The most heavily official and fashionable of all art showsthe spring Salonopened last week in Paris' Right Bank Palais de New York. Ten thousand people, led by the President of France, Vincent Auriol, jammed through the halls on opening day. Some of them found their neighbors' gowns more attractive than the pictures. The acres of art on exhibition (2,000 paintings, 200 pieces of sculpture) were almost uniformly slick, deft and academic.
One painting received more attention than all the others put together. It was a frothy bit by pink-cheeked, prosperous Jean-Gabriel Domergue. France's...