Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the shifting identities of the artists as individuals and as a group in conjunction with relevant artworks. It establishes the context of the formative years of Fantin and Legros in Paris during the early Second Empire. The book examines the most legendary artistic event of the Second Empire, the Salon des Refuses of 1863, which was the first state-sponsored occasion for the members of the Societe to put their ideas into practice and demonstrate their unity. It outlines some of the reasons that the Societe des trois lost its stability during the second half of the 1860s. The artistic climate in which the Societe came together was bristling with new ideas and coincided with the emergence of the artistic avant-garde, the birth of Modern art.