Month: June 2021

Manet Painting Christ (P14)

On June 25, 2021

Manet was a republican and not particularly religious. As a realist, he rejected the Romantic, mystic, and religious themes of the past and preferred subjects of contemporary life.
Still, he painted two major works portraying Jesus Christ.
Why?

Art historians are somewhat puzzled by this fact. One usual explanation is that Manet wanted to preserve art traditions, although in a distinctly modern way (Rubin 2010, p.99). Another explanation points out that Manet at this stage was still searching for his own style and theme, and tried all traditions including religious themes

Figure 1: Manet painting Christ

At the time, an influential book by Ernest Renan (La Vie de Jesus 1863) described the life of Christ realistically from a scientific, historian perspective. It is generally assumed that Manet wanted to demonstrate that he could transpose not only the nude (Luncheon on the Grass) but also depictions of Christ into modern times.

Typically, art historians do not like the two paintings of Christ, Dead Christ with Angels (1864) and Christ Mocked by the Soldiers (1865). This holds for critics at the time as well as more recent evaluations.
Some find them horrible (Wollheim), see them as his most eclectic works (Hamilton), and books about Manet usually pay little attention to them – if at all.
Rubin offers an illuminating view on Dead Christ (we return to it later), but, curiously, fails to discuss Christ Mocked although showing the picture.
The paintings are considered “history paintings” (Krell; Hanson), and it is quickly added that Manet painted no more works of that genre afterwards.

The most favourable remarks tend to point out that Manet counterbalanced his more contemporary themes with a religious work to appease the jury of the Salon exhibition. He submitted Incident in the Bull Ring (later cut-up by Manet) with Dead Christ with Angels in 1864 and Olympia with Christ Mocked by the Soldiers in 1865.
The strategy did not work – the critics liked the Christs even less.
I must admit that they escaped my attention, too – until MyManet.

Again, why did Manet paint them, and in the way he did?

Part of the explanation is given by the motivations above.
Hanson (1977) has taken a more favourable view on the two paintings:
“Manet has attempted to make a universal image for all time, any time, all people and all places which has to do with human feelings on a level shared by saints and heroes with most ordinary men (p. 110).”

Especially for Christ Mocked, I see also another motivation, namely, to experiment with his newly developed scheme!
Although, both paintings are not obvious applications of the scheme.
In view of My Manet, they are experiments with the scheme, and Luncheon on the Grass is, in turn, one of its possible variations.
This needs some explanation.

The formal scheme allows not only for adaptations according to the theme at hand.
It can also be used to systematically generate new compositions.

The “Trick” is to change the positions of the main actors on the “stage” and “fill in” the social space created with some suitable scene and corresponding roles.
For instance, each of the three members of the triad could occupy the central position, while the others take up supporting roles. And the variation may include the position and role of “the Other” and “absorbed” figures. Obviously, Manet is not rigidly applying a scheme. But My Manet assumes that the scheme is influencing the way he envisions and composes chosen themes.

Especially intriguing is the option to place the First – looking at the viewer – in the background and moving the Third – looking at the “authority” – to the front.
Other options are available, but when you are set to paint a Christ, what is more convincing than placing Christ (as Third) front and centre turning his gaze up to his Father (the “authority”)?

This happens in Christ Mocked, therefore, we will look at this painting first, although Manet painted Dead Christ with Angels a year earlier.

Hanson points out that Christ Mocked has a number of sources, the most often cited is by Titian The Crowning with Thorns (1543) in the Louvre museum. Her discussion prompted me to search myself a little bit, and I found a painting by Léon Benouville The Mockery of Christ (1845). The painting won the Grand Prix d’Rome and is exhibited in the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Although I cannot confirm it, it seems that Manet should have known it. The painting won an award and it represents exactly the tradition of the Academy which he opposed.

Figure 2: Two sources of Christ Mocked by Soldiers
Interestingly, the two paintings suggest that Benouville was also inspired by Titian. The figures moving in on Christ from left and right, the elevation of the stairs, and the composition of the background appear to be quite similar. The gaze of Christ, however, varies:
Benouville chooses the gaze at the viewer,
Titian diverts the gaze to the side, and
Manet lets Christ gaze upward and beyond the scene.

We know that Manet liked to “copy” other sources, we saw this practice already in Luncheon on the Grass.
If Manet used these paintings as a reference, then, we also should assume that he deliberately decided to direct the gazes in his version of the scene – as he did in the case of Luncheon. In fact, Manet painted a head of Christ in the same year with the gaze turned down – experimenting with a fourth, “absorbed” option!

Titian shows us a scene which is characterized by the violent dynamics of the crowning with thorns.
The viewer is expected to be moved in empathy with the pain of Christ, but the viewer is not directly engaged.
Therefore, we focus on the comparison of Manet and Benouville.

Figure 3: Application of Manet’s scheme to
Christ Mocked by Soldiers and Benouville The Mockery of Christ

In Figure 3, the two paintings are displayed with some additions:

– For Manet’s version, I have added a diagram with a variation of his scheme.
– For Benouville, I took the liberty to mirror the painting, to shade off some of the soldiers, and to copy Christ’s head from Manet into the painting.
I think the correspondence between the paintings is striking.

