social and political developments

 

Note: this page is under construction. 
Be reluctant when you site from this page, for the information is incomplete and maybe incorrect.

Meta-Impressionism:

Social and political developments

a chronological overview

 

On this page you will find in chronological order short info on social and political developments that influenced the world in France, especially the art-world and the ‘impressionists’.
I will also render dates of inventions.

 

Chronological developments:

  • 1764: invention steam engine by James Watt (iR5)
  • 1789: French revolution against the absolute power of the King Louis XVI, from the Bourbon dynasty (iR3)
    1789/07/14: storming of the Bastille (iR3); note: quatorze juillet (the 14th of July) is still a public holiday.
  • 1790: France became a secular state and the power of the Roman Catholic Church in France became limited (iR3)
  • 1792: first French republic (iR3)
  • 1793/01/23: execution of Louis XVI (R293,p318)
  • 1793/07/13: the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, a Jacobin leader and journalist (iR3)
  • 1793/09/05 – 1894/07/27: reign of terror (iR3;R293, p318)
  • 1799/11/10: Napoleon Bonaparte first consul (iR3)
  • 1802: first steam locomotive built by Trevithick (iR3)
  • 1804/05/18: Napoleon Bonaparte was granted the title emperor; start of the 1st French Empire (iR3)
  • 1804/12/02: Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor (iR3)
  • 1814/04/11: first defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte; abdiction and exile to Elba (iR3)
  • 1814/04/24: Louis XVIII, from the Bourbon dynasty, king of France (iR3)
  • 1814: in the Charter of 1814 some fundamental rights are proclaimed, including the freedom of religion (iR3)
  • 1815/02/26: Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba; start of the hundred days period (iR3)
  • 1815/06/18: battle of Waterloo / definitive defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte (iR3)
  • 1815/07/18: second restoration of the kingship of Louis XVIII (iR3)
  • 1822: the very first permanent photo was made (iR4)
  • 1824/09/16: Charles X, from the Bourbon dynasty, king of France (iR3)
  • 1830/July: July revolution against the Bourbon dynasty (iR3)
    Start of the ‘July’ monarchy by king Louis-Philippe I, from the house of Orléans. It started liberal, but ended reactionary (R59,p129;iR3)
  • mid-1830s: first major railway line from Paris (Gare Saint-Lazare) to Saint-Germain-en-Laye (R17,p138)
  • 1839: Daguerre invents an important photography process (iR3)
  • 1841: the first paint tubes were invented; Renoir once said: ‘Without tubes of paint, there would have been no impressionism’. (iR3)
  • 1843: opening of the Paris – Orléans railway line (R207,p54).
  • 1844ca: opening Paris – Sceaux railway line (R17,p158)
  • 1846/06/14: inauguration of the Gare du Nord, start of the Paris-Lile railway line; it was reconstructed between 1861-65, in 1889, in the 1830s, in the1860s and the 2010s (iR3)
  • 1846: publication of Système des contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la misère by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon representing his anarchist ideas (iR3)
  • 1848: Februar revolution; start of the second Republic; several changes of power (R59,p131;iR1)
    1848/12/02: Louis-Napoleon elected as first president of the French republic (iR3;R59,p131)
  • 1848/02: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist manifesto in London; it was quickly spread throughout Europe (R293,p318;iR3)
  • 1849: opening of the Gare de l’Est as part of the Paris-Strasbourg railway line (iR3)
  • 1849: opening of the Gare de Lyon as part of the Paris-Marseille railway line (iR3)
  • 1851: the railway line Paris – Saint-Germain-en-Laye also stopped at Asnières, Bois-Colombes, Colombes and Argenteuil; before that one could take a steamboat going through Billancourt, Saint-Cloud, Asnières, Clichy, Saint-Denis, epinay, Gennevilliers to Argenteuil; by 1864 this train ran every hour (R17,p146+158)
  • 1851/12/02: Louis-Napoléon became emperor Napoléon III after a coup d’état (iR3;R88;R59,p131)
  • 1852-53: building of the Pont National, the first railway bridge over the Seine; untill 1870 it was called Pont Napoleon III (iR3)
  • 1853-1870: Baron Hausmann (1809-91), prefect of Seine; 1853-59: whole blocks of houses were broken down; 350.000 people had to move; 1859-67: rebuilding Paris with Boulevards, most with the Arc the Triumph as starting point; 1867-70: several projects like building of squares; other changes were the creation of parcs (like the Bois de Bologne), railway stations (Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est), bridges, canals (like Saint-Martin) and a system of underground aquaducts (iR3); the building of prominent buildings as l’Opéra, Les Halles (R32,p8).
  • 1854: Nadar opened an photographic studio; he would portray many (impressionist) artists and other celebrities; his official name was Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820-1910) (iR3)
  • 1856: Rebuilding Pont Saint-Michel in Paris (R88II,p1002)
  • 1857: Completion conquest of Alger (R88II,p1003)
