From the acclaimed author of the bestsellers Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling.

While the Civil War raged in America, another very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris: The artists who would make Impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amidst scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been, at its inception, quite so controversial. The drama of its birth, played out on canvas, would at times resemble a battlefield; and, as Ross King reveals, it would reorder both history and culture, and resonate around the world.

The Judgment of Paris chronicles the dramatic decade between two famous exhibitions: the scandalous Salon des Refusés in 1863, and the first Impressionist showing in 1874, set against the rise and dramatic fall of Napoleon III and the Second Empire, after the Franco-Prussian War. A tale of many artists, it revolves around the lives of two, described as "the two poles of art" — Ernest Meissonier, the most famous and successful painter of the 19th century, hailed for his precision and devotion to history; and Edouard Manet, reviled in his time, who nonetheless heralded the most radical change in the history of art since the Renaissance. Out of the fascinating story of their parallel lives, illuminated by their legendary supporters and critics?Zola, Delacroix, Courbet, Baudelaire, Whistler, Monet, Hugo, Degas, and many more — Ross King shows that their contest was not just about Art, it was about how to see the world. With a novelist's skill and the perception of an historian, King recalls a seminal period when artistic expression had the power to electrify and divide a nation.

"NBCC finalist King (Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling) presents an engrossing account of the years from 1863 — when paintings denied entry into the French Academy's yearly Salon were shown at the Salon des Refuss — to 1874, the date of the first Impressionist exhibition. To dramatize the conflict between academicians and innovators during these years, he follows the careers of two formidable, and very different, artists: Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, a conservative painter celebrated for detailed historical subjects, and douard Manet, whose painting Le Djeuner sur l'herbe caused an uproar at the Salon des Refuss. Many other artists of the day, among them Courbet, Degas, Morisot, Monet and Czanne, are included in King's compelling narrative, and the story is further enhanced by the author's vivid portrayal of artistic life in Paris during a turbulent era that saw the siege of the city by the Prussians and the fall of Napoleon III. An epilogue underscores the irony of the tale: after his death, Meissonier quickly fell from favor, while Manet, whose paintings were once judged scandalous, was recognized as a great artist who set the stage for Impressionism and the future of painting. Illus. not seen by PW." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"In 1865, no painter in France was more reviled than the 33-year-old Edouard Manet. The critics compared his brushwork to the action of a floor mop and judged his infamous 'Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe,' which features a naked woman picnicking with two clothed dandies, 'a shameful open sore.' The public laughed at anything he hung on the wall. Accustomed to such abuse, he was understandably perplexed by..." Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) the compliments his canvases received at the opening of the Paris Salon that year, and more mystified when people referred to his paintings as seascapes. In his customary top hat and frock coat, carrying his habitual walking stick, he went to investigate Room M, the gallery alphabetically assigned to him, where he found the source of confusion: 'Who is this Monet,' he exclaimed, 'whose name sounds just like mine and who is taking advantage of my notoriety?' He need not have worried. After all, 1865 was the year that the Salon, and the world at large, first encountered 'Olympia,' his six-foot-long painting of a Parisian prostitute.

In 'The Judgment of Paris,' Ross King describes 'Olympia' as 'easily the most notorious painting of the nineteenth century,' placing it at the center of his fluent account of the years that ushered in the age of Impressionism. With the solid craftsmanship that characterized his previous two popular histories, 'Brunelleschi's Dome' and 'Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling,' King's new book impressively synthesizes research on the culture, politics and personalities of an era that was anything but uncomplicated.

Contemporary responses to 'Olympia' illustrate the contradictions of Paris on the verge of modernity. Critics called Manet's nude 'grotesque' and 'stupid,' a 'female gorilla' engaged in a lewd act that 'cries out for examination by the inspectors of public health.' And the populace? 'Nothing can convey the visitors' initial astonishment, then their anger or fear,' noted one journalist. When guards posted in front of the painting failed to control the daily hordes, the picture was elevated to the ceiling where, another reporter noted, 'you scarcely knew whether you were looking at a parcel of nude flesh or a bundle of laundry.'

Yet prostitution was legal in Paris at the time (Napoleon III hoped it would distract his subjects from deposing him). From our point of view, the moral outrage over Manet's painting seems hypocritical, if not utterly inexplicable. To address this conundrum, King shrewdly introduces another artist from Room M into his story: the redoubtable Ernest Meissonier.

