The Social Context of Art in mid-19th Century Paris

In addition to the ideas and values of  the time, historians want to understand how the institutions and reward systems around individuals shape their attitudes.  By the time that Gérôme was faced with the new visions of art created by the Impressionists and their successors, he had spent most of his life in a professional world that instilled certain attitudes and values in its members. He had succeed, in part, because he accepted the rules of the art world around him. To fully understand his reaction to new styles in art, we need to understand how artists were recognized and rewarded by the institutions within which they worked and how these institutions encouraged certain approaches and penalized others. As you read the descriptions of the French Academy's system for producing art and artists below, think about the ways that living in that world might have shaped  Gérôme's attitude towards new, radical departures from tradition.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) The Remorse of Orestes (1862)