Page History

June Shin

The political and social changes in France in the 19^th century brought about social mobility, and the rise of the bourgeoisie marks one of the most important characteristics of the period. Under a new government, state commissions and aristocratic patronage decreased while pubic sales through the market system thrived more than ever before. Technical developments such as lithography, paint tubes, and prepared canvases also contributed to forming the new wind in the art world. Lithography made it easy for art to be widely distributed and naturally the market was enlarged and broadened. The invention of Paint tubes and prepared canvases gave physical mobility to the artists, who were no longer confined to the walls of their studios. It also lessened the gap between professional amateur artists, causing a dramatic increase in the number of painters. The newly risen bourgeois class preferred landscapes and genre paintings over history paintings because they were looking for affordable, pleasant paintings that could be hung in their homes. Naturally, the favored size of the canvas shrunk.

The expanded market and the change in artistic taste and preference gave rise to a new system that Cynthia A. White calls the art dealer-critic system. In this new system, the dealer wanted to profit by opening up a larger market for the artists and the critic wanted to build a reputation as an intellectual whose opinions mattered. The third actor, the artist, wanted a steady flow of income. The dealers paid the artists "salaries" while artists produced the promised works in return. I would say that an art dealer was like a scout for talents. The dealers were monopolists, trying to buy as many paintings of the chosen artists as they could. Since one dealer is likely to have been in possession of most of their works, the artists must have been dependent on the dealer. But all three actors were dependent on each other. It seems that the dealer-critic system was based on faith. Artists had to trust that the dealers would promote and sell their paintings at a good price, the dealers had to have faith in the artist's talent, style, and works to be able to promise the buyers of the paintings' value. The buyers had to have faith in the dealer's judgments on which paintings to invest in. Also, the new system shifted the focus from the individual paintings to the artists. Out of needs on all actors-dealers, critics, artists-the focus needed to be on the career of the artist, not on individual works of art, for once the artist's fame was established, his works would sell. But this long-run market value of the painters was constructed by the cooperation of the critics and the dealers. It seems that, if the new system allowed the artists to break away and be independent from the traditional Academy, they were now dependent on this new system instead for the sales of their paintings.

Because now with this new system there were no ideologies or styles that were enforced and on which judgments were based, the role of the art critics became an especially important one. They were to render the new types of painting understandable and provide a basis on which artworks could be judged. However, they were not always favorable to the independent artists, as can be seen in the famous example of the Impressionists. The term Impressionism, which we use today without any negative connotation, was coined by an art critic Louis Leroy, who ridiculed the Impressionists' new, unfamiliar painting style. John Ruskin is also known to have given biting comments to Whistler's painting. So it doesn't seem that the dealer and the critic necessarily and deliberately collaborated, but the dealer-critic system worked because it met the needs of all and because the preexisting system of the Academy failed.

The dealer-critic system was flexible whereas the Academy was rigid and unable to cope with the increased number of painters in the 18^th century France. The dealer-critic system came to control the communication on which the Academy depended. The new system provided for the overflowing number of artists many of whom the Academy rejected or never reached because they were outside of Paris. There were simply too many artists doing different things. The Academy demanded ideological and stylistic conformity, and there were no categories into which different types of painting could be divided and under which the artists in each field could flourish. Styles different from the "ideal" preferred by the system were suppressed, rejected, and reviled. Moreover, it is through the dealers that an artist like Francois Bonvin who had not had professional training at such institutions as the Ecole des Arts-Beaux could get opportunities to exhibit and sell his works as well as official notice and consistent state commissions. When religious genre painting, in which he specialized, fell out of favor in the government, the dealers kept Bonvin at work.