In 1865, Meissonier's critical acclaim was exceeded only by his celebrity, which made him one of the most famous men in France. His paintings inspired international bidding wars, bringing the highest prices of any living artist. They were also, inch for inch, among the most labored over in history: While the nostalgic portraits of old-fashioned musketeers on which he made his fortune might be completed in less than a year, his eight-foot-long depiction of the 1807 Battle of Friedland took more than a decade. For that masterpiece, the artist's obsessive quest to capture the true gait of a horse led him to build a railroad track on his estate, along which he could be pushed by servants while he furiously sketched an adjacent stallion at full gallop.

To eyes accustomed to such meticulousness (which some connoisseurs enjoyed with a magnifying glass), Manet's broad strokes and bold contrasts were a visual assault. More important, as King notes, conventional wisdom held that 'the teaching of moral lessons was ... the whole point of a work of art.' Meissonier's depiction of a triumphant 'Napoleon at the Battle of Friedland' inspired patriotism. But what could one learn from the matter-of-fact depiction of a working prostitute?

To salon-goers, Manet's painting resembled pornography. Indeed, most pornographic pictures were illegally peddled nude photographic studies for artists. And here was 'Olympia,' painted with the flatness characteristic of contemporary indoor photography, posed like Titian's 'Venus.' If the painting had any lesson to teach, it was that the classic nudes exalted by art connoisseurs for their purity and virtue could also be seen as prurient.

But if 'Olympia' threw into doubt the era's idea of artistic enterprise, it also suggested an alternative. The painting's matter-of-factness showed that art need not be engineered to illustrate a value system in the old-fashioned way of allegory. The painter could be merely an observer, a reporter rather than a pundit.

While Monet, Cezanne and the other Impressionists who came in Manet's wake pursued the potential of unfiltered observation in their landscapes by simply painting the effects of light on the eye, half a century had to pass before the Dada movement made the aesthetic collaboration between artist and observer a full partnership: Most famously, the 'ready-made' objects of Marcel Duchamp — a snow shovel, a wine rack, a urinal — were just hardware unless a viewer chose to see them otherwise. The viewer brought meaning to the work, and if the meaning was upsetting or disturbing or subversive, the viewer bore partial responsibility.

King isn't much interested in the broader implications of Manet's art, but he does provide a sound word of caution. Comparing 19th-century nostalgia for Meissonier's musketeers to our own nostalgia for the Impressionists' 19th-century Paris, he observes that 'the painters of modern life created, in the end, the same consoling visions of the past.' Today, ensconced in the Louvre, 'Olympia' is but an artifact, a stunning souvenir. Manet's true legacy, as always, is to be found, paint still fresh, in studio and salon.

Jonathon Keats is the art critic for San Francisco magazine and a conceptual artist." Reviewed by Jonathon Keats, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Of course you know the art of Meissonier. He was one of the most successful artists in the 19th century, a master of realism and detail.... You say you do not remember him? So do you remember Manet? King focuses on the turmoil between the Salon des Refusés of 1863 and the first Impressionist showing of 1874, a period which began with the elegant Napoleon III and ended without him after his fall in the Franco-Prussian War. Manet and Meissonier may have been marginally interested in the fate of the third Napoleon, but they were definitely interested in each other, their rivalry in how they saw their world, and how the ranks of their friends and enemies grew and changed. King also provides color pictures of the art in question, probably one of the few times you will see the work of Meissonier outside of a very quiet corner of a museum. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"A fluid, engaging account of how the conflicting careers of two French painters... reveal the slow emergence of Impressionism and its new view of painting and the world.... [A]n exciting chronicle about political and cultural change." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"In its broad outlines, a familiar story, but Mr. King... tells it with tremendous energy and skill. It is hard to imagine a more inviting account of the artistic civil war that raged around the Paris Salons of the 1860's and 70's, or of the outsize personalities who transformed the way the world looked at painting." William Grimes, New York Times Book Review.

Born and raised in Canada, Ross King has lived in England since 1992. In 2002?03, two books of his were published in the United States, Domino, about the world of masquerades and opera in 18th century London and the New York Times bestselling Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.

Nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2003 in the category of critisicm, in Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling King tells the story of the four years — 1508-1512. — Michelangelo spent painting the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine chapel. In this extraordinary book, he presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life of the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early 16th century Rome.

King's highly acclaimed Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, was an instant hit in the U.S., landing on the New York Times, Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller lists and becoming a handselling favorite among booksellers. Brunelleschi's Dome was chosen "The 2000 Book Sense Nonfiction Book of the Year" and a Book Sense 76 top ten selection.

Anyone familiar with Ross King's writing knows that he has an astonishing knowledge of European cultural history. He originally planned a career in academia, earning his Ph.D. in English Literature and moving to England to assume a research position at the University of London.

King lives near Oxford, England, in the historic town of Woodstock, the site of Blenheim Palace. He is a devoted cyclist and hikes regularly in both the Pyrenees and the Canadian Rockies.