Berthe Morisot -The Wet Nurse

Berthe Morisot, The Wet Nurse and Julie, 1880
(Private Collection)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Mother Nursing Her Child, 1886
(Private Collection)

Art history is full of female mavericks that not only overcame their gendered roles by actually producing works that went down in history but also made bold statements quite contrary to the popular culture and beliefs of the society they were living in.  I was watching the latest rendition of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre for the big screen last night where I was reminded once again of how incredibly modern and wonderfully askew a story it was.  It is so refreshing to be witness to a strong female character who not only overcomes her "Tale of Woe" but also comes back at the end to rescue the love of her life, Mr. Rochester who is now debilitated.  She has become rich while he has become blind...Jane Eyre is the veritable knight  in shining armor or the prince on the white horse charging to rescue the damsel in distress...

Gauguin and Cezanne revisit Manet's Olympia

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538
(Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy)

Artists often revisited themes that had already been painted by artists of previous generations, paying homage to them or reworking them in their own style.  Paul Gauguin's Manao Tupapau (The Spirit of the Dead Watching) from 1892 and Paul Cezanne's A Modern Olympia from 1873-1874 are both referencing Edouard Manet's Olympia from 1863.  The subject of the painting, that of a female reclining on a bed, in front of some kind of a curtain in the presence of a black maid/spirit can actually be attributed to Titian's very famous Venus of Urbino.  Here is the Venus that inspired Manet to paint his Olympia, directly gazing at the viewer, completely naked with two maids in the background rummaging thorough a chest and a dog sleeping on the bed, at her feet.  Although named after a goddess, the painting not only does not display any mythological attributes, it is actually defiantly erotic.

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863
(Musee d'Orsay)

Edouard Manet, took Titian's Venus and portrayed her as a prostitute lounging on her bed, being attended to by a black maid.  The white pillows, the screen in the back dividing and placing her in the front of the picture plane, the placement of the hand on her genitals and the direct confrontational gaze, stayed the same.  The dog was replaced with a cat, the two servants with one black maid, the flowers in her hand by a huge bouquet being presented by the maid. His contemporary viewers would understand the connotations immediately since Olympia was a name associated with courtesans in second empire France.  What was even worse was the fact that she was a woman of their time, not some timeless, mythological or historical figure.  She had the accessories of a 19th century woman, the slipper, the ribbon around her neck plus the shawl she was sitting on. Manet's painting technique of flattenening the figures with the omission of transitional tones made her even more prominent that the viewer could not escape her. The viewer in this case being the white male gaze, her client. The critics absolutely hated it and said she looked dirty, ugly, deathly pale, and they talked of violence done to the body.  Although it was accepted into the official Salon, it had to be moved on the second day of the exhibit, to a position high above a doorway, so no one would notice it.  But none of these reviews stopped this painting from becoming one of the most famous icons of  the paintings of modernity.  

Paul Gauguin, Manao Tupapau (The Spirit of the Dead Watching), 1892
(Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York)

The representation of the female nude had always been one of the most used themes in Western art throughout history. What had been acceptable and admirable until mid 19th century suddenly became confrontational and hard to handle.  Paul Gauguin treated the representation of the traditional female nude in a different perspective by putting her on her stomach instead of lying on her back in Manao Tupapau. According to Peter Brooks in his essay "Gauguin's Tahitian Body" Gauguin's female is open to the male gaze as well but not with the sense of self-display that is in Manet's Olympia who is available for a price.  In Manao Tupapau,  Tehamanna's nakedness is in an unself-conscious way without the connotations of venality. She is offered to the viewer's gaze in a way that, is a state that is the natural way of existing for this woman, without overtones of sin or commerce. Here the cultural connotations perceived by the western colonizing male of the offering of the female body as a gift also comes into the equation.1 

There is a story that goes with this painting that Gauguin explained in great detail on several occasions in his letters, notebooks and in Noa Noa - Gauguin came back late one night to find Tehamana lying in the dark, terrified of the evil spirits of the night. The figure in the back is supposed to be Tupapau, the evil spirit of Maori superstition.  Even though Gauguin went into great detail about explaining this work, all his various explanations only add to the ambiguity of the painting. If this was supposed to be an interpretation of Manet's Olympia - it was actually referred to as "brown Olympia" -the black maid with the flowers has been replaced with the Spirit but instead of sitting and confronting the viewer, this female is lying on her stomach in a stiff pose, looking in our direction without any comprehension in her eyes.  Tehamana's odd pose of lying in the very front of the picture plane, almost as if she is about to fall, shifts the viewer's dominant position and instead of confrontation, he is faced with a plea for help.  This submissive position can also be read as the documentation of her rape since Gauguin associated sex with violence.  