Perhaps the most surprising detail is the face of the soldier facing the viewer. It seems that Manet has portrayed the same soldier with the same beard, just in a different mood.
The soldier kneeling before Christ could also be the same person (– at least, they could be visiting the same barbershop).
The third soldier turns his head in the same way toward Christ, only in Manet’s version he borrowed the helmet from the (shaded) soldier sitting on the stairs.
The correspondences with Benouville’s version support the view that Manet is creatively applying the composition of Luncheon on the Grass!

But let us have a closer look at the diagram analysing Manet’s Christ Mocked.

In view of My Manet, Manet has applied his principles to the painting of Benouville (and Titian):

The scene is transposed into the presence – at least, the costumes of the soldiers avoid clear reference to the past and could be selected from any theatre fundus at the time.
Critics have pointed out that the whole setting reminds of a stage rather than a biblical scene of the past.

The number of persons is reduced to the essential figures in the scheme, with the exception of the kneeling soldier to the left.
Manet wanted this additional figure, probably, for the same reason as Benouville, namely, to lead the viewer’s gaze to the face of Christ. Since Benouville’s Christ is staring out toward the viewer, one may question the need for this onlooking figure in his case.
In Manet’s version, we are reminded of the onlooking figure in Velazquez’ The Drinkers (Post 4) – and Manet can always be expected to make some reference to the Master.

The triad – First, Second, and Third – is placed in a very narrow or “flat” pictorial space, as in Luncheon on the Grass. The engaging First is now positioned to the back, as is the Second looking from the left.

The interaction is, again, somehow arrested emphasizing the structure of the relations and leaving the question open how the interaction will resume.
The effect is that the viewers attention is drawn to the vulnerability of Christ, and not to the ongoing aggression and mockery by the soldiers.

A variation of the scheme is apparent in the position and role of the “Other”.
It is interesting that Benouville does, in fact, include onlookers from the back (green ellipse). Even in Titian we might see this role taken by the sculptured head in the background.
Manet, apparently, decided that shutting off the background with a black “coulisse” will add more to the expression of vulnerability, placing Christ in the spotlight on a dark stage, as it were.
We may also assume that the dominance of the unrepresented “Big Other”, God Father, induced Manet to leave out the “Other” and have the black screen suggest the “Other” behind the scene.
Additionally, the First looking from the back would compete with the “Other”. So, Manet rather chose to accentuate the gaze of the First by creating a diagonal toward him. The gaze of the kneeling soldier is directed to Christ but also beyond to the First. The kneeling soldier doubles, in a way, as onlooker and the “Other” looking from a different perspective on the scene.

Remarkable is, moreover, the foreground.
Typically, Manet inserts a little “still life” (indicated in the diagram by our lemon icon). The rope and the arrow on the right side are balancing the foot of the kneeling soldier, both reaching out into the viewer’s space.
In the middle, we are confronted with those over sized feet which create the impression of a close-up attracting and repelling the viewer at the same time, shortening the distance to this vulnerable body.
I wonder if Manet is having some insider fun with these feet. Titian shows Christ with powerful legs fighting the crowning, while Benouville has Christ’s feet feebly peeking out underneath the robe – and then adds the soldier’s feet occupying the immediate foreground (Figure 3).
It must have been tempting to make a caricature of those extremities.

Seeing Christ Mocked by the Soldiers in the perspective of MyManet demonstrates that Manet is developing his formal scheme further. This is the multi-figure painting following Luncheon on the Grass only a year or two later.
It is the last time that Manet choses a religious theme, and it is also ending the early period strongly under the influence of the Old Masters.
But it is not the last painting experimenting with the scheme.
The next multi-figure painting, again experimenting with the scheme, will follow three years later with The Breakfast in the Atelier (1868) (often titled The Luncheon, but I want to avoid confusions with Luncheon on the Grass).
Now the painting will be unequivocally a transcription of modern life, although Hamilton still has the “curious feeling of figures arbitrarily arranged in modern settings rather than seen suddenly and as suddenly set down on the canvas“ (1969, p.130). This stage, he sees already accomplished by Claude Monet and Pierre-August Renoir.
But Manet has his own agenda, not totally compatible with impressionism.

However,
before we follow Manet to his next experiment, I would like to discuss the other painting of Christ – Dead Christ with Angels. In this case, we will discover the influence of the scheme but not a straightforward application.

And, Yes, I still owe you a post on Olympia (1965), the other great scandal of Manet’s breakthrough.
But a step at a time, first the Dead Christ and then the living prostitute Olympia.

See You next week!

My Manet – looking back and looking forward (13)

By Richard Pieper

On June 18, 2021

In Edouard Manet

Looking back on the first twelve Posts, we notice that I still have not answered my initial question about Why? – about why Luncheon on the Grass has fascinated me about 60 years ago.

Looking forward, I should describe what is next and how I want to go from here.

Let us look at the initial question first, even if a final answer – if there is such a thing – will not be possible. I keep learning about my engagement with Manet.

As mentioned in About, there are some likely factors that could have raised my interests, which did not play an important role in my case.
When I started my hobby, painting in the family kitchen in Cologne, Germany, in the early 1960ies, I was not really interested in art history and knew little to nothing about Edouard Manet.
Even his paintings – speaking to me themselves – made not a great impression.

Perhaps with the exception of Victorine Meurent – the model – looking at me!

