Final answer:
The Salon was an influential art exhibition in France, critical for an artist's success in the early 1700s, and was held in the Louvre. However, facing rejection by its jury, the Impressionists created their exhibitions, bypassing the Salon's conservative tastes. The Salon's significance and its impact on artists like the Impressionists demonstrate its role as the preeminent arbiter of art during that era.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Salon was an official art exhibition in France, juried by members of the official French Academy. During the period of its significance, the Salon acted as the most important annual or biannual art event in the Western world. To be successful and recognized as an artist in the early 1700s, having one's work accepted into the Salon was critical. By 1725, the exhibition was housed in the prestigious Louvre, and acceptance into the Salon was governed by traditional standards of art as determined by a jury which often made arbitrary decisions.
A testament to the Salon's influence is the group of artists known as the Impressionists. They established their own independent exhibitions after experiencing consistent rejection by the Salon jury, leading them to form the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Printmakers. Through their ingenuity and collaborative efforts, they held eight exhibitions from 1874 to 1886, pioneering a new path for artists outside the official channels of French art establishments.
Marie-Denise Villers, Édouard Manet, and others experienced the pressure and opportunities of the Salon system firsthand, with successes and risks that illustrated the cultural dominance of the Salon in the French art world of the time.