The Salon, not galleries, controlled which artists could have a career at all

King explains that in mid-nineteenth-century France, the biannual Salon exhibition functioned as the primary gatekeeper for artistic careers, since acceptance determined whether critics, buyers, and the public would ever encounter a painter's work. A jury of established artists decided which paintings entered, giving the existing artistic establishment enormous power to shape taste by simply excluding challengers, a power that Meissonier and his allies wielded comfortably for years. This institutional chokehold explains why rejection from the Salon carried such weight, and why the 1863 Salon des Refusés, an alternative exhibition for rejected works staged with imperial approval, became such a pivotal moment, giving Manet's dismissed paintings a public platform they otherwise would never have had. Takeaway: artistic reputations in this era were built or blocked by institutional access, not simply talent.