War; and I don't mean the civil kind.

1863 was a big year for the American Civil War, with the final Emancipation Proclamation being issued in January by Abraham Lincoln and all. But across the pond, there was a whole different kind of war going on: a war on art. The salon jury (the people who decided what paintings got hung in galleries and what paintings were unacceptable for public viewing) in Paris, France that year decided to reject a whopping 4,000 paintings from public galleries. Naturally, the artists of said paintings were outraged and planned a protest against the jury. On May 17th, 1863, the Salon des Refuses (Rooms of the Rejected) was opened by all the infuriated rejected artists to display their "vulgar" masterpieces for all the world to see. (Happy 1st Birthday, Modern Art!!) Of the paintings in the gallery hung The Luncheon on the Grass by Edouard Manet, one of the most controversial paintings of all. Edouard Manet, one of the first 19th century artists to approach real life subjects and portray them however he felt, played an extremely influential role  in the transition from realism to impressionism in the art world. The Luncheon on the Grass is a painting of fully dressed men and a nude woman picnicking on a lawn. The jury felt it unsuitable because of Manet's placement of a natural figure and exposure of the naked woman body in such a public landscape. To Manet, the audience's focus was supposed to be on the delicate landscape and the meticulously detailed background of the painting. Unfortunatly, to the jury, the subject of the painting existed alone and the painting was considered vulgar and unacceptable. Today, Manet's notoriety translates to popularity in the French avant-garde community. Looks like going against the grain can result in a positive revolution after all!