Figure 1:
Victorine looking at me – an ink sketch 1982 and digital sketch 2021

It is telling that twenty years later, when I had another “fit” for painting, I started with ink sketches of the figures in Luncheon and other portraits by Manet – and still do …

Actually, I favoured other painters – like Cezanne, Braque, Matisse, or Vlaminck – basically, the next generation of painters agreed to be the founders of modern art.
Besides, my preferences changed over time and included abstract and – later – contemporary painting.
So, the aesthetics of Manet’s paintings, in a narrower sense, were not an important aspect.

Seeing him as a rebel or revolutionary in the development of modern art, was not an attraction either.
My own political interests started later with the “68-movement”, as a student in Hamburg.
I just wanted to paint in my spare time.

So, the attraction must have originated from the form and content of the painting, from the way Manet presented the figures. (And the attraction had little if anything to do with the fact that Victorine was naked. That was a cause for a scandal in Paris a hundred years earlier, but not in Germany after the “sexual revolution” of the 1950ies.)

Two factors might have caught my attention, Manet’s “theatricality” (to use Micheal Fried’s term) and the puzzling social relations in the painting which are disturbing viewers and interpreters to this day.

The theatre played a great role in my life at the time.
My mother was a trained actor, although she was – as a wife and mother of two children – only exercising her profession in a lay theatre. The theatre was, however, of the scope and quality of a large city institution (subsidized heavily by local industry). And I spent much of my time not only in the audience, but also backstage watching rehearsals, assisting in painting coulisses, and operating the illumination during performances.

Many times, I would find myself in a position illustrated in Manet’s Lola de Valence:
Being backstage and looking down at the actress waiting to go on stage, while sitting about 2 meters above her to the right operating the spotlights.

Figure 2: Manet Lola de Valence (1862)

Seeing a theatre scene unfolding in Luncheon on the Grass, therefore, must have occurred to me quite naturally. “Theatricality” certainly was an attractive feature then, and, not surprisingly, it is influencing my interpretation of Manet’s works now – as a puppet theatre.

Concerning the puzzling social relations, a somewhat similar phenomenon happened.
Only well into my professional life as a sociologist I realized that I was attracted to the “formal sociology” of Georg Simmel (1858–1918), a founding father of the discipline around the turn of the century.
However, he was not my favourite.
Simmel made himself a name analysing modern life as it developed at the times of Manet and has influenced art historians. But my interests were in social change and social policy, both not the strongholds of Simmel.

Still, the impact of the formal structure of social relations, the number of people and the patterns of their networks, intrigued me. Simmel was one of the first to systematically analyse the social forms underlying social processes beyond any particular cultural content.
He was a strong advocate of individuality and the expression of individuality in cultural life – in fashion, consumption, media, religion, and the arts. But he was critical of egocentric individualism; he saw the individual intertwined in a network of social relations, forming a pluralism of social circles and distinct realms like science, arts, religion, politics, and the economy.
Society was, in his view, more characterized by diversity than by any unifying cultural idea or socio-economic power.

For somebody like me – not yet influenced by the great ideas and the political dimension of social change – the formal structure in interactions and the conflicting potentials for action was perhaps appealing.
My background in the reality of theatre demonstrated to me that the “content” of the play will change, but the “form” of actors, their costumes and cosmetics, the stage, and the technologies would be similar in the next performance. In sociology, I directed my interests toward urban sociology looking at people on their “stage” in society.
In as much as Manet put his figures on a stage, the actors can change, they are ready to play different parts in different dramas. And somebody has to provide the stage and the illumination…

There is a third factor, which influences my current reflections on Manet more than it probably did back then.
It is linked to Manet’s realism.
Science attracted me more than art; in terms of our discussion of Manet’s realism:
discovery in the spirit of objectivity seemed to be more my thing than expressing my subjectivity.
Manet experienced already the pressure of an enhanced subjectivity and individualism which turned his objectivity in an “attitude” which the impressionists did not share, perhaps with the exception of Edgar Degas (Herbert 1988). But Degas’ objectivity flowed from a dislike for more intimate human relations, while Manet was a sympathetic and social companion with close friends throughout his life.
In some way, I might have sensed that Manet was also choosing the objective over the subjective.
Although for him that meant a choice for self-critical realism and discovery within art; for me it meant a choice for critical realism and discovery in the field of knowledge.

Now, we meet again in the exploration of his art in an objective spirit.
Accepting Manet’s position that his medium is painting and not language or poetry, the common ground has to be the exploration of visual rather than verbal communication.
Accepting his realism, we place the individuals in real life settings, although presented within a “realistic formalism” (Lüthy), or – with the words of Courthion – mankind presented in “composed instants … and the poetry of space in painting” (see previous post).

So, where to go from here?

We keep the spirit of simplicity, sincerity, and naiveté combined with a certain detached objectivity.
And we look at other paintings which present relations between people on a scale which allows their gazes to compose a social space – seeing, being seen, and reflecting on being seen by others.

On this route, we will take the “formal” analysis two steps further.
Comparing the four paintings in Figure 3, we may notice that Manet varies the character of the gaze connecting with the viewer significantly and changes the position on the stage of our four actors.

Figure 3: Gazes and Positions in Manet’s Painting – Four Different Cases

Actually, none of the gazes of the central figures has the somewhat evading expression often considered typical for Manet’s subjects, the prime example for this gaze being the barmaid in Bar at the Folies-Bergeré.

