At the Exhibition of 1817, the first to take place after the Restoration, the public did not notice any signs of change. Despite David’s exile, the same masters were present defending the same ideas. Beside them there were some young people, their students and followers, supporting the cause.
No doubt it was wished that politics had not imposed or suggested topics remote from the artistic mission such as historical anecdotes or religious themes. Gérard had painted the Entry of Henri IV into Paris in the same way that he had celebrated the 10th August in the past. There were also signs of weariness; with shy audacity some artists had created scenes with a dramatic quality or tinged with light effects. In fact, there was nothing there to write home about. The young Horace Vernet displayed a large picturesque painting with his Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa but that was an isolated case; the Grand Condé by David d’Angers triggered some curiosity but without raising fears.
However, fervent, anxious and nervous young people questioned and looked for the future in studios or at the Louvre at that very time. They sensed, without understanding the exact reasons for it, that life was now to be found outside the formulae that had ensured the glory of French art for half a century. There had been a soul lying in these tried and tested formulae which was no longer shared by these young people. Some historic and respectable academic rules were still in use, but outdated. Famous professors no longer had control over these young people. They fumbled for new means of expression or, as sometimes happens in such situations, they would temporarily seek guidance from a friend who seemed momentarily inspired.
At the Exhibition of 1819 latent ideas suddenly appeared, revealing themselves in the scandal of The Raft of the Medusa. It was a huge painting whose dimensions alone were a challenge, and it imposed authority in itself even upon those who were distressed by it. No doubt that the battle had started. In that painting, Géricault rejected everything that the French School had stood for: the hierarchy of genres (as he treated a news item like an epic), ideal beauty, the supremacy of drawing, apparent finish, balanced order and serenity.
That vehemently powerful work claimed the joy of painting, the rights of movement, drama, and life. Beyond David’s canon, it was based on principles from the past and strengthened by the tradition it had returned to, whilst at the same time announcing a free form of art. Critics moaned and were disturbed by the multiplication of mundane and religious topics, but young people praised Géricault and saw in him their new leader. He still had a natural penchant for the realist epic that few shared, but he set an example for all and gave them the courage to assert themselves.
Those around him, and in particular the young Delacroix, were attracted by his work and could see something special in it. His drawings, gouaches and watercolours often confirmed what Gros had intuitively discovered, but at the same time he pioneered techniques in different fields. Invented in 1796, lithography had only produced uncertain and imperfect outcomes; Géricault took it up and, with remarkable confidence, revealed its full potential. Lithography would have been inadequate for David and his students, who would have found it too greasy, supple, colourful and sometimes excessive, but it turned out to be perfectly suitable for the new generation.
Géricault’s action was profound and long lasting though he did not show work in public again after the Medusa. He did not take part in the Exhibition of 1822 and died at the beginning of 1824. Before Géricault’s death, Eugène Delacroix had taken up his torch. Dante and Virgil was showed at the Exhibition of 1822 and made him famous. Close to him were artists like Bonington, Champmartin, Sigalon, Camille Roqueplan, Ary Scheffer and Achille Devéria, some of whom achieved enduring fame.
At the Exhibition of 1824 scattered signs of change had turned into a generalised movement in which was at stake the whole direction that art was to take. The Romantics flocked together. Besides Bonington, Copley Fielding, Constable and Lawrence came to display their works at the Exhibition as if they wanted to support the avant-garde.
Facing such attacks and desertion, the French School resisted; it would not let go and the fight turned out to be much harder for artists than writers. Victor Hugo and his emulators faced mediocre writers with worn out, passé formulae who opposed them with insults and mockery but not with powerful works. However, the School which the young artists had decided to destroy was too recent, and the fits of enthusiasm that it had produced were only just past. Girodet was still very successful with Pygmalion at the Exhibition of 1819, but time was not on the School’s side and nobody had David’s authority or the productivity needed either to impose discipline on the young or to stimulate them and give them confidence in proven doctrines. A figure to lead the resistance was looked for, and Ingres was called on for help.
At the time he was blacklisted. La Grande Odalisque, on display beside Roger delivering Angelica at the Exhibition of 1819, had been accused of multiple flaws and seen as directing art backwards to its primitive age, though avant-garde artists appreciated his work. At the Exhibition of 1824, however, The Vow of Louis XIII created a sudden reversal of the situation and put him back in favour with the orthodox point of view.
He was seen as the saviour who was needed: the idiosyncratic features of his genius were ignored whilst his science and energy were put at the forefront. In 1825 he was elected a member of the Institut.
In 1825 Charles X was crowned in Reims. Gothic decoration was chosen for the ceremony: there was a gallery in front of the façade as well as inside the nave. These solemn circumstances helped assert the triumph of the Middle Ages that had been so looked down on. Everything worked in favour of this reversal: it was in the interest of religion and politics whilst being also supported by the development of historic sciences. In 1831 the novel Notre-Dame de Paris made the craze for medievalism reach its peak. It was visible everywhere, in the inspiration of artists and writers, trinkets, furniture and fashion.