Salon des Refuses

Édouard Manet - Luncheon on the Grass - 1862–1863 - Oil on canvas - 208 cm × 265.5 cm (81.9 in × 104.5 in) - Musée d'Orsay, Paris (click photo for larger image)In 1863, the Salon des Refuses, or rather the “exhibition of rejects,” was the first presentation of works that were rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon. Included in this landmark show was Édouard Manet’s famed painting, Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe, or Luncheon on the Grass. This painting shocked the French public due to the appearance of a female nude, casually seated with two fully-dressed men in a rural setting. The problem, however, wasn’t simply the nudity. If the setting had been historical or mythological, then this would have been fine. But the fact that the figures were contemporary was deemed unacceptable.

As early as the 1830s, Paris art galleries had mounted small-scale, private exhibitions of works rejected by the Salon jurors. The glamorous event of 1863 is the most significant, however, because it was actually sponsored by the French government.

This was a time when the art world was changing. The French Impressionists (inspired, in part, by Manet’s challenges to tradition) would soon emerge, as would the Post-Impressionists. It was the pre-dawn of Modernism.