In Luncheon we are offered a rather friendly if non-committing smile; in Olympia the gaze is quite self-assertive keeping own dignity vis a vis the viewer in the possible role of a customer; in The Balcony the dominant gaze (of Berthe Morisot) is not directed at us but into the public sphere; and in Jesus Mocked by Soldiers the gaze of Jesus is clearly turned to his Father beyond the painting.

In the following, we want to consider these differences in the character of gazes, and we want to pay attention to the shifting position of our actors and their gazes in the painting.
For instance: in The Balcony the position of the First looking at us, the viewer, is shifted into the middle ground to the right; in Jesus Mocked the First moves even more toward the back.
Still, in both paintings we find our “crew of four” in the formal scheme, and we should try to apply it and interpret the configuration.

We have dealt with Luncheon on the Grass now extensively. Since Manet appears to think and work in series of paintings experimenting with structural elements (see previous post), we should turn to the next in line. Actually, this should be Olympia which he painted parallel to Luncheon finishing it somewhat later.
I have chosen the rather unknown example of Jesus Mocked which is the next painting in the series presenting a multi-person interaction, because Olympia is already a special case inhabiting only two persons (and a cat).

Remember, there are other kinds of paintings – still lives, portraits, larger settings, and sea- or landscapes.
But Jesus Mocked by Soldiers is the next multi-figure painting and candidate for the proposed “formal scheme”.
Let’s try it out.

See you next week!

Manet’s Self-Portraits – Seeing Oneself Seeing (P12)

By Richard Pieper

On June 12, 2021

In Edouard Manet

In the previous posts, I have developed a scheme which – as proposed by MyManet – is guiding Manet’s composition of Luncheon on the Grass. The claim is that this scheme is not only a scheme for this painting but is a “hidden scheme” informing also the composition of following paintings.

To show this, I first want to apply the scheme to his self-portraits.
Manet painted only two self-portraits late in his career 1878-9. He inserted small images of himself in early paintings like The Fishing and Music in the Tuileries, as we have seen, and later in Masked Ball at the Opera. But they were not self-portraits in the narrower sense, more like ironic comments.

It seems that he did not especially like to paint self-portraits, although he liked his painter friends, for instance, Henri Fantin-Latour and Edgar Degas to picture him. Figure 1 shows two often reproduced pictures.

Figure 1: Portraits of Manet by Henri Fantin-Latour and Edgar Degas

The pictures and the self-portraits below show Manet as the “dandy” enjoying his life as a painter. And most references to the paintings just use them for illustrating this point. But there is more to them.

So, one question concerns the Why?
Why did Manet paint self-portraits rather late in his life?
An interesting remark by James Rubin (2010, p.372) suggests that “Manet’s self-portraits certainly look back to the dialogue of gazes in his pictures of Victorine and Morisot” (e.g. Luncheon on the Grass and The Balcony – RP).
Rubin does not elaborate this remark and goes on to suggest that they also “set the stage for A Bar at the Folies-Bergére”, the last great masterpiece by Manet.
This seems to imply that the self-portraits demonstrate in some way the scheme of MyManet, and that the scheme, in fact, never loses its relevance in Manet’s painting over the stages of his career.

But, obviously, a self-portrait is not the kind of painting to which we would expect the multi-person scheme to apply.
On the other hand, if I can show that the scheme helps to interpret Manet’s view of himself, that would be a great test for the scheme.
So, let us try!

Figure 2 shows the two self-portraits by Manet and below a detail from Las Meninas by Velasquez with the master himself, and a painting by the very young Rembrandt standing somewhat lost in his bare atelier. Velazquez we have met in earlier posts as Manet’s idol. The little painting by Rembrandt I found in An Introduction to Art by Charles Harrison (2009).

Figure 2: Manet’s Self-Portraits and Self-Portraits of Diego Velazquez and Rembrandt

Self-portraits typically show what Lüthy (2006) has described as “seeing oneself seeing”, the painter looks at himself or herself in the mirror (or in a photograph) and sees the image looking back.
This reflexivity is a welcome starting point for philosophical interpretations which the painter may or may not have entertained himself or herself.

I want to set these interpretations aside and rather take the view of MyManet. In this view, Manet is foremost a realist and attempts in all sincerity to “show what exists and what one sees” (see Post 10). This includes for him to place the activity of painting into a setting which implies a social space and an environment (e.g. his atelier) with actual (e.g. the model) or virtual (e.g. the viewer) others.

In this scheme, the figure in the self-portrait can be seen in different roles:

Case 1: The figure is the First looking and engaging the viewer and/or painter.
Most self-portraits, not only Manet’s, chose this role. The painter is presented as a person ready to communicate with the viewer, even when the figure is shown in different emotional states and signalling the incapacity or unwillingness to engage with the viewer and rather addresses himself or herself. In these cases, the painting demonstrates even more the reflexive engagement with the painter.

Case 2: The figure is the Second, typically alone in the painting and looking outside the frame, although only to present the (half-)profile to the viewer.
The objects in view of this figure are irrelevant to the painting, of relevance may be the very fact that the painter does not show his frontal face. This creates a distance from the viewer which can signal, for instance, a social distance of a person of status.
Manet’s self-portrait standing in his atelier may be seen as a version of this case.

