Tag: composition

After Manet spend about six months in a clinic being subjected to a therapy which he experienced as an “atrocious torture” he painted an intriguing little Interior of a Café (Richardson 1982, p.112). The scene Interior of a Café follows several earlier works which Manet sketched and painted in 1878/79
– but it is strikingly different!

Figure 1: Three scenes in a café by Edouard Manet

(A) Café-Concert (1878) (B) The Waitress (1879)

While in the earlier paintings – like Café-Concert or The Waitress – Manet appears to be close and sympathetically “rubbing shoulders with his subjects” (Rubin 2010, p.206), the Interior is more detached, and the place exudes isolation, loneliness and absence. The empty chair to the right bears Manet’s signature – certainly not a coincidence. And to the left, there is a strange, ghostly figure sitting at the table.

The art historians Richardson and Rubin do not comment on this difference to earlier scenes; they interpret the painting as another example of Manet’s engagement in modern life in Paris’ cafés. Both authors note, however, that a large mirror in the background seems to anticipate the mirror in A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.
As discussed in the previous posts, the Bar may be interpreted as a personal retrospective on his works. The Interior appears to sketch out some first ideas about his last masterpiece. If this is the case, we are encouraged to have a closer look at the Interior in view of Manet’s scheme as discovered in the Bar in the previous posts. Once we “see” not only a loose sketch of people in a café, we “see” Manet exploring elements of his scheme, looking back, and preparing the Bar.

Some puzzling elements in the Interior ask for an explanation. For instance:

Why is the chair empty, or, who should we expect to sit there? Manet himself?
The lady in the foreground seems to be looking at the gentleman at her table to the left. But is she? Her gaze is somewhat empty, not the least, because this figure is almost a “ghost” – faceless, only indicated in blue-grey, and cut off by the frame.
What is role of this “ghost” in the painting? Is he looking at her or rather following the gazes of the other men to the right presumably looking toward the stage?
Where is the waiter looking? Into the right side of the mirror or toward the stage? Is there a mirror?

Mysterious “absence” (empty chair), “darkness” (man at the table), and confusing mirror images (gaze of waiter) trouble the viewer when taking a closer look. Is this a scene which Manet was observing in a café or are we confronted with a puzzle or composition playing with absent pieces?

First, let us take up the question of the mirror (Figure 1C above).
The mirror in the middle ground – divided by a column to the right of the centre with a waiter standing next to it – is somewhat strange. It closes off the café in the middle ground and, at the same time, opens up a view to a large room “beyond the mirror”– actually behind the viewer – with what appears to be rows of visitors or an audience in a far background. Mirrors were (and still are) a common feature in cafés and appear also in earlier paintings by Manet and others (e.g. Degas and Caillebotte). Still, the connection with the reflection in the Bar – painted a year later – is suggestive.

On the left side of the column,
the mirror shows us the background behind the viewer standing apparently quite close to the woman and looking down on her. Like the gentleman at the table, the viewer would be placed toward the left edge and is not anymore reflected in the mirror, because the wall is not quite aligned with the picture plane. This creates a vanishing point far out to the right behind the stage and pulls the gaze of the viewer in that direction (black lines in Figure 2A).

Figure 2A.: Perspectives in the Interior of a Café

The mirror seems to reflect the woman at the table supporting the impression of a mirror and suggesting a perspective in the interior as indicated in Figure 2A above. The mirror also shows an open space above the woman, presumably the open space in front of the stage on the right. But the reflection is strangely empty, almost an “abyss” (like in the Bar to the left of the barmaid and similarly indicating people at tables or on a balcony beyond).
Strangely, the person in front of the mirror on a bench (to the right of the column at the edge of the painting) is not reflected in the mirror to the left of the column.

On the right side of the column,
the waiter and three sitting people appear to be looking at the event on stage beyond the frame. But where exactly are they sitting?
The wall with a dark panel beneath the mirror on the left side does not continue on the right side. Instead, there are the rear benches with those people facing the stage. But the rear bench is not aligned with the perspective of the room as mirrored on the left side.
In fact, the shading underneath the empty table suggests that the bench continues almost aligned with the wall (the angle in which the bench “should” go is indicated by the dotted line and arrow in Figure 2A above).

This has the effect:
If we focus on the right side of the painting, we don’t seem to see a mirror at all! The three people in the audience to the right are not reflected.
This again makes sense, since the gaze of the waiter is now unobstructed by any mirror and directed to the stage.
But then the mirror on the left side is deceiving – or there is no mirror to the left either.

Manet is playing games with the perspectives and with the viewer by suggesting a mirror on the left side and an open view to the space in front of the stage on the right side.

Let us look at the problem of the mirror with the help of diagrams, keeping in mind that we don’t know what the actual situation in this café really was and what liberties Manet took in representing the scene.
Our aim will be to learn something about the painting that helps us to understand its mediating role between previous café scenes and the Bar.

