Napoleon III

 

By all accounts he preferred pretty girls to pictures, but if he had  to have  pictures too, he liked pictures of pretty girls.  Nor was he adverse to portraits of himsclf or Napoleon I, depictions of imperial victories, nor, for that  matter, to anything anyone else of importance liked;  it wasn't worth  splitting hairs over  questions of taste. Maximc DuCamp's account of Napoleon's visit to the Salon [the annual arti exhibition at which officially recognized works were displayed] of 1853 gives the  flavor  of the  Emperor's taste:

"I was at the Salon  the day  belore  it opened. I had met Morny who was President of the Jury [i.e. the group that decided which paintings and sculptures would be admitted to the Salon] and  we were talking together when someone announced that  the Emperorwas coming.  I started to leave when Morny said 'Stay, come  along with us, you'll hear some good observations.' Napoleon  III, escorted  by several officers, government  officials, and  all the members  of the Jury, was walking quickly  through the galleries without uttering a word, without making an observation, passing before the best works with an indifference he didn't even try to hide. It was obvious that  he was carrying out one of the thousand  tasks that  his role as sovereign demanded of him. He arrived  at the last gallery, crammed with mediocre works which seemed  to have been accepted  only to cover the nudity  of the walls. He stopped  suddenly  before a picture  representing Mont-Blanc.  It was pitiful and gave the impression of a group of sugar  loaves of various sizes. For a long time he stood motionless,  contemplating this daub, then,  turning  tovvards Morny  on his left. he said: 'The painter ought  to have indicated the relative  heights.' After this "good  observation" he resumed  his task and  went on his way."

DuCamp ended  by characterizing the taste of Napoleon  III thus: "Painting, a closed book; music,  a dead  letter:  poetry,  incomprehensible.''3 Apologists for Napoleon  III point  out  that  his background   was military, his youth occupied  with insurrections, exile, and imprisonment, leaving little time for the pursuit  of culture.  Coldly  received by  artists  at  the  1849  Salon  and  lacking  confidence  in  his own taste,  he fell  back (publicly)  on that  of his predecessors  and  (privately) on whatever  was pleasant and undemanding.

Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III)