In fact, I think that this self-portrait is made exactly to experiment with this case, while the self-portrait with palette experiments with the other cases. Both paintings are created at the same time.
He can be interpreted to look critically at the painting itself rather than at the viewer, quasi looking from the side. The figure in the mirror (Manet) will be standing to the left of the painting and may even have a (virtual) view of the painting. This is suggested by Barbara Wittmann, although she sees the gaze of Manet both as “absent” and “intensely” observing, which appears to me incompatible and stretching the interpretation (2004, p.223).

I agree that a painter choosing to present himself as not looking at the viewer does present himself as an “Other” (p.220), but only in the general sense of being “objectively” represented. Thus, Manet shows himself in the role of the model, and the model in the mirror substitutes, as it were, as a kind of double for the unrepresented Second. The viewer, not being the centre of the figure’s gaze, might imagine that there is somebody else just outside the painting. This would be a normal reaction when looking at someone who is not looking at you.

This case 2 raises the interesting problem that Manet as the painter cannot see himself with the gaze of a Second
(or an absorbed figure) – the figure not looking back at him – in the mirror!
Nobody can – again, a great starting point for philosophical interpretations.
In the age of photography, already at Manet’s time, we can look at our image in profile or as absorbed gazing at some other object. Or we might have a friend like Degas who can draw us (see Figure 1). But we cannot see it in the mirror.

For a naturalistic realism, this is a problem because one cannot see and paint what one knows to exist – one’s view in profile – because one cannot see it. The realist Gustave Courbet famously said that he would paint an angel but only if he could see it. Well, he painted his self-portraits – like the image in The Painter’s Studio (Post 6) and many other self-portraits – without ever seeing it exactly that way. Following the tradition, he corrected the reversion by the mirror – showing the “real” Courbet he could not see – sometimes on the basis of a photograph.
For Manet’s realism, this is not necessarily a crucial problem. It is a fact of everyday life that we do not see e.g. all sides of an object and that we have to infer the “hidden” views which show what exists.
In his self-portrait with the palette, he must deliberately have chosen to paint the mirrored image – showing what he sees! Why?
In the self-portrait standing he also shows the mirrored image. But he shows a face that he cannot have seen in the mirror! Why?

Case 3: The portrait can imagine the role of the Third.
In Figure 2, a charming example is the self-portrait of Rembrandt. Harrison apparently loves this little painting as much as I do. But I do think that he misinterprets the gaze of the young artist. Harrison points out that Rembrandt is not looking at his painting, and he suggests that the artist is looking at an imagined viewer (p.8-10). He provides a detailed view of the painting to prove his point. However, Rembrandt is not looking at the viewer of his painting, his gaze is directed slightly upward, and the imagined viewer would have to stand in a some elevated position more to the right. Actually, his gaze is very similar to the gaze of the Third in the scheme of Luncheon on the Grass, the male sitting next to the female engaging the viewer.
As indicated already in Case 2 about the Second, this is not a sight of himself which Rembrandt could have seen in real life or in a mirror. We have also no reason to assume that he looks at anyone or anything in particular existing unrepresented just outside the picture frame. Rembrandt presents himself as gazing at some idea or “authority”, perhaps inwardly in wonder about his future as an artist.

In the following unique and amazing series of self-portraits Rembrandt demonstrates how he explores his inner potential through a reflection expressed in self-portraits. Thus, the “Big Other” of Manet’s scheme, toward whom the Third is directing the gaze, might turn out to be the most inner self of a genius. Georg Simmel in his analysis of Rembrandt (1916) has described how Rembrandt expresses his genius as a force from within the painting (like an actor expressing subjectively-involved his role on stage), while Velazquez and Manet are examples of artists who express a principle they experience in reality (like an actor presenting objectively-detached his role in a script). Applying the analogy of the theatre, we keep in mind that in painting the activity of the painter combines – like in a puppet theatre – the roles of the author, director, and performing artist. The sociologist and social philosopher Simmel, as I indicated earlier, is a key reference for MyManet.

Case 4: The portrait can express the role of “the Other”.
In this case, the viewer must have reason to believe that the painter has presented himself or herself as seen from an alternative viewpoint. As Lüthy argues, Manet does this by modelling himself in the pose of Velazquez (see Figure 2). In a sense, Velazquez is looking over Manet’s shoulder in the painting “from the back” just like the second woman in Luncheon on the Grass takes the view from backstage. But there is more to it. As I try to show shortly, Manet himself is looking “from the back”.
Here the point is that the painter looking in the mirror (or at a photograph) may take “the role of the other” and try to communicate something about himself or herself, showing not only what one sees, but showing what exists with clues in the painting. Manet consistently avoids “telling stories”, whether about other persons or himself. We expect that “the Other” will appear in his self-portrait only as the formal option of an alternative view, not as some more or less revealing information about his inner mental life.