  • 1858: Nadar first took photos from an air balloon (iR3)
  • 1859: Adolphe Laurent Joanne published the Atlas historique et statisque des chemins de fer Français (see PDF; iR19/ia600709;R139)
  • 1859: Darwin published his ‘Origin of spieces‘ (R88II,p1005)
  • 1859-1869: building of the Suèz Canal (R88II,p1005)
  • 1860/01/01: annexation of eleven communes into Paris: Auteuil, Batignolles-Monceau, Montmartre, La Chapelle, Passy, La Villette, Belleville, Charonne, Bercy, Grenelle and Vaugirard (iR3)
  • 1861: The first permanent color photograph was taken (iR3)
  • 1861: the railway line Paris – Le Havre opened (R207,p100)
  • 1861-?: construction of l’Opéra, Paris (R88)
  • 1861-63: construction Gare du Nord, Paris (R88)
  • 1861-65: Karl Marx writes his history of economic doctrines, which was published 1905-10 (R88)
  • 1863: first autocar by Lenoir in Belgium (R88)
  • 1864: Louis Pasteur invented pasteurisation process (R88)
  • 1864: first Workers’ International (R88)
  • 1866: The First International organised by the International Workingmen’s Association was held in Geneva; it included Socialist groups and  anarchist groups; several congresses in several European countries would follow; after 1872 the socialist and anarchist groups organised seperate congresses (iR3)
  • 1867/09/14: Karl Marx published the 1st Volume of ‘Das Kapital‘; the volumes II, III and IV were published after his death in 1883 (R5,p44;iR3)
  • 1868: the first bicycle was made (iR4)
  • 1870: Paris had grown to 1,9 million inhabitants (in 1800: 550.000, in 1850: 1 million) (R3,p130)
  • 1870/07/19: start Franco-Prussian war (R2,p96;iR3)
    1870/09/02: at the battle of Sedan Napoleon III was captured and the army of the 2nd Empire defeated (iR3)
    1870/09/04: Léon Gambetta proclaimed the 3rd French Republic, the goverment of National Defense continued the war (R3,p103)
  • 1871/01/28: the German troups conquered Paris;
    armistice Franco-Prussian war (R2,p96;R3,p103;iR3)
    1871/02/08: the general elections were won by Adolphe Thiers (iR3)
    1871, 03/18: start of the revolting Commune in Paris, trying to establish an independant government
    Many Communards had Socialist, Anarchist and anti-religious opinions (R2,p96;R60,p34;R3,p103;iR3)
    1871/05/16: demolition of the Vendôme column, honoring Napoleon I on the Place Vendôme; this action was initiated by Gustave Courbet (R5,p70;iR3)
    1871/05/28: submission of the Paris Commune to the government (R5,p70;R2,p96;iR3)
    1871/05/10: Peace of Frankfurt; treaty which forces France to pay large sums of compensation (R2,p97;iR3)
  • 1871/08/31 – 1873/03/24: Adolphe Thiers was the 2nd president of France (iR3)
  • 1872: increase of trade; France pays back the debts to Germany (R5,p74)
  • late 1873: start of a (world wide) economic crisis (R3,p111;R1,p310)
  • 1875: l’Opéra was finished; the building was started in 1861; it is also called Palais Garnier  and is located at the place de l’Opéra (iR3)
  • 1876: the Republican party wins the elections (R5,p95)
    1876: quarrels within the First International between marxist and anarchist factions (R5,p95)
    1876: invention of the telephone by Bell (R5,p95)
    1876: the economy of France still didn’t go well (R3,p197)
  • 1878: the French economy glided into a depression (R2,p202)
  • 1879/01/16 partly and 1880/07/11 or 21: full amnesty for Communards↑ (=people who joined the Commune in 1871) (R5,p114+123; R3,p218;iR3)
  • 1879: first electric light bulb by Edison (iR5)
  • 1881/11/12 Proust, a friend of Manet, became minister of fine arts (R5,p124)
  • 1882/02/01: start of a long period of economic stagnation, after the bankruptcy of the Union Générale; the economic depression lowered the prices of paintings (R2,p421; R5,p128)
  • 1885: the first car with an engine motor (iR5)
    1885: The first flexible photographic roll film (iR3)
  • 1889/07/14: The Second International was founded in Paris; it only consisted of Socialist groups and excluded anarchist groups (iR3)
  • 1894/06: assassination on the French president Sadi Carnot (by anarchists) (R56,p69)
  • 1898: France was divided on the matter of the Dreyfus case, a Jewish officer that was falsely sentenced; Zola defended Dreyfus, so did Clemenceau, Monet and Pissarro. Others were anti-Dreyfusards, among them Cézanne, Degas, Forain and Rouart (R93,p20).
  • x

 

Sources:
My main sources are Moffett (1986=R2), Walther (2013=R3), Denvir (1993=R5), Adams (1994=R56), Belloli (1990=R17), Monneret (1978-81=R88II,p997-1064), WikiPedia (iR3;iR4;iR5). For other sources see the general references (=R) see and for the references to internet pages (=iR) see.
Note: if you read more about dates of inventions, mostly several people at about the same time were busy inventing and several different data are given. The same applies to other historical data. I only mention the most common known data to give an overall impression of the backrounds for the impressionist times.

 

Recommanded citation: “Meta-Impressionism: Social and political developments. Last modified 2023/12/27. https://www.impressionism.nl/social-and-political-developments/