Paul Cezanne, A Modern Olympia, 1873-1874
(Musee d'Orsay)

While Manet was interested in Olympia as a distinctive individual, Cezanne was more interested in the drama that was taking place between the man and the maid and the woman whose face is impossible to see clearly, in  A Modern Olympia. As in Manet's Olympia there is a black maid behind the woman on display but she is in midmovement, she is either revealing or covering the female on the bed.  In Manet the viewer is put in the position of the client while in Cezanne the viewer is viewing the client causing some art historians to think this may actually be a biographical work where Cezanne is putting himself in front of Olympia.  Cezanne has also shifted Olympia's position from the front and center instead to middle-ground causing her to appear less aggressive. The cat from Manet's Olympia has resurfaced again as a dog this time. 

Fragonard, The Swing, 1767-1768
(Wallace Collection, London)

The females in both Manet and Gauguin's paintings were of their own time and experience; Manet's model was Victorine Meurent, his long time model, muse and companion and Gauguin's model was his 13 year old mistress Tehamana. In Cezanne's painting not only is the woman's face indistinct but there are no fashionable accessories relevant to the time period she existed in.  Cezanne seems to be putting this scene in a rococo time frame since the table and the vase actually recall the decorative style of late 18th century. He might have been thinking of Fragonard in whose paintings there is an element of sexuality and playfulness as well as voyeurism.  In the Cezanne, the playfulness is gone but sexuality and the voyeuristic aspects are emphasized.  It has been noted that there is also a sense of being afraid and rape in this painting which would be another element A Modern Olympia had in common with Gauguin's Manao Tupapau.


Men have been representing the female body for centuries under the guise of classical, historical or mythological themes.  Females have been subjugated to the male gaze as sexual objects probably from the beginning of time.  Here we can rejoice in the fact that at least these three artists have opened this issue to discussion.  No matter what their original motives were, today, we can interpret them as a critique of the male gaze and the representation of the female nude in the Western culture. This critical look and discussion I feel actually empowers women.

1  Peter Brooks, "Gauguin's Tahitian Body" 340

Manet - Portrait of Emile Zola

Edouard Manet, Portrait of Emile Zola,1868
(Musee d'Orsay)

Emile Zola was an influential author of the naturalism literary school.  He was very interested in the changes taking place in society due to industrialization and the second empire in France.  A great supporter of Manet's, Zola actually published a pamphlet 'A New Manner in Painting: Edouard Manet' emphasizing the 'truth' of his art  which, Zola insisted, aside from the formal and technical qualities, was the truth of "the contemporary girl we meet everyday on the pavements."1.

The Portrait of Emile Zola is a realistically rendered portrait by Manet.  In this painting, the author is shown sitting at his desk with the symbols of his trade, ink and pen, reading what is probably History of Paintings which attests to his interest in art. There is a blue manuscript next to his books, on his desk, behind the quill, which probably represents the pamphlet he wrote about Manet. There are three prints hanging behind his desk on the right corner that identify his preferences in art - there is a Japanese print, a print of Manet's Olympia partly covering a print of Velazquez' The Feast of Bacchus.   Manet has visualized  his admiration for Zola by painting Olympia as looking at Zola, admiring him. 

There was an intense interest in Japanese Art at this time and both Manet and Zola admired Japanese prints greatly. In 1850, after 200 years of seclusion Japan opened it's doors and the Westerners that became exposed to their culture were fascinated. The furor that followed was called  Japonisme.  The Japanese screen on the left side behind Zola, also references his interest. 

Contemporary artists were  influenced by the subject matter, composition and style of Japanese prints.  They depicted everyday scenes, using juxtaposition of patterns, great  attention to detail and solid colors laid down next to each other separated by an outline without any transitions. Zola said that Manet should be compared to the Japanese woodcut prints in his use of similar techniques.