As suggested above, Manet deliberately shows what he sees, i.e. the mirror image.
Except, the painting right hand holding the brush is not clearly depicted!
This has provoked interpretations by Fried, Wittmann, Lüthy, and others that Manet tries to show “realistically” his fast moving hand making bold brush strokes. He cannot paint it clearly – this “speed-model” holds – because he is moving his hand too fast. Wittmann offers additionally the view – the “close-up model” – that when moving his hand toward the mirror image it comes too close to be focused sharply.
I think both interpretations are not tenable:

The “speed-model” – as I like to call it here – conflicts with the overall impression of the painting.
Manet is clearly striking a pose, probably trying to simulate Velazquez. There is nothing hasty about it, not in his self-portrait and not in the model of Velazquez (see Figure 2). When painting any model, whether somebody else or your mirror image, you want the model to keep the pose, you study the pose, imprint it in your short-term memory, turn your eyes to the painting, and try to make the appropriate marks on the canvas correcting the painted image while doing it. Your head may be turning a bit and perhaps the body, too, but your hand “waits” until you secured an impression and turn to the painting.
A problem arises, when you try – like Manet – painting yourself in the pose of reaching with the brush hand toward the canvas. Still, there is no need to be quick, you just turn and move your hand toward the mirror creating the image of your hand close to the “canvas”. The problem is that in reaching out toward the mirror the mirrored hand also reaches out toward the “back” of the mirror plane and your brush hand will cover up its image! As Manet’s painting shows, you might only see your fingertips, since your eyes are somewhat to the left of the hand.

Figure 3 tries to reproduce the stage of painting and, then, the stage of leaning over to the left to create the mirror image with Manet’s brush hand close to the mirror plane. The mirror image follows his movement, and the hand covers its own image.

As to the “close-up model”, in this movement his mirrored hand never gets closer to his eyes than the mirror. So, we have no basis to assume a blurred perception of the brush hand.

Figure 3: Diagram of Manet painting
and Manet leaning to the left to move his brush hand close to the “canvas”/mirror.

In the movement, Manet has to be careful not to come too close to the mirror with his other hand holding the palette. Apparently, he was not careful enough, since the tips of the three brushes have touched the mirror surface. Being the true realist, he truthfully paints the three little dots – show what one sees!

The three dots, now indicate the mirror surface in the painting – although Manet does not show the mirror explicitly, say, by showing the frame. Manet is playing games with us, again.

Another problem arises with depicting the eyes. Manet is close to his mirror image – remember the three dots – and in this near distance one cannot look at both eyes at the same instant. Manet has to focus either on the left eye (his illuminated right eye) or on the right eye (his left eye in the shadow). Lüthy (2006, p.194) calls the left eye the “active eye” because it actively engages with the viewer, and the other eye the “passive eye” being only looked at by the viewer.

But Manet has again an optical problem. Looking at the active eye, he gets an impression of his gaze to the assumed viewer, but he cannot see his passive eye clearly. Shifting his focus to the passive eye, this eye is not passive anymore but actively looking at him!
In the painting, we now see a little cross-eyed Manet, since being the truthful realist he shows what he sees – just painting first one eye and then the other.

At this point, Manet is clearly leaving a naturalistic realism and accentuates what exists but cannot be seen by him when looking at the viewer with his presented, active eye. The eye in the shadow is somewhat enlarged and the face appears to be a little more frontal. The “other Manet” is looking at him – and at the viewer who shifts the focus to this “other eye”. We are reminded of the too large woman in the back of Luncheon on the Grass or of The Absinthe Drinker representing Manet himself in the background of The Old Musician.

We return to the question why Manet is painting these self-portraits so late in his career.
Most interpretations refer to the increasing health issues which made him reflect more on his mortality, and, in fact, lead to his death only a few years later. I like to propose an interpretation which follows up on the remark by Rubin cited above, namely, that Manet wanted to reassert his version of realism in view of the growing success of impressionism and to return to the “dialogue of gazes” (Rubin) realized eventually in his last masterpiece.

The self-portrait can be understood as an impressionist painting if taken literally – painting your impressions or what you see. But Manet is deliberately showing the mirror image, not – as Fried suggests – because he wanted to show that his quick impressionistic style does not leave the time for reversing the image (1996, p. 397). Manet is playing games with this “realism of visual perception” and demonstrates his own “realism of the body” by showing the inconsistencies arising in the attempt to reduce the world to the visual image.
This emphasis on his self-critical realism against the impressionist explains also, why Manet is referring to Velazquez again after avoiding citations of the Spanish master in the 1870ies.

Manet does not even show the mirror, because it poses no genuine problem for him. For Manet, “there is no mirror to be penetrated” – as Pierre Courthion puts it – “Manet was not a painter of impressions, but of composed instants” (2004, p.33). His art is a “space inhabited by mankind – it is the poetry of space in painting” (p. 35).

I think even his self-portraits testify to the influence of Manet’s compositional scheme. So let us take a closer look at other paintings following Luncheon on the Grass where the influence is more explicit.

See you next week!

Manet, Baudelaire, and Realistic Formalism (P 11)

By Richard Pieper

On June 4, 2021

In Edouard Manet

Charles Baudelaire is said to have influenced Manet to become the painter of modern life.
Modern life is essentially a question of content or what to paint.
How to paint is more a question of form.
Did they agree on what to paint as a realist and how to paint as a realist?
Or even on the meaning of realism?

Clearly, they were close friends and Baudelaire visited Manet almost daily at the time when he created his first masterpieces like Luncheon on the Grass. However, they seem to have great discussions about painting without agreeing on how to do it. Baudelaire reached some prominence as an art critic, but he never valued the work of his friend in a publication.
Although Manet included him in his painting Music in the Tuileries Garden (1862), Baudelaire did not return the favour by declaring him to be The Painter of Modern Life (the title of his famous essay). He chose the popular illustrator Constantin Guys as his example.
Why?

