The writer discusses the purposes of art
exhibition in Europe from about 1700 through 1880. Such
exhibitions made it possible
for artists to find a new public, a more democratic public than had been possible in an earlier era when art was subsidized by wealthy patrons. The history of the
exhibitions shows two rends by the end of the era. On the one hand, there was the trend of academic art. Then, there were the non-academic exhibitions, the most famous of which was that of the Impressionists, and here artists who do not fit the academic mold were able to break through and find an audience by using the techniques of the academic
Exhibition and so appealing to a public that was accustomed to this sort of show.