Summary of Ross King's The Judgment of Paris

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, the world’s wealthiest and most famous painter, climbed onto the rooftop balcony of his mansion in Poissy in 1863. He had spent most of the previous two decades living in the Grande Maison, a grandiose house with clusters of balconies, dormer windows, and pink-bricked chimneys.

#2 Meissonier’s success in the auction rooms was accompanied by a chorus of critical praise and respect from his peers. He was simply the most renowned artist of his time.

#3 Meissonier was an artist who specialized in painting horses. He had a huge mansion built between the Gothic church and the remains of the cloister. He did not like the sight of railway stations, cast-iron bridges, modern architecture, and recent fashions such as frock coats and top hats.

#4 Meissonier’s house was also a studio, and it was here that he painted his famous paintings. He specialized in scenes from seventeenth and eighteenth-century life, portraying an ever-growing cast of silk-coated and lace-ruffed gentlemen playing chess, smoking pipes, reading books, and sitting before easels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822537255

IRB Media

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Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, the world’s wealthiest and most famous painter, climbed onto the rooftop balcony of his mansion in Poissy in 1863. He had spent most of the previous two decades living in the Grande Maison, a grandiose house with clusters of balconies, dormer windows, and pink-bricked chimneys.

#2

Meissonier’s success in the auction rooms was accompanied by a chorus of critical praise and respect from his peers. He was simply the most renowned artist of his time.

#3

Meissonier was an artist who specialized in painting horses. He had a huge mansion built between the Gothic church and the remains of the cloister. He did not like the sight of railway stations, cast-iron bridges, modern architecture, and recent fashions such as frock coats and top hats.

#4

Meissonier’s house was also a studio, and it was here that he painted his famous paintings. He specialized in scenes from seventeenth and eighteenth-century life, portraying an ever-growing cast of silk-coated and lace-ruffed gentlemen playing chess, smoking pipes, reading books, and sitting before easels.

#5

The mid-nineteenth century was an age of rapid technological development that had witnessed the invention of photography, the electric motor and the steam-powered locomotive. Yet it was also an age fascinated by, and obsessed with, the past.

#6

Meissonier’s paintings were extremely popular in France, and he was praised for his mastery of fine detail and almost inconceivable craftsmanship. However, he was not immune to criticism.

#7

Meissonier was a painter who produced elegant little paintings of eighteenth-century officers and gentlemen. He claimed to despise them, but he was always hindered by family cares. He dreamed of launching his artistic career, but he was forced to apprentice him to Léon Cogniet, a well-known history painter.

#8

Meissonier’s career changed when he married a Protestant woman from Strasbourg in 1838. His father then gave him a set of silver cutlery and terminated his allowance. He had to change his style of painting and instead illustrated books.

#9

Meissonier was a French painter who specialized in miniature scenes of bourgeois domestic life. He was very successful, but he wanted to paint bigger pieces that would sell. He dreamed of other things, presumably, on the day he painted Napoleon.

#10

Napoleon was a hero in France, and his name was everywhere. He was the subject of biographies, poems, songs, and paintings. He was also an inspiration for artists.

#11

The artist was chosen to paint the Emperor’s portrait because he believed his own short, powerful physique perfectly matched Napoleon’s. He showed the Emperor astride his white charger and at the head of the exhausted Grande Armée, grimly leading his soldiers through snowy wastes to engage their formidable enemy in a last, desperate struggle.

#12

During the nineteenth century, many Frenchmen were named with three hyphenated names. The first two were usually either biblical or saintly names, and the third was used in social relations.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Édouard Manet, a painter, was preparing a painting of a different sort. He lived in a three-room apartment in the Rue de l’Hôtel-de-Ville and did his painting in his studio nearby in the Rue Guyot.

#2

Manet was a painter, and he was known as the laughing, blond Manet because of his cheerful nature. He was born and raised in more prestigious surroundings than the Batignolles. He had decided at a young age that he would become a painter.

#3

Édouard Manet, the eldest son of Auguste, wanted to be a painter. He began his training in the studio of a painter named Thomas Couture, who encouraged spontaneity and self-expression among his students.

#4

Édouard Manet was a painter who was trained by Couture, a renowned painter. He was not very precocious, and he clashed frequently with Couture, a generous and broad-minded teacher. He appeared to be far less precocious than he actually was.

#5

The Salon des Refuses was a rare venue for artists to expose their works to the public. It was held at the Palais des Champs-Élysées, and it featured thousands of works of art, which were chosen by a Selection Committee.

#6

The 1859 Salon, where Manet displayed two paintings, received contrasting receptions. The critics roasted