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such an elaborately staged protest composition as Goya's "Third of May, 1808". Manet made a
close study of newspaper accounts and photographs of the execution, and even of portrait
photographs of the slain emperor, but instead of arranging the figures for maximum emotional
effect he has taken a snapshot of the scene. It is impossible to make out the expressions of the
doomed men. Only the officer preparing his rifle for the coup de grace receives special attention.
The onlookers peering over the wall are merely curious. The picture consists of coloured uniforms,
a briskly painted background, and puffs of smoke. Another traditional subject, this time a tragic
one, has been modernised in terms of immediate vision.
In the early 1870s Manet gave up his flat style and adopted the brilliant palette and the broken
brushwork of the Impressionists. Some of his later pictures are indistinguishable from theirs. The
most memorable of these, A Bar at the Folie-Bergere, painted in 1881-82, only two years before
the artist's premature death, is a brilliant restatement of Manet's earlier interest in the human figure.
The entire foreground is constituted by the marble bar, laden with fruit, flowers and bottles of
champagne and liqueurs. The nearer edge of the bar is cut off by the frame and we have the illusion
that its surface extends into our space and that we as spectators are ordering a drink from the solid
barmaid who leans her hands on the inner edge. This illusion is reinforced by the reflection in the
mirror, which fills the entire background of the picture. We can make out clearly a back view of the
barmaid, in conversation with a top-hatted gentleman. Manet certainly remembered Velazquez's
Las Meninas, in whose background mirror appear the king and the queen. Manet's extension of the
mirror beyond the frame at the top and sides substitutes for the expected space within the picture the
reflected interior of the cabaret, which is behind the spectator and, therefore, outside the picture.
This is the most complex image in the history of art. In his early works Manet had modernised the
subject. In this picture Manet eliminated the Renaissance pictorial space (a vertical section through
the pyramid of sight). Manet's masterpiece is painted with a brushwork that combines memories of
Velazquez's virtuosity with the most briliant achievements of the Impressionists. The imposing
dignity of the figure and the straight lines of the bar and the crowded balcony make this work his
most monumental accomplishment.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Edouard Manet [
]; Velazquez [
]; Parisian [
];
Austria [
]; Folie-Bergere [
] flagrant [
]; Raphael
[
]; erasure [
]; Napoleon [
]; Mexico [
]; Maximilian
[
]; luminosity [
]; insoluble [
]
NOTES
Luncheon on the Grass - "Завтрак на траве"
A Bar at the Folie-Bergere - "Бар "Фоли - Бержер"
Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico
- "Казнь императора Мексики
Максимилиана"
Salon des Refuses - "Салон отверженных"
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Manet was the founder of Impressionism.
2. Manet admired Giotto, Ingres and Delacroix.
3. In the Luncheon on the Grass Manet was striving to produce three-dimensional forms on a
flat surface.
4. Courbet liked the Luncheon on the Grass. 4. Manet never painted subjects from
contemporary history. 6. A Bar at the Folie-Bergere is a brilliant restatement of Manet's earlier
interest in the human figure.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. Where did Manet study painting?
2. What did Manet exhibit in 1863? How was this painting accepted by the public?