In Figure 2A above, we focus on the left side where the mirror reflects the woman identified by a greenish spot (her dress) and a black spot (her hat). Connecting the two faces we get a sense of the perspective (black lines) taking as a further lead the two columns and the white table the waiter is leaning on.
Manet seems to place a vanishing point behind the face of the woman in the mirror locating the empty chair in the “spotlight” of her gaze from the mirror. The chair is turned toward her and seems to be “looking back”.
The horizontal line gives further structure by connecting to the head of the waiter and of another gentleman on the far right.

An additional dynamic of the composition – indicated by red lines – leads the viewer’s gaze to follow the gaze of the woman to the ghostly face on the left and then to the gaze of the waiter picking up the general direction of the gazes of the three patrons on the right toward the stage.
We cannot be sure where the faceless “ghost” is looking. His gaze may be directed at the woman, instead, but the viewer is clearly induced to move his or her gaze along this trajectory.

Figure 2B: Dimming the left mirror in the Interior

In Figure 2B, I have dimmed the left mirror. Now the view on the right becomes ambiguous as pointed out above. The gaze of the waiter, the large figure with the top hat, the backside of the benches, all seem to indicate that we look directly into an open space in front of the stage – not into a mirror continuing from the one on the left. But this would be incongruous with the image in the left mirror and the indication of a row of visitors running across the background of the painting.

Figure 2C: Dimming mirrors on both sides of the column in the Interior

In Figure 2C, I have tried to amplify this point by dimming also the right mirror. Now it becomes apparent that the patron on the far right would be sitting this side of the mirror while the other two are reflections.
The problem is that the person on this side is not reflected in the mirror. Moreover, he is cramped into a tight space next to the mirror because the bench does not follow the perspective; the angle (arrow) is too small. Additionally, the white light beneath the table pushes the yellow bench clearly to the back, more aligned with the dark panel on the left.

All this supports the dynamics of the red trajectory, but it makes the mirror images and perspectives of the café inconsistent.

Figure 2D: The “real” scene in the Interior (with dimmed mirrors)

In Figure 2D, keeping the dimmed mirrors, we see (with the help of some rough photoshopping) what the situation “really” might have been.
Now the bench follows the perspective, the patron to the right has some space and is reflected in the left mirror as a shade above the women’s head. Underneath the table we see the bench angling out into the room.

But this “reality” comes with a cost. The right mirror is closing off the background to the right more effectively, blocking the gaze of the waiter on the other men. His gaze loses some of its force, since the gaze of the “ghost” is now more likely to follow the gaze of the patron to the right towards the stage on this side (red line). And perhaps most importantly, the table with the empty chair loses much of its dominant position, cramped up next to the bench.

So, it seems that Manet knew what he was doing when he created an ambiguous right side, neglected the laws of perspective, put the empty chair in a “spotlight”, and supported a dynamic trajectory in the composition toward a stage somewhat “beyond the mirror”.

The point here is not to demonstrate that Manet manipulates perspective to create a compositional effect; we saw this in other paintings.
The point is that these elements – mirrors playing with perspectives and with gazes of persons including the viewer, introducing “ghostly” figures, leaving and “abyss” in front of a stage beyond the picture frame – resurface in the A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. This makes the little Interior a work mediating between the previous café paintings focusing on modern life and his final masterpiece reflecting on his work in a multi-layered composition.
This means, moreover, that it is meaningful to apply Manet’s scheme to the Interior, and to identify the triad of persons (First, Second, Third), the Other, and the Big Other beyond the picture space (see Post 26).

Obviously, the First, looking at and engaging the viewer is missing – there is an empty chair!
Considering that Manet typically engages the viewer, like in “The Waitress” in Figure 1 above, this is surprising and invites the interpretation that Manet sees himself “missing” and missing “looking at the viewer” in painting. After the stay in the clinic, he realizes that soon he will not be able to enjoy the bars and cafés with his friends anymore.

The Second, the person looking across the picture space and establishing the social space, is clearly the woman in the foreground. But – unlike the man on the right in the triad in Luncheon on the Grass gesturing to the other two – she has only a ghostlike figure sitting at her table.
She is turning her back to the empty chair, isolating it further by her own position left of the centre . Her connection with the missing First is only indirectly by way of her mirror image located at the source of the “spotlight” on the empty chair.
Her unfocused facial expression only motivates the viewer to follow her gaze to the “ghost” and to the waiter’s gaze who seems to be attracted by the event on stage.

Even more puzzling is the role of the Third, the person directing his gaze beyond the picture space toward the Big Other, the external “authority” in Manet’s scheme.
In effect, the “ghost” and the waiter share this position creating the red trajectory across the painting toward the stage beyond.
But this trajectory is unstable, as we have seen above. The origin of the Third’s gaze in a faceless “ghost” makes us wonder if Manet is not only missing his life as a painter engaging with the viewer, but also missing the “authority” of painting which he always saw in the tradition of art. The gaze of the Third is now directed toward a stage which exists in an insecure space of conflicting mirror reflections.

Finally, the position of the Other, looking from the back at the triad, is taken by the mirror image of the woman. This element we find, in almost the same position, in the Bar (Post 26). This supports the interpretation of the Interior as an experiment with ideas for the Bar.