In this friendship portrait, Manet portrays a realistic depiction of Emile Zola giving us the inner essence of the writer with his interests and qualities painted in his own unique style. Zola's words sums up Manet's ascend into the art world perfectly "A young painter has obeyed, in a very straightforward manner, his own inclinations concerning vision and understanding; he has begun to paint in a way which is contrary to the sacred rules taught in schools Thus, he has produced original works..."2

1.  Emile Zola, 'Edouard Manet', p.554

2.  Emile Zola, 'Edouard Manet', p.555

Edouard Manet - Argenteuil, Les Canotiers

Edouard Manet,Argenteuil, les Canotiers, 1874
(Musee des Beaux-Arts Tournai, Belguim)

 

Industrialization brought with it new concepts of leisure time and day-trips to the country. Due to the railroads, little villages by the Seine were now just a train ride away.  The artists of the time, of course, took this opportunity to broaden their scope and picture this aspect of modernity as well.  Monet, Renoir and Pissaro were painting in the area of Argenteuil, a little town northwest of Paris that could be reached very easily by train.  Manet also went out to Argenteuil in the 1870's and did some paintings that, today, we read as a social commentary of the effects of industrialization on Parisian society.

The influence of the Impressionists can be seen in the lightening of Manet's palette from black and grays to blues and whites.  One fundamental difference between Manet and the other Impressionists was that he was still painting his works indoors and the models we see in the pictures would actually pose for him in his studio causing his figures to be frozen in time.

When we look at this painting of a couple sitting in front of boats by the water, at first sight it looks like a typical middle class courting couple, out for a day of leisure on the beautiful, blue waters of the Seine. Upon closer inspection, we can pick out a lot of clues to counter this first assumption.  First of all, there is a sense of disconnect between the couple.  While the man has his arm behind the woman and is turned towards her in a gesture of trying to creep into her space, she seems to be distant in her own world, staring out towards us.  Manet has the man holding her parasol while she is holding a bouquet he might have given her but even that does not dispel the detachment of the figures to one another. He seems to be visually enforcing the disconnect between the couple by their body language as well as the stripes of their clothing.

The emergence of the lower middle class seems to be one of the main circumstances of modernist art.1 In Argenteuil Manet is visualizing this phenomenon.  Fashion can be a very revealing sign about someone's social status; we can tell the woman in this painting is probably from the lower middle class since the colors and stripes of her dress, as well as her buttons, would have been considered garish and not refined at all.  The man's class is not as obvious as the woman's since he is in a boating outfit but he was most likely middle class as well.

There was also a lot of commentary about the petite bourgeois going out to the environs of Paris for a Sunday to enjoy the country while 'the country' was being polluted by industrialization.  Manet was fascinated by industry as well as the relationship between men and women.  The signs of industrialization are very apparent in his landscape paintings.  There is evidence of factories in the background where a smoke stack can be seen next to a church.  Also the deep blue of the water is suppose to be due to the refuse of india ink from the factories. He shows us the juxtaposition between the signs of industry and the leisure activities of the middle class.

Manet's flat surfaces reappear in Argenteuil as well.  The light and dark tones he uses without any middle values can be easily seen in the man's arm and pants.  He seems to have left some areas ambiguous, merging them without giving any specific detail as in the rope hanging in the side of the boat.

Here, Manet gives us a small portion of life, a slice of his vision.  He has captured the changes taking place and the results of those changes.  He has given us a sense of what Argenteuil was like in the 1874 with what all its incongruity, in boating near side of industry, the current fashions of the lower-middle classes and the  mobility and search for leisure of the petite bourgeois.


1  T.J. Clark, the Painting of Modern Life - Paris in the Art of Manet and his followers, (Princeton University Press, 1999)

Every Painter Paints Himself | Manet’s Le Déjeuner and Mlle. V. Simply Explained

Edouard Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (Le Bain)
(Musee d'Orsay)

I found the the following link from one of my favorite blogs www.everypainterpaintshimself.  This is a fascinating look into the discrepancies surrounding some of Manet's work. While talking about Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, and Mlle. V. in the Costume of an Espada the placement of the figures in the foreground of the picture plane and the emphasis on the flatness of the background as well as some areas of the painting being sketchy while other areas are smoothly finished are often mentioned but before I read this essay I just couldn't grasp how or why he chose to portray it this way. Everything becomes a lot clearer after reading Simon Abrahams' theory.

Every Painter Paints Himself | Manet’s Le Déjeuner and Mlle. V. Simply Explained

Edouard Manet, Mademoiselle V.... in the Costume of an Espada, 1862
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

 I have a little footnote I wanted to add to all this information.  According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website Manet exhibited these two paintings along with Young Man in the Costume of a Majo as a triptych at the Salon des Refuses in 1863.

