‘Un oubli généreux du passé’: Art, Politics and Oblivion, and the Salon of 1814

Abstract The collapse of Napoleon’s Empire and the restoration of Louis XVIII left a legacy so embittered that hopes of political reconciliation were thought impossible. To this end, the new constitution required that the atrocities of the past were simply ‘forgotten’. Artists responded to the call in a wide variety of ways: pictures of the nation’s ancient past, depictions of a sacral monarchy and images of domesticity had a renewed appeal and offered a narrative refuge from the traumatic memories of the Republic and Empire. But art’s relationship with criticism and politics was by no means stable. This essay examines the myriad ways in which the policy of ‘l’oubli’ shaped the production and interpretation of the pictures shown at the Salon of 1814, and the entangled, fragmented and contingent ties between art, politics, history and criticism at a moment of seismic political change.