Impressionism was born in Paris in the 1860s through a great rivalry between the painters Édouard Manet and Ernest Meissonier, known as ‘the two poles of art’. Meissonier was the most famous and financially successful painter of the nineteenth century, hailed for his meticulous precision and obsessive attention to historical detail. Manet, on the other hand, was reviled by the critics and mocked by the public for works such asLe Déjeuner sur l’herbeandOlympia. The contest between the two men was not just about artistic expression; it was also about competing visions of a world drastically changed by technology, politics and personal freedom.

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Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), Musée d’Orsay, Paris