                                                                               

Edouard Manet - Music at the Tuileries

Edouard Manet, Music at the Tuileries, 1862

Edouard Manet, the artist who is considered the link between Realism and Impressionism, painted this lively outdoor scene, set in Tuileries Garden, of wealthy Parisians at their leisure.  Men in dark jackets and light pants with top hats and women in fancy dresses and hats attests to the social status of the group.  We can almost hear the music and the conversation.  Coming from an upper-class family himself, Manet would be present at such events and this was probably his own experience.

Leisure time and recreational activities like listening to music on a Sunday were all parts of modernity.  Manet actually painted himself into this painting in the position of the flaneur, observing the crowd from the left front corner. Manet came from a wealthy family and he was engaged with and knew his way around society, in this respect, he fit Baudelaire's description of a flaneur perfectly. Like Courbet did in  After Dinner at Ornans, he also incorporated his friends into the picture, Baudelair, Theophile Gautier and Baron Taylor as well as his brother Eugene Manet.  

As much as looking for new expressions of art, Manet still wanted to be traditional. He was balancing to see how much he could breakdown tradition and get away with it.  He still wanted to go through traditional channels for exhibiting his work and never wanted to exhibit with the Impressionists.  A lot of people think of him as the'father of modernism.'  The technique he used in this painting creates a really odd flatness.  He  removed the in-between, transitional tones and  butted one color next to the other.  Especially in the umbrella in the front, he used light and dark gray side by side just with a black outline.  

 In his own way he is borrowing from and paying homage to Gustave Courbet in this work. The collective distraction that is present in this painting is very similar to Courbet's Burial at Ornans. The little girls' elaborate dresses and the way they are playing in the ground recall the altar boys' standing on the left side of the Ornans painting.  In Courbet's painting there is a sea of black which is for mourning, here the context changes to become men going out on a city day.  The shock of red in the Beadles costumes in the middle of Courbet's painting is played off with the yellow and blue dresses of the women in the front.  In both paintings, the main elements for each event is hidden, we don't see the body of the deceased for the funeral nor see the music for listening.  The dog in Courbet is replaced by an umbrella in Manet and Manet's brother is in the position of the Veteran of 1783 in Courbet.

Manet's crowd is bigger than Courbet's and there is no sign of religion, it is a scene of leisure.  The people are already gathered in Music at the Tuileries unlike the moment before the burial at Courbet's painting. There is also a difference in their palettes, Manet uses a light palette to suit the occasion and the sunny day is reflected in his tones of yellow, blue and white. While in A Burial at Ornans there is a huge sky up above, Music at Tuileries is packed full of trees.

Manet liked to borrow from the past in his art while stylistically using modern techniques. In this painting he is acknowledging Courbet while leading the way for the young Impressionists with his sketchy brush-strokes, and light color palette.  Overall, it gives us a great picture of the recreation of upper-class society in 1862 Paris.

Modernity - Haussmannization of Paris and "the Painters of Modern Life"

Edouard Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Napoleon  III, believed in the industrialization of France and commissioned Baron Haussmann between 1850 -1870 , to rebuild Paris.  Haussman instigated a very ambitious program of city planning that destroyed the medieval fabric of the city and replaced it with large boulevards, new bridges, an opera house, and avenues giving new perspectives to monuments. Industrialization in the form of railroads and gas lamps were conveniences that aided  the newly forming bourgeoisie to enjoy their leisurely pursuits. Although he had many  passionate critics, the new spaces created by Hausmannization were where the spectacle of Paris was put on display.  These spaces were also where the different classes of society could be seen to 'coexist but not  connect' together.  People complained of  different spheres of society and different quarters that defined Paris overlapping and blurring the lines of traditional conventions. As T. J. Clark points out all these different territories seem to be places laid on for display but also ambiguity, where people are hard to make out, their gestures and expressions unconvincing, their purpose obscure The essential myth of modern life is the marginal, it is ambiguity, it is mixture of classes and classifications, it is anomie and improvisation, it is the reign of generalized illusion .1  All of these characteristics seem to be the elements that can be found in the paintings of Manet and Impressionist artists whom he mentored and influenced.

Charles Baudelair, in his essay of 1863 'The Painter of Modern Life' published in Le Figaro described modernity as 'the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent'.  The main protagonist in modernity was the Flaneur, whom Baudelair described as  "a gentleman stroller of city streets and a detached, well-informed observer with exquisite manners and impeccable dress who wandered around town and observed the goings on.' In this sense all the impressionists were flaneurs and Manet's work is described as the 'realism of the flaneur.'


1.  T.J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life - Paris in the Art of Manet and his followers, (Princeton University Press 1999) 48

Edouard Manet, Un Bar aux Folies-Bergere, 1882

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863