What Lies Ahead for Later Nineteenth-Century French Art

The recent 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition offers historians of later nineteenth-century French art a timely opportunity to reflect on the state of their field. This session seeks papers that critically re-examine French art of that time and its past, present, or future place in the discipline as a whole. We welcome submissions that expose the limits and/or continued vitality of the study of French art of the period, highlighting new approaches, interpretive models, or areas of focus that offer original perspectives on this material. Studies of specific examples or broader analyses of the relevant historiography and its significance for art historians working in this area today are both encouraged. What blind spots have marked the study of later nineteenth-century French art to date, and what analytical tools or shifts in emphasis can reveal and remedy that which has been overlooked, excluded, or undervalued by art history thus far?