Figure 1: Painting modern life –
three examples from Constantin Guys and Edouard Manet

Manet liked Guys and his illustrations of modern life. As examples of their works in Figure 1 show, Manet might even have taken some of his inspirations from Guys. There is no historical evidence for these cases, but we know that Manet loved to integrate all kinds of material from “high” academic and “low” popular art into his works.
Baudelaire was certainly aware of that. Again, why did he choose Guys and not Manet?

As David Carrier argues, there is no denying that Baudelaire anticipated impressionism as the art of depicting modern life, but did he influence Manet’s art? T.J. Clark in his influential book on Manet “The Painting of Modern Life” (1986) sees a strong bond between the two. Carrier, however, holds that he “does not convincingly link Manet’s painting with Baudelaire’s writing” (1996, p.53).

Carrier cites numerous art historians noting that Baudelaire did not acknowledge the art of Manet. Their explanations vary; however, he finds their explanations unconvincing (p. 50-1).
He goes on to discuss the merits of Baudelaire’s theory of beauty with “the two components of beauty, the absolute beauty of classical art and the relative beauty of fashion, (and) the pleasure we derive from their unity” (p.54).
But he does not pose the somewhat obvious question whether Manet simply had different ideas about painting, and that these ideas were at odds both with Baudelaire and with impressionism.

In the previous Post 10, I tried to show that Manet had an own understanding of realism which deviated from impressionism. Now, we see that his concept is different from Baudelaire’s.
There are agreements, but there are also crucial differences. Unfortunately, Baudelaire wrote extensively on his views, while we have to rely on Manet’s paintings to understand his approach.

Manet certainly agrees with Baudelaire on the political and ethical dimension of realism:
A painter of modern life should show “what exists and what one sees” including the “ugly or evil” (see previous Post). Guys – as the examples demonstrate – is a realist in this sense. Velazquez – Manet’s idol – also painted both beautiful and virtuous and “ugly or evil” people. This is about realism as a content showing modern life.
But Manet does not see himself primarily as a reporter of modern life like Guys, the illustrator.
He also does not aim for a “pictorial poetry of the middle class’s better self”, as Césare Graña somewhat disrespectfully describes the way impressionism showed the life and leisure in modern Paris (2019).
Manet shares with Baudelaire a sincere search for a new approach to painting criticising both the established “idealism” of the academy and of the naturalistic “realism” of Courbet. But he disagrees on the principles of a new realism – on the aesthetic form of realism.

In my view, Manet detects, on the one hand, too much of traditional idealism and romanticism in Baudelaire’s theory of beauty. Manet admires the Old Masters and wants to continue their tradition, but he also is a strong critic of the conventional principles of painting. The question of new principles is not answered by a criticism of established ways, one has to demonstrate a new way, and Courbet’s realism is not the answer for Manet.

On the other hand, looking at the modern ways of expressing a sense of beauty in fashion and popular art, is important to understanding contemporary concepts of beauty. Manet clearly has a love for modern fashion, in his own way of dressing as well as in the dresses of others, especially of women. However, Manet sees a great gap between Baudelaire’s eternal principles of “high” art and contemporary expressions of “low” art in fashion. How can we identify and paint “what exists” in the fleeting impressions of “what we see” in fashion?
This gap is not filled by Baudelaire’s theory: a new consciousness of the beauty in modern life does not, in itself, lead the way to principles of a new modern art.

Manet wants to take a fresh look at the reality presented to him in modern life. And he wants to look as a painter, not as a novelist or poet or composer; his medium are the means of a painter, not language and not the sound of music.
Convinced like Baudelaire that there are more general, enduring elements or structures in aesthetic experience, he wants to concentrate on essential elements and not on fleeting impressions.
And Manet probable was convinced that the concept of beauty carried a strong Romantic bias into Baudelaire’s position which he wanted to avoid. Although, he admired beauty wherever he encountered it as an essential attribute of the person. The beauty may be expressed in the latest fashion including cosmetics, even in costumes on stage, but in an authentic way, not as a mere cosmetic surface. Realism shows beauty as well as the “ugly or evil”.

Among Manet’s principles in the search for a new realism were the realization of simplicity, sincerity, and naiveté.
In view of MyManet, he found a model for the principles and practical performance of painting in the puppet theatre. The focus on essential elements may be visualized by “deconstructing” the Luncheon on the Grass in components like in Figure 2.

Figure 2: “Deconstruction” of Luncheon on the Grass as elements in a puppet theatre

Such structural elements – not necessarily the elements shown in Figure 2 – are his “words” and “sentences” which he aims to organize into a picture. He does not dissolve reality into impressions reflected by a surface but into structural elements “hanging in space” and suggesting bodily and material objects. The objects in the painting are experienced as present, almost touchable. They are organized in pictorial space so as to suggest that they can hide other objects from view, create a sense of space, and imply a wider environment beyond the picture space.

Manet does not want to create an illusion of reality, but a “reasoned image” (see previous Post):
The structural elements and their composition are designed in ways showing reality as a pattern in the painterly medium. The unity of the composition should – in Manet’s view – not be achieved by a “story” explaining what can be seen; the reality of the painting should speak for itself.

