ABSTRACT
During the same initial phase of the Second Republic, the Provisional Government took two important decisions which were also designed to give a new republican direction to government policy for the fine arts and to secure public support for it. The first, announced to coincide with the opening of the Salon, was to hold a competition for a figure of the Republic; the second was to commission the decoration of the Pantheon, awarded in mid-April to Paul Chenavard. This chapter follows Gautier's engagement with the three issues: competitions, commissions, and the return of Ingres. It presents a better sense of the originality of his position in the French art field of the mid-nineteenth century and of the tenacity with which he defended it. Gautier's wishful thinking about the election of the three most likely artists of the republican idea led him to muse over an analogy between them and the national colours.
