mainstream, some simply mad as hell. What is now called the first Impressionist salon — there were to be eight, the last in 1886 — ran from April 15 to May 15, 1874.

Enough by-the-numbers. The collective was called the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc., a joint-stock company whose investors — the artists, painters, sculptors, printmakers, and whatever et cetera slapped down a few sous — could display and sell works of their own choosing, unjuried by the heavy hand of official taste.