Why did Paris keep producing art movements for two hundred years?
Art in France is an industry before it is a passion, and the industry is why Paris kept producing movements while other cities produced individual geniuses. The salon decided what was seen; the dealer decided what was bought; the café and the critic decided what was argued about. This pillar reads the art as a supply chain — who painted, who sold, who wrote, who collected — because a movement is not a style, it is a style plus the machinery that moves it. The later entries follow single objects and single careers to show the chain working.
In this pillar
The salon as a gatekeeper
For two centuries the Salon decided what France saw as art; the Impressionists' first show existed because they were rejected.
The Impressionists and the tube of paint
Paint in tubes and the railway to the suburbs let painters work outdoors; the style is a logistics product.
The café as a studio
Montmartre and Montparnasse cafés were cheap heated rooms where the movement was argued into existence.
The tapisserie as a state art
The Gobelins manufactory made weaving a branch of government; a tapestry was diplomacy you could hang on a wall.