Franco Prussian War
- The Four year fall of the Second Empire followed the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the uprising of the Commune which left the nation weakened and eager to heal. The art audiences had lost patience for controversy and provocation.
- Impressionists did not want to starve or to suffer for their art. They wanted financial success and security, something that could not be found by throwing themselves at the Salon juries so they formed an economic organization, designed to sell art directly to avant-garde collectors.
- On the other side Courbet and Manet, who were transitional artists, committed to the Salon system, both the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists were true independents, true avant-garde painters, making and showing art completely outside the Salons.