An important contribution the dealers made is that they paved way for the international flow of artworks. London was a great city for commerce and many French felt that their works had a better chance of being sold in the British art market than in the French counterpart because the British artists had already been catering to the market demand with their still lifes, genre paintings, landscapes, and portraits. Very different from France, there were numerous different groups and societies of artists in England, and the British artists had been exhibiting in groups or alone, apart from the Royal Academy's annual exhibition, a British equivalent of the Paris Salon. It was thanks to the dealers in London that such artists as James McNeil Whistler, Fantin-Latour, and Alphonse Legros were able to sell many of their works in England. Also, an art dealer Gambart regularly showed French, Belgian, and Dutch paintings in his gallery, which became known as the "French Gallery." Another important dealer was Durand-Ruel, a French. He organized regular exhibitions of the Impressionists' works as well as one-man exhibitions in his gallery in Paris. In London, when the British were no more than scornful of the Impressionists' radical style, Durand-Ruel continued to have Impressionist exhibitions, until the Impressionist paintings began to receive favorable reviews.The dealers like Gambart and Durand-Ruel not only brought the market to the artists but also made international exchange of art possible, all of which were done for their benefits as well.

Thus, it seems that the dealer-critic system was a win-win structure for all. However, I cannot help but think that the dealer was still at an advantage to the artist because if the artist had to communicate with the buyer through the dealer rather than directly with the buyer himself and the dealer had a monopoly over the artist's works, it could be possible and probable that the dealer had a control over how much he would pay the artist. So this relationship between dealer and artist doesn't seem to have completely broken away from but rather stayed very attached to the old patronage system. Do you think that this a reasonable assessment to make?

Elena Cestero

The dealer-critic system emerged in the last half of the 19th century in response to a combination of factors including the emergence of a larger middle class, a more widespread interest in art, and increasing numbers of painters (aided by advances in painting materials). 

The elite patronage and academic systems of the art market declined and were replaced by the dealer-critic system.  This change represented a shift in focus from the art to the artist and from single works to an artist's body of work over their career.  The creation of tin paint tubes made painting accessible to amateurs and gave artists the freedom to paint anywhere.  The freedom to paint outside a studio led to plein-air landscapist art and the stereotypical image of the "romanticist artist". The emergence of genre art, especially landscapes was a precursor to Impressionism.

With so many artists, both amateur and professional, it was impossible for the academic/government system to control such a large volume of such varied art, and a larger market was needed for the influx. With the increasing interest in art that crossed social class lines and the dispersion of buying power, the number of dealers grew and they began to cater to and create new social markets.  This is where the critics entered, and in conjunction with dealers, they influenced the varied groups of patrons.

The art market in London was booming and some French artists attempted to take advantage of it. While some were successful, many were not initially due to the differences in art taste.  Impressionist art was not appreciated in England until closer to the turn of the century.  Some French dealers, such as Durand-Ruel, also tried to take advantage of the power of the London marketplace with varying degrees of success. Durand-Ruel was important in introducing Impressionist art to London although he later closed his London gallery. The art connection between the cities of Paris and London was "complex and tenuous" during this time. 

While Paris was the center for art training, the dealer-critic system started in London due to its leadership in periodical press as well the "modern commercial gallery system". Art criticism rose alongside the production of art, and critics became key agents as educators and tastemakers.  The critics were as varied as the art and there were disagreements among them as to the role of critics in the system, nationalism versus cosmopolitanism, and conflict of interest and unfair influence.  

A prime example of the ties between the press and art was dealer and editor, David Croal Thomson.  As the editor of the Art Journal and a dealer for Goupil gallery, Thomson used the journal to promote and review art that the gallery represented in what many would call a conflict of interest (although Thomson did not acknowledge this).  Interestingly, Thomson seems to have been mostly favorably regarded despite his potentially unfair influence. Another critic, who had also been an artist and editor, and had different approach, was Harry Quilter.  Quilter had more traditional and nationalistic views regarding art and was concerned by its increasing "commodification". He was adamant that critics should be disinterested reviewers and believed that the, "...loss of fair-minded review was a disaster for art." Quilter was not generally well regarded by artists or his peers.

The art market became too large and varied for the older centralized systems to be effective, and so the dealer-critic alternative replaced them. Dealers were looking for financial profit while critics were concerned with improving their intellectual reputations, and together they formed a new art market system that met the needs of both. This system was also responsible for the introduction and later rise of Impressionist and other modern art.  It seems to me that the same dealer-critic system or something similar but more complex is still very much alive today.