Lecture 1 - On the Line Rupert Bunny's studio address of Rue Notre Dame des Champs on the Left Bank was synonymous with artistic fame and success. His neighbours were the celebrated painters Laurens,Cabanel, Meissonier, GΓ©rΓ΄me, Couture and Bouguereau whose perfect pink nudes, gallant cavaliers and graceful angels were the delight of the yearly Salon art exhibition which drew crowds of millions. The extraordinary success of the Impressionists, whose work they rejected, has now overshadowed them to a point that they seem to have vanished from art history syllabuses. Recent scholarship is now showing renewed interest in their style and subject matter to which painters such as Renoir would return at the end of their career. This series will investigate the work of these painters and the high moral role that they thought art played in society.
