They lived dramatic events as the defeat of 1870 against Germany, the Commune de Paris and his bloody repression. But their works also reflect the cultural excitement and a kind of joy of living that characterize this expansion period; they are shown through the paintings representing scenes in the parisian streets or cafés as well as in the Countryside or in the "guinguettes" on the edges of river Seine.

universal exposition 1867

Claude Monet

St Lazare station - Normandy train (1877)

The universal exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, in Paris, present the french technology and culture who are highly developing. The impressionists find inspiration sources in modern constructions, notably railway stations or iron bridges.

New social classes appear : "bourgeois" grown rich with speculation and workers whose condition is described in Emile Zola novels . The impressionists will paint these workers, as well as the customers of cafés and the pedestrians on the brilliant parisian streets.

They are numerous in this period; some directly concern painters, such as photography which bury the "useful" paint.

Consider as concurrency by academic painters, the development of photography is for impressionists the opportunity to give a new sense to their art : to represent things not such as they see them but such as they feel them.

Thus, the photograph rather is considered as a complement by impressionists and the workshop of Nadar will be the place of their first exhibition in 1874.

The workshop of photographer Nadar

Boulevard des Capucines

True institution, the "Salon de Paris" takes an important place in the life of the impressionists.

In fact, to live, the artist must sell his canvases and therefore must be exposed. The salon de Paris constitutes the privileged encounter place with potential buyers. The value of the paintings is fixed by the awards that are given there . The admitance jury emanates of the allmighty Academy of Fine Arts ; so it is no need to be astonished if the impressionists are most often denied to access to the salon.

They will be continuously divided between the obsession to expose and the contempt that they feel for a jury that they consider incompetent to judge their works.

In 1863, the jury refused 4000 canvases among 5000 presented, rising a deep discontent that leads the emperor Napoleon the IIIrd to decide personaly to open to the refused artists, other places to expose their canvases and let them know to the Public.

In this a scandal with this canvas, entitled "le déjeuner sur l'herbe" ; If one "salon of the refused", Manet creates compares it to the that nudity, indeed erotism were tolerated if they adorned Venus of Cabanel , it appears themselves with mythological pretextsabsolutely unacceptables in a contemporary scene who appears to , but became be located in a forest near Paris.

Caricature of Cham

Turkmen buying several canvases in the impressionist exhibition to use it in war cases

The cristicism

She slashes the impressionists at their beginnings, it will only exacerbate their research.