Juste Milieu Research Articles

Fashion and Politics, The Politics of Fashion: Józef Simmler’s Portrait of Emilia Włodkowska, Society Portrait and Haute Couture

The article proposes an analytical approach tuned to 19th-century society portraiture and tests it on Józef Simmler’s Portrait of Emilia Włodkowska (1865, National Museum in Warsaw). The pictured ball gown was likely by Worth and presented as being worn in Paris rather than in Warsaw to respect the politically-motivated Polish national mourning (1861–1866), culminating during the January Uprising (1863–1864) against Russian rule, that precluded organizing and attending balls at home. The portrait was an act of public performance—and indeed it was publicly exhibited at the artist’s posthumous exhibition in Warsaw in 1868. Its staging and costuming reflected the sitter’s particular agenda fine-tuned to multifarious current contexts: she promoted her Warsaw fashion house and herself as a respectable society lady and competent agent of French fashion in the period of political turmoil and resultant expectations concerning Polish women’s dress and conduct. The portrait showcases Simmler’s juste milieu approach and illustrates a very current shift in the fashionable female silhouette, advocated by Worth, while referencing the dress and artistic tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries and drawing inspiration from the new medium of photography.

Рецепция ориенталистских картин О. Верне в художественной критике 1830–1840-х годов

Horace Vernet (1789–1863), one of the prominent French artists of his time, achieved his greatest success at the time of the July Monarchy (1830–1848), thanks to the patronage of King Louis-Philippe. Like many of his contemporaries, H. Vernet was fascinated by the exotic of the East. Fast every year one or more of his Orientalist paintings were exposed at the Salons. His battle canvases, commissioned by the King, recorded not only various stages of the French conquest of Algeria, but also the realities of life in North Africa. Vernet’s fascination for Eastern culture was reflected in his treatment of biblical subjects and genre scenes as well. This article is devoted to the study of perception of Vernet’s Orientalist paintings by art critics. It bases on the texts of critical reviews of the Salons. Well-known writers, poets, such as T. Gautier, P. Mérimée, Ch. Baudelaire and others functioned as critics. Many of them were warm supporters of romanticism, while classicism remained in demand, among others. The eclecticism inherent in the creative method of H. Vernet, which can be perceived as an expression of the «juste milieu» in the arts, was often met with disdain by reviewers of the Salons. At the same time, H. Vernet’s innovative techniques, including the Arabization of the Bible, ran into frank misunderstanding.

Filipp Maliavin in Emigration: Artistic Strategy and the Afterlife of Secessionism

This essay addresses artistic strategy in interwar Europe through the career of Russian émigré artist Filipp Maliavin. Maliavin's eclectic style, which adopted modern techniques but still strove for legibility, was characteristic of the international juste milieu artists participating in the secessionist system of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scholars have emphasized this system's demise in 1914, yet Maliavin's success demonstrates how secessionist exhibitions and transnational networks continued to benefit artists. Exploring Maliavin's dominance of the Parisian salons, and his ability to market his work across Europe amid worldwide economic crisis in the 1930s, dispels previous assumptions about how artists operated during this period. In addition, this account illuminates the rich possibilities that unfold when investigating artists residing in the middle ground between tradition and avant‐garde, challenging narratives that dismiss continuity in artists' careers as regressive.

Chivalry and the Ideals of Knighthood in France during the Hundred Years War. By Craig Taylor.