These patterns are embedded in the reality around him, but, typically, they cannot immediately be “seen”, grasp and understood without attention and intensive observation. The intensity of Manet’s painting process has been described by many of his models as well as his practice of scraping off the achieved state and starting again in the next session. Manet wanted to capture the essence of his model – if possible in one session presenting a living image rather than a dead copy. This is easily misunderstood as an impressionist attempt to capture the specific moment (like Monet painting the light on haystacks at different times of the day). I think that Manet was trying to discover and present the typical pattern which was showing itself in a specific session clearly – or not. In an attempt to sort out accidental elements he started all over again.

As a consequence, Manet’s models found the session quite demanding and intense, and the focus on underlying, enduring patterns arrested the figures and their activities.
The patterns cannot be “shown” in a painting without experimenting with a guiding scheme and developing corresponding skills and practices. Not surprisingly, Manet preferred working in the studio consulting various sources for his compositions.
This approach toward discovery of underlying patterns by experimenting is not taken by idealism – where patterns are “eternal” and guiding rules – nor by Courbet’s realism – where patterns are observed “in nature” and represented.

Lüthy describes Manet as taking the “position of an impossible Third”: The position of a “realistic formalism”.
He combines reflective imagination with a creative practice which is not “representation” of reality but an experiment. “In this experiment questions of form and content, artificiality and realism merge into one another” (2003, p.116).
The experiment is realized not just in one painting but in a series of pictures and studies with Manet trying to find a satisfactory solution. This is why Lüthy tries to identify structural elements and the variations of their composition over a series of Manet’s paintings.

As reflected in the concept of “reasoned image”, this approach is not entirely new but characterizes the scientific methodology as it developed until the beginning of the 19^th century.
Lüthy is aware of the importance of science, however, he tends to refer to scientific insights from physiology and psychology employed by impressionists to express subjective experience of modern life in their art.
Manet is, in a sense, more oriented toward scientific objectivity. In science, subjective experience is questioned as endangering objectivity. If realism claims to represent objective reality, it has to look beyond the immediate impressions to discover the more enduring structures of experience.
In terms of the psychology of painting, Manet is more a cognitive psychologist (like – later – the cognitive Gestalt psychologists), while the impressionists are influenced by the psychology of perception of Gustav Fechner (1801-1887) and Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920).
In philosophical terms, Manet is a practicing phenomenologist – we know virtually nothing about his philosophical inclinations – who tries to discover the inherent structures of experience rather than a positivist who takes sensory evidence as given.

The analogy with science should not be taken too far. Manet clearly sees himself as an artist, not as an applied scientist of any kind or discipline.

But there is another interesting parallel to the situation of science.
The insight into the problematic impact of subjectivity of the scientists themselves produced toward the end of the century the need to control subjective influences by methodology, both on the level of rational discourse and controlled observation.
Manet seems to be aware that his rejection of idealism and naturalism raises the question of how to justify his impossible third position of “realistic formalism” (Lüthy). The impressionist option – wholeheartedly embracing the expression of the individual artist’s subjectivity – was not his ideal. But conformity with established traditions, not only in art, had largely lost its legitimacy in modern society.

One way of justification is the belief that – at least in the long run – art tradition will reveal the value of his art; that is why he all his life sought the recognition of his art by institutions of art – like museums and public exhibitions. However, the acceptance of the “authority” of art traditions had to be critical, which means for Manet that elements of previous art should prove their value in contemporary experimentation.

Another way is the acceptance by a critical art community – by the avant-garde. Therefore, Manet sought the critical discussion of art among artists and valued the view of others.

A third way – as argued in MyManet – is Manet’s “going social” in his painting practice by deliberately implicating the viewer, the model, the “Other” and the “Big Other” in his paintings.
This way, he turned his practice into an “open space” reminding himself of taking a self-critical position and inviting others to participate in the experiment.
The medium achieving this participation for Manet is, especially, the gaze of the persons in his painting, not only the gaze toward the viewer, but also the gaze from the back or outward, creating a social space through painting.

To what extent institutions, avant-garde communities, or participative practices can or should determine what is art – and what not – is a discussion accompanying the development of modern art from the beginning. We will return to that question; here, I only want to point out that experimentation in science and experimentation in art, creative practices and consolidating institutions in both realms have to be distinguished because they are guided by different principles.

The primary environment for Manet’s art was his own studio. Figure 3 tries to show how the studio worked as an open space including art of the past, own paintings, models, anticipated or even present viewers (the girl). In the upper right hand corner, the diagram indicates that Manet may be thinking of elements in his The Old Musician (see Post 7). The lines indicate the communication with the gazes and gestures of figures in the painting and the model.

Figure 3: A diagram of Manet’s studio

This situation for the painting process was difficult or impossible to create and to sustain in “open air” – Manet preferred the studio.
The practice also depended on close contacts with preferred models, interested colleagues, and the experience of modern urban life in the art community. Manet missed his Paris whenever he travelled and returned to create his major works from drawings and sketches.

Institutions, communities, and participative practices are social forms in Manet’s scheme which we will encounter again in the discussion.
The creation of a painting is, for Manet, an experiment that runs over a series of paintings. We have looked at pictures that preceded Luncheon on the Grass. At this point, it seems appropriate to look at some other paintings following this “programmatic” painting to see how Manet is varying his scheme.

See you next week!