Returning to the questions above, we see how “absence” dramatically enters his work. It has been characteristic of his paintings by the openness of his compositions reaching beyond the picture space toward the viewer and other implied presences. It often found expression in the absent gaze of protagonists in his paintings. But now under the impact of deteriorating health the place from which he establishes the contact to his viewers – the gaze of the First – is empty.
After the Prussian-French War (1970-71) we can observe how Manet experiments with fewer actors in his scheme. We will return to these works in following posts. But now he is almost dissolving his characters in “missing” and “ghostly” figures turning away from each other in an ambiguous space. I find this little Interior somewhat depressing and expressing his deep sadness, while his final masterpiece – aimed to establish his position in the tradition of art – demonstrates his self-confidence as an artist.

The ”ghostly” greyish figure and the imposing dark area behind the figures at the table remind us of another aspect in Manet’s work, the “dark” and “mysterious” elements which seem to emerge from a “dark backstage” (see Post 28). We will turn to the “Dark” in Manet’s painting in the following post.

See you soon again!

Manet’s Scheme: Composition in Social Space (P9)

By Richard Pieper

On May 17, 2021

In Edouard Manet

Two essential features of composition in Manet’s scheme – in MyManet – are the figures’ gazes and the setting of the puppet theatre, or:
the relation between the social space of gazes and gestures and the material space of the setting on stage.
Manet made deliberate choices on both features when he created Luncheon on the Grass.
This we understand better looking at two studies for the Luncheon
and the X-ray visualizing Manet’s first draft underlying the final version.

In Figure 1, the four versions are compared, scaled to the same size, and supported by diagrams indicating perspectives:

Figure 1: Comparison of four versions of the Luncheon on the Grass

A – the final version of Luncheon on the Grass 1863
B – a later copy made by Manet himself dated between 1864-68
C – a study in watercolour with pen and ink dated between 1863-65
D – a print from an X-ray of the final version revealing a first draft

All four versions are presented and discussed by Juliet Wilson-Bareau (1986, p. 37ff)
– including a comparison with the painting Pastoral Concert by Titian and the etching by Raimondi after Raphael’s Judgment of Paris (see previous Post 8). Her X-ray analysis is a much acclaimed and quoted source in the discussion.

Wilson-Bareau proposes that the study (C) was made from the final version, and that the copy (B) was probably made even later. She concedes, however, that the sequence is only hypothetical since the exact dating is unresolved.

Her analysis demonstrates convincingly how Manet was experimenting with elements and their composition directly on the canvas and even at a late stage (like inserting and deleting a little dog to the left of the nude).
She concludes:
“One of Manet’s major problems with the Luncheon was evidently his difficulty in integrating the very solid, sculptural group into the original open and airy setting” (p. 39; title adapted as Luncheon).

In view of MyManet, I suggest a slightly different sequence and interpretation of his “problems”.

Two major changes are occurring between the draft in the X-ray (D) and the final version (A):

– On the left side,
in the X-ray an open view reaches from the foreground to the open landscape beyond the river,
with grass and bushes in the foreground instead of the clothing of the nude in the final version.

– In the group,
the gaze and position of the head of the man next to the nude is changed;
in the final version, he looks slightly upward into some undefined distance
rather than connecting with the other man as in the X-ray,
while his head – in relation to the nude’s face – is a little moved upward and forward in (A)
placing the three faces almost onto the same plane in the picture space.

Looking at the final version, the X-ray, and the study C, it is remarkable that all three versions show the same “solid, sculptural group”. This is indicated by the identical white triangles connecting the faces and by the position of the background female in the diagram of perspectives.
“Sculptural” may not be the appropriate term, since the triad is rather “flat” with the second woman set backward and too large in perspective. But I agree that the impression is rather “solid”; the formation of the four figures appears to be the same and clearly predetermined in all three versions, and rather independent from the landscape in the X-ray.

Taking up the first change:
Manet may have seen a “problem” with the integration into the landscape, but he resolves this “problem” in a rather unusual way by enhancing the difference between the landscape on left side and the solid group!

He introduces the “split horizon” from Pastoral Concert (the two perspectives in the diagram) and accentuates the vertical divide (left red line) by dark bushes and trees above the nude’s head.
Then, he keeps the “too large” woman pushing the background forward and the horizon upward and promotes the artificiality on the centre and right side – the “stage”.
He paints the background rather indistinct as “coulisse” and fits the triad into a middle ground with reduced depth. To maintain the balance under these conditions, he introduces in the foreground the elaborate “still life” to the left and a dominant dark tree to the right.
All this makes sense, when he is determined to preserve the formation of the group though violating a “natural” perspective. He is not caring about integrating the group “into the original open and airy setting” (see Wilson-Bareau above).
Manet invents a programmatic scheme.

Taking up the second change, the gaze of the man next to the nude:
This change raises the question of the role and dating of the study (C).
Wilson-Bareau suggests that the study is made after the fact, after completion of the final version. Her argument appears to be that the study reflects too closely the original to precede it.
Placed before the X-ray, the differences of the study with the X-ray become