Craig Taylor’s new study offers a thoughtful corrective to dominant narratives of ‘chivalry’ that have either emphasized decline, or have suggested a naïve focus on individual honour that is unconcerned with broader military encounters or outcomes. Taylor defines chivalry with respect to a class or category of people, not in connection to norms or culture, and shows the degree to which the values associated with chivalry were complex and dynamic, subject to debate and change. Taylor’s opening chapter on texts and contexts emphasizes the near-ubiquity of military conflict of one sort or another in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France, which produced abundant reflection on questions largely centred on the legitimate use of force: Who may rightfully exercise violence? In what circumstances? With what objectives and with respect to whom? Taylor argues that the ‘chivalric’ texts that have often been read as normative or descriptive were actually prescriptive and aspirational efforts to reshape military culture; they sought to limit violence and to inculcate in their readers a sense of obligation to the weak as well as service to king and kingdom. The remaining chapters focus on the qualities that defined knighthood — honour, prowess, loyalty, courage, mercy, wisdom, and prudence — and illuminate the tensions within each of these putative virtues. With respect to prowess, for instance, the ‘cornerstone of medieval chivalric culture’ (p. 91) founded upon force and competition, Taylor shows that while certain types of violence (for example, crusade) were justified and praiseworthy, and other types (for example, popular violence) were categorically condemned, a great many encounters fell into a grey area in which the right to exercise or authorize violence was potentially at issue. Similarly, with respect to courage, Taylor demonstrates that this quality ought not be understood in absolute or strictly individual terms, but pragmatically, as a kind of Aristotelian juste milieu situated between cowardice and rashness that is operative on a collective level. Taylor also highlights the increasing prominence of wisdom and prudence. Strategic thinking and effective leadership were explored and promoted not only in clerical milieux, but in texts owned and sometimes written by knights and nobles. The practical quality of prudence, largely the product of experience, might also be acquired through reading about the experiences of exemplary figures. In short, ‘chivalry’ was never monolithic or static, and Taylor’s book effectively highlights the debates that accompanied and produced changes in the role of the knight, and of military culture, in late medieval France. Because France was the site of so much warfare and violence, writers were thinking a lot and in very practical terms about warfare, its effects, its aims, and how and by whom it might best be prosecuted. Taylor shows how texts sought to circumscribe violence by asserting royal monopoly over the exercise of violence, defining the laws governing military encounters and the treatment of non-combatants, prisoners, and enemies, and emphasizing a Roman military model (derived largely from Vegetius) with a focus on discipline, self-control, and dedication to the common good.

Cutting balloon angioplasty for in-stent restenosis of the aortic coarctation in a young boy presenting with systemic hypertension of the upper extremities

An 8.25-year-old boy was incidentally found to have systemic hypertension of the upper extremities. Blood pressures of the upper extremities were 142-150/86-98 mmHg, and those of the lower extremities 110-116/60-66 mmHg. Doppler echocardiography showed in-stent restenosis of the aortic coarctation. Traditional high-pressure balloon angioplasty failed to dilate this inveterate in-stent restenosis. Instead, a cutting balloon angioplasty was performed. The lumen was dilated from 4.80 mm to 7.89 mm. The pressure gradient dropped from 32 mmHg to 9 mmHg. Blood pressures of the upper extremities were 112-116/76-78 mmHg, and those of the lower extremities 100-104/70-72 mmHg.This paper highlights that a cutting balloon angioplasty can serve as a juste milieu to relieve in-stent restenosis of the aortic coarctation when traditional high-pressure balloon angioplasty is debatable.

Le Juste Milieu: Alexandre Sandier, Theming, and Eclecticism in French Interiors of the Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACTThis article examines the work of the architect and decorator Alexandre Sandier (1843–1916) in the context of French interior decorating advice manuals and pattern books of Third Republic France. Following the innovations in interior decor popularized through such media, and encouraged by a new understanding of the petit salon's and the boudoir's proper decoration, Sandier replaced the traditional forms and themes of history with new, refreshing, and never-before-seen interior design combinations. His designs for private interiors occupied an intermediate position between eclectic and themed interior decor that critics labeled the “juste milieu” of interior decoration.

Transforming the Dutch Republic into the Kingdom of Holland: the Netherlands between Republicanism and Monarchy (1795–1815)1

In 1806 more than two centuries of the republican form of government in the Northern Netherlands came to an end. For a long time, historiography had it that the Dutch were indifferent to the end of the Republic and the establishment of the Kingdom of Holland. The transformation was, however, a much more dynamic process than has been portrayed. King Louis Bonaparte had the difficult task of acquainting a republican people with monarchy. Even though republicanism had lost much of its appeal by 1806, and the usefulness of democratic institutions was put into question, many Batavians nourished anti-monarchism. The Dutch state was one of many European client states that began to experience tensions between the gains of the revolution and the Napoleonic Realpolitik that was geared towards limiting popular sovereignty and expanding the French Empire. Louis Bonaparte, and later the Restoration monarchs, tried to reconcile popular sovereignty and monarchic authority by propagating the constitutional monarchy as the ideal juste milieu (middle way) between extremes.

