Tremendous! Any art history or history lover should read this. Great integration of the history period with the two highlighted artists Manet and Meissonier. Although after reading I was more excited about learning more about Courbet. ( )

King chronicles the careers of two French artists, Ernest Meissonier and Edouard Manet, during the late 19th century. Meissonier, the darling of the Paris Salon (the organization that could make or break an artist’s career during that time), was the most famous and highest paid painter of the day. In contrast, Manet, heralded as the father of the Impressionist movement, struggled with constant rejection by the Salon as well as the critics. Manet's popularity came later in his career and following his death while Meissonier's work has since faded into obscurity. King gives a fascinating look at the politics and history of the turbulent time period. My only criticism: while the book provided some illustrations of the paintings, there could have been more. King went into great detail about the minute details of many paintings, which was wonderful when the painting was illustrated in the book, but a bit frustrating when it was not. All in all, a good read. ( )

Excellent account of the years and events that changed the idea of painting in France. I wish that King would have wrapped up the story with more details on the changing views of the artists and their work that he so aptly described. ( )

This book discusses some of the power struggles that underpin the history of art, structured on the varying fortunes of contemporary painters in the 1860s and 1870s in France.

He focuses on two artists - Ernest Meissonier and Édouard Manet- using their artistic lives and overlapping histories to illustrate the dawn of Impressionism in Europe. Never heard of Meissonier before? This book sets out to explain why.

Meissonier is the most celebrated painter in France during his lifetime, winning prizes, honours and riches. He is obsessive, taking years to finish a painting, often making elaborate models. He is celebrated for his staggeringly lifelike paintings of great battles: ''He did not feel at home or at ease in the nineteenth century," writes King, and describes his paintings as ''recherché figments of an antiquarian imagination." Yet his work declines from public view into relative obscurity by the 20th Century.

Manet moves from youthful failure, scorned by critics, a laughingstock of the public, an outsider, a fringe participant in the French art scene, yet moves into middle-aged success and posthumous veneration. He is volatile, bohemian, interesting, almost frightening. He paints the people he sees in the world around him: a rag-and-bone man he meets in the Louvre, for example, is the model for the ''rough-looking drunkard" he portrays in ''The Absinthe Drinker." In what is probably his most famous painting, ''Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe," he simply paints ''a nude scene of modern-day Parisians."

Most of the narrative concentrates on the political contrivances and conniving of the Paris Salons of the 1860's and 70's, with the ‘old boy’ network of artists and the narrow view of acceptable artistic licence. It puts a face to the artists we view and admire today and reveals their often ribald or large personalities in context with other contemporary artists and political events.

The power of the Salon to make or break a French artist is astounding – it is a beaurocratic display of favoured artists sponsored by the government. Inclusion gives the official stamp of approval and smoothes the way for sales and commissions. Exclusion marks one for professional disgrace, and is higlighted by the red "R" ("rejected") stamped on the back of canvases that did not make the cut. In terms of the history of art, the judges inevitably chose wrong, preferring scenes of classical mythology and soft-porn Venuses to the exclusion of everything else. One year, 1867, the judges manage to turn down entries by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Cezanne while Manet, discouraged by previous rejections, didn't submit any paintings.

There are fascinating minor characters: the radical journalist Emile Zola, who as a young man was so poor he sells all his clothes and wear a bedsheet; Richard Seymour-Conway, the fourth marquess of Hertford, an extravagant art collector who boasts that ''when I die I shall at least have the consolation of knowing that I have never rendered anyone a service"; and Baudelaire, who is widely believed had not only murdered but also eaten his stepfather!

King gives an interesting account of the political and social developments leading up to the dawn of Impressionism. He focuss too obsessively on the trivia of Salon politics and maneuverings for my interest. Unfortunately there is no exploration of artistic development, influence or application to any major lucidity or depth. Of course, it is very, very difficult to describe artistic style, to account for and to do justice to its importance, its twists and turns, the epiphanies of new developments; but that is one of the great pleasures of reading about art history, and King is not on that level for me – read Simon Schama or Robert Hughes for that.

I don’t think Ross King is an art critic, but a historian of events. In that way, I was disappointed. However, the book is interesting, full of energy and well-researched with some really fascinating trivia of the day. I think it is the small incidental events, colourful characters and side stories that I liked the best. ( )

on December 12th, 2006, I picked up this book in an airport bookstore to read on a flight to Brazil. I also read it coming home, then set it aside because of classes. At the end of the semester, the first book I picked up was this one. A good recommendation, I think. ( )