Art and Literature of the Second Empire/Les Arts et la Litterature sous le Second Empire (review)

Reviewed by: Art and Literature of the Second Empire/Les Arts et la Littérature sous le Second Empire Sara Pappas Baguley, David, ed. Art and Literature of the Second Empire/Les Arts et la Littérature sous le Second Empire. Durham: University of Durham, 2003. ISBN0-907310-54-0 In the fields of literature and the plastic arts, classifying and canonizing the Second Empire has never been an easy task. On the side of painting and sculpture, the period is problematic, despite the fact that there are several paintings and Salon scandals now considered pivotal moments in the history of Western art: Courbet's Un Enterrement à Ornans (painted and exhibited between a revolution and a coup d'état: 1848-1851), Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia (1863-65), the Salon des Refusés (1863), and events in and around the Exposition Universelle of 1867, including Manet's painting of the same name. Despite these instances we have since identified as aesthetically revolutionary, painting of the Second Empire is frequently characterized as "eclectic." It is during this period that the Salon will close its ranks, becoming more and more resistant to innovations in pictorial form, as those artists who do adhere to the rules governing academic art are labeled "juste milieu" – a politically-charged term associated with compromise and conformity. The domain of literature is no less problematic. Despite the audacious writings and subsequent trials of both Baudelaire and Flaubert, the period of the Second Empire remains "transitional." It is eclipsed by the literary and artistic movements that it borders in time: preceded by Romanticism and Realism, and followed by Symbolism, Naturalism, Decadence, and Impressionism. In his preface to Art and Literature of the Second Empire, David Baguley remarks that works from this period are usually placed into one of two categories: either "officially sponsored, conformist, institutionalized," or "subversive, marginalized, clandestine" (XI). This collection of ten articles represents an effort to revise this view of the Second Empire, often analyzing texts, images, and politicians that do not fit neatly into either category, and arguing that the interaction between state and culture actually "gave rise to works of undeniable originality and lasting value (xi). The edited volume is divided into three sections: Arts, Institutions, and Letters/Lettres. Part One, "Arts," is perhaps the strongest in the collection. In an article on landscape painting, Patricia Mainardi considers the period's notorious eclecticism as a positive attribute. By focusing on Corot instead of Courbet, Mainardi argues that landscape painting of the Second Empire has been underestimated because of our tendency to view the period as exclusively pre-Impressionist. Although she never states it directly, Mainardi seems to be asserting that landscape painting of the Second Empire, even by artists who would later become Impressionists, constitutes its own category and resembles that category more than Impressionism itself. In the second article of this section, Robert [End Page 161] Lethbridge looks at how political engagement can go along with l'art pour l'art. It has long been argued that Manet's politics are difficult to ascertain from his images. Lethbridge argues that allusion, overlap, multiple references, and especially the "blague" were in fact a response to the Second Empire's desire to prevent the slippage of meaning. In this way, Manet's art can be seen as an ironic response to the politics of the period and part of an assertive strategy. In his contribution, Richard Hobbs seeks to problematize the "juste milieu" label. "Juste milieu" began as a political reference to the bourgeois monarchy, taken from Louis-Philippe's 1831 declaration, "nous cherchons à nous tenir dans un juste milieu" (quoted in Hobbs, 42), but has since become an expression associated with artists who compromised their integrity and sacrificed innovation and originality to please the crowd and/or the Academy. Hobbs explores the application of this label to the art of Thomas Couture, an artist best known today for having been Manet's teacher. Hobbs justifies the contested placement of Couture's Les Romains de la Décadence in the main sculpture gallery of the Musée d'Orsay by arguing that "juste milieu" can be seen as an engagement...

Character Flaws in CLAY: Honoré Daumier and the Celebrities of the Juste Milieu

Character Flaws in CLAY: Honoré Daumier and the Celebrities of the Juste Milieu

ANKERSMIT AND HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION1

ABSTRACT Historical debate is a semantic quarrel not about the exact meaning of words, but about the past. (HR:62) In Historical Representation Frank Ankersmit seeks a juste milieu between postmodern theory and historical practice. But he still insists that the meaning of a historical representation “is not found, but made in and by [the] text.” Thus “there will be nothing, outside the text itself, that can govern or check [the conceptualization].” Accordingly, “a (historical) representation itself cannot be interpreted as one large (true or false) description. I would not hesitate to say that this—and nothing else—is the central problem in the philosophy of history.” On the other hand, he affirms that “a historical representation‘is about’a certain part of the past,” that historical debate is a “semantic quarrel not about the exact meaning of words, but about the past.” Everything hinges on how to grasp this idea of “aboutness.”I propose an alternative reading of postpositivist philosophy of science in hopes of reaching the juste milieu. The issue is whether colligatory concepts in history have a more radically constructed character than theoretical terms in natural‐scientific theory, and whether, as with the latter, they can make intersubjective claims to warrant. My view is that colligatory concepts in historical representations can be conceived to refer in roughly the same way that theoretical terms do in natural‐scientific theories.All the problems I find in Ankersmit's approach come to the fore in his fruitful analogy to portrait painting. First, the personality the portrait evokes is not restricted to the representation, but is of the sitter. We are offered insight not (merely) into painting but into an actual character. That is, there is a cognitive, not simply an aesthetic, dimension to representation. Historical terms pick out something intersubjectively affirmable in reality, and discrimination is possible among rival versions. The question is how to regard—to explain and to evaluate—these underdetermined objects of consideration, not to preclude them by stipulation.

Tocqueville’s apocalypse : culture, politics and freedom in Democracy in America

Tocqueville concludes Democracy in America with a cautionaiy fantasy shaped out of his worst forebodings about democracy. Though he presents it as a possibility rather than as a prophecy, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that it represents his ultimate persuasion about the moral destiny of democracy. Why his thinking had taken such a somber turn is a question. I propose to consider in this essay, at once suggesting that even more than his troubled observations about the growth of state power in Europe and about French politics and culture in the age of the “juste milieu,” it was insights he derived from his theoretical exploration of the probable lines of development of any future democratic culture, and from his remarkable venture into the bizarre inner world of the democratic psyche, that account for his darkening mood.

Etudes saint-simoniennes (review)

Reviewed by: Etudes saint-simoniennes Mary Pickering Régnier, Philippe. Etudes saint-simoniennes. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2002. Pp. 384. ISBN2-7297-0701-8 This book presents twelve articles on the Saint-Simonian movement. Between 1825 and 1832, the Saint-Simonians argued in favor of the emancipation of women and workers; the creation of an industrially based economy and a new, socially responsible religion; the joining of the "Orient" and the "Occident"; and the leadership of artists, scientists, and intellectuals. Edited by Philippe Régnier, who inserted an invaluable bibliography, this book reflects a new interdisciplinary approach to the [End Page 187] Saint-Simonians. It brings to light aspects of their thought and activities that have been overlooked as well as the variety of literary, scientific, economic, and political channels through which they made an impact. Using Freudian psychology, Anne Levallois demonstrates that Prosper Enfantin eventually became the "supreme father" of the Saint-Simonian family, replacing Saint-Simon. In early 1832, Enfantin invited forty Saint-Simonian "sons" to join him in a retreat at Ménilmontant. Though adulated, he disbanded the association in late 1832 because he feared being not only "enclosed in the trap of idealization and of transference" but crushed by the "task of repressing affective homosexual excesses." To escape, he announced that he was going to Egypt in search of the "Mother." Levallois gives us a new picture of a moderate Enfantin, who respected the limits of power. Taking a semiotic approach, Serge Zenkine argues that Saint-Simonianism represented a unique, "modern religious experience" that was both rationalist and mystical. It was untraditional in endorsing an androgynous God, avoiding typical religious preoccupations with impurities, and employing profane signs, such as exotic clothes with buttons in the back to develop fraternal feelings. Yet at the same time, it adopted traditions of the sacred. Members of the sect created symbolic series and triads that were reminiscent of the secret hermetical tradition. Mixing the old and the new, the Saint-Simonian religion was playful, theatrical, and ultimately liberating. Focusing on Le Livre nouveau des saint-simoniens, written in 1832 and 1833, Jean-Michael Gouvard explains the rationale behind Enfantin's project of creating a new language. The Saint-Simonians were original, according to Gouvard, because unlike their contemporaries, they did not present the French language as the universal language. Instead, they sought to create an entirely new "archilangue" that would preserve "all the rhythms and accents of previous human languages" and represent the voice of humanity. Michèle Riot-Sarcy sheds light on the varied reactions of the Saint-Simonians to the Revolution of 1848, a period that is frequently overlooked in histories of their movement. Although the Saint-Simonians did not act as a group and had lost their missionary zeal, they still remained in contact. They debated what the Second Republic should do to meet the needs of the time. Enfantin, who did not trust the workers' "capacity" to rule, advised bourgeois financiers and industrialists on how to take the initiative and introduce realistic reforms. Riot-Sarcy argues that Enfantin's version of socialism, which endorsed the "juste milieu," ultimately triumphed over more utopian versions. Two articles focus on Gustave d'Eichthal, who left the movement after Enfantin was brought to trial in 1832. According to Michel Espagne, d'Eichthal came from a wealthy Jewish banking family originally based in Germany. Taking advantage of the financial network that was available to him, d'Eichthal spent several years in Germany, learning about Kant, Herder, Lessing, Hegel, and biblical critics, such as Adolf Hilgenfeld. Their writings taught him the importance of justice and of reconciliation, especially the necessity of bringing together Jews and Christians, the "Orient" and the "Occident," and the rich and poor. Sandrine Lemaire takes this [End Page 188] theme one step further in one of the most interesting essays of the book. She shows that d'Eichthal boldly encouraged the physical union of blacks and whites as a means of creating more perfect humans. D'Eichthal was "one of the first of those in his epoch who believed in the power of crossbreeding the races as a means of civilization." In another fascinating article, historians...

Eighty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians

session Disharmony in the Juste Milieu: Labor in the July Mon archy examined aspects of working-class history in the first half of the nineteenth century. Charles Crouch assessed the growing distance between the petit bourgeoisie and the working class in The Politics of Economic Transformation: Small-Scale Employers, Their Employees and the Demise of Sociability. In addition to structural transformations of the economy, Crouch argued that an increase in popular violence that included calls for a redistribution of wealth alienated the lower middle class from its allies among laboring men. Revolution of 1848 completed the breach and thus frustrated a common politics. Judith DeGroat's paper, Gender in the Archives: An Assessment of the Sources for a History of Women's Work in July Monarchy Paris, called for a more complex view of female labor in this period. Focusing on the manufacturing trades, DeGroat asserted that archival sources challenge the contemporary perception of female labor as solely needlework and offer a means to assess women's view of their labor beyond that provided by the printed works of socialist feminists. In A Repertoire of Contention: Paris' Place de Gr?ve, 1830-1846, Casey Hari son explored the collective action of migrant masons. Drawing on Charles Tilly's formulation, Harison suggested that police and the people devel oped a repertoire of contention?recognized by both groups?that ac counts for the revolutionary activity in nineteenth-century Paris.

The Politics of the Center: The Juste Milieu in Theory and Practice, France and England, 1815–1848

The Politics of the Center: The Juste Milieu in Theory and Practice, France and England, 1815–1848

Ary Scheffer, een Nederlandse Fransman

Ary Scheffer, een Nederlandse Fransman

Hegelianism. The Path towards Dialectical Humanism, 1805-1841 (review)

9'52 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY judgments of color are false because they involve projections? Fifth, Mackie's emendations on the artificial virtues are unnecessary because they already are in Hume. Mackie missed them because he never really grasped the theory of sympathy in Hume. Sixth, if Mackie had fully understood the sympathy process he would have seen the confluence of sentiment, judgment, social context, and the influence upon action. Rather than Hume having slurred the distinction between judgment and sentiment, he offered the first serious distinction and analysis of the distiction. Seventh , Mackie missed all of this because he seems to have read only the commentaries of Harrison and Mercer. A better knowledge of the secondary literature would not only have avoided the pitfalls but have made him realize that the objectification theory is well known among American readers of Hume. Finally, I note that Hume never forgot that morality cannot be understood just as a system of beliefs but has a fi)undation firmly rooted in action and practice. NICHOLAS CAPALDI Queens College John E. Toews. Hegelianism. The Path towardsDialecticalHumanism, x8o5-z84~. New York: Cambridge University Press, 198o. Pp. 45~. $39.5 ~ Few works by historians are also of great value to philosophers. John E. Toews's presentation of the development of the Hegelian movement and of its emancipatory, dialectical driving-fi)rces is one such exception and, in fact, a most valuable one. Aw)iding the limited scope of the "From Hegel to Marx" theme which has been widely focused on, Toews understands the "Hegelian Project" as a special method which aids contemporary man in his striving for self-understanding and self-emancipation and which enables the construction of cultural and political bodies within which modern man can feel "at home." In confronting the post-revolutionary crisis of orientation and also intellectual and political discontent with the so-called "juste milieu," we should not regard Hegel's options, nor those of Marx and of other Hegelians, merely as steps within a unilinear process of growing radicalism. Rather, these various options are to be seen as related to differences in .judging and evaluating the variables and invariables contained in the given intellectual and political environment. They are alternatives, not sequentially emerging options. In his first section (pp. 1-67), Toews outlines the main structure of Hegel's mature position as expressed in PhilosophyofRight, which proposes a programmatical, i.e. dialectical, mediation between theory and practice, and rejects the extreme positions of the French Revolution and of German Romanticism. The book's second part narrates the story of the formulation of theories through the closed process of group communication within the Hegelian School. Toews also described the Hegelians' political, religious and epistemological battles, and, finally, the emergence of the new positions held by Right, Center, and Left Hegelianism. Divisions within the movement and the ultimate forms of options propounded by Strauss (pp. 255-287), BOOK REVIEWS 253 Bauer (pp. 288-326 ), and Feuerbach (pp. 327-355) are discussed in the third section (pp. 203-369). In Hegelianism, Toews achieves the most extensive account so far of the group process through which Hegelian theory was produced between 1821 and 1841. He also shows how the different options offered by the intellectuals participating in this process, including both Hegel and Marx, evolved in reaction to the same or similar problems. Toews stresses the decisive influence of Brunt) Bauer in shaping the concept of" dialectics towards requiring radicalism in self-emancipation and in political affairs throughout the entire process of theory-formulation. But in resolving the final dilemma of Hegelians--whether to mediate, or to choose, between self-liberation and the liberation of the world, i.e. the subordination of the self in serving certain values--the ego and ideas of Max Stirner also play an important, if unhappy role. More attention could have been given by Toews to the Stirnerian option, which for a time appeared tempting to Bruno Bauer and even more so to Marx, and to its consequences. Such an emphasis would have more convincingly demonstrated that the intimate group process of formulating theory practised by the Berlin group, which included Bruno Bauer, Edgar Bauer, Friedrich Engels, Karl Koeppen, Karl...

The Second Republic's Contest for the Figure of the Republic

Aside from the free Salon of 1848, the single most dramatic artistic event of the short-lived Second Republic was the general and open competition for a symbol appropriate to the new regime.1 Historically, the contest marks a watershed in the development of French art not only for the inclusive range of its participants – composed of academicians, “juste milieu” representatives, realists and Barbizon artists – but also because it vividly reflected the pictorial problems of artists living in a period of transition. Yet, while references are often made to this contest by art historians, their accounts are fragmentary and generally confused.2 This is not entirely the authors’ fault; the circumstances leading to the bizarre consummation of the contest presented a bewildering spectacle even to the participating artists themselves.3

Thomas Couture and the Evolution of Painting in Nineteenth-Century France

Few artists of the nineteenth century worked so torturously and so much against their personal instincts as did Thomas Couture.1 Indeed, for many artists of the period whom we classify as belonging to the juste milieu group—painters striving to conciliate avant-garde and conservative tendencies—compromise was a source of painful confusion.2 Compromise here implied a conflict between the priorities of the past and the demands of the present. Sensitive artists among this group found their own time valid for pictorial themes and experienced a deep sense of personal independence, but their commitment to the classical ethos hampered the full expression of this outlook. Less confident than, for example, Delacroix or Courbet, they nervously sought a style capable of reconciling their longing for traditional forms with their anxiety to be modern. The tension between an inner need for direct participation in a changing contemporary world and the desire to achieve the high status accorded the traditional painter is perhaps most marked in Couture's life and work.

Thomas Couture and the Evolution of Painting in Nineteenth-Century France

Few artists of the nineteenth century worked so torturously and so much against their personal instincts as did Thomas Couture.1 Indeed, for many artists of the period whom we classify as belonging to the juste milieu group—painters striving to conciliate avant-garde and conservative tendencies—compromise was a source of painful confusion.2 Compromise here implied a conflict between the priorities of the past and the demands of the present. Sensitive artists among this group found their own time valid for pictorial themes and experienced a deep sense of personal independence, but their commitment to the classical ethos hampered the full expression of this outlook. Less confident than, for example, Delacroix or Courbet, they nervously sought a style capable of reconciling their longing for traditional forms with their anxiety to be modern. The tension between an inner need for direct participation in a changing contemporary world and the desire to achieve the high status accorded the traditional painter is perhaps most marked in Couture's life and work.

Thomas Couture and the Evolution of Painting in Nineteenth-Century France

Few artists of the nineteenth century worked so torturously and so much against their personal instincts as did Thomas Couture.1 Indeed, for many artists of the period whom we classify as belonging to the juste milieu group—painters striving to conciliate avant-garde and conservative tendencies—compromise was a source of painful confusion.2 Compromise here implied a conflict between the priorities of the past and the demands of the present. Sensitive artists among this group found their own time valid for pictorial themes and experienced a deep sense of personal independence, but their commitment to the classical ethos hampered the full expression of this outlook. Less confident than, for example, Delacroix or Courbet, they nervously sought a style capable of reconciling their longing for traditional forms with their anxiety to be modern. The tension between an inner need for direct participation in a changing contemporary world and the desire to achieve the high status accorded the traditional painter is perhaps most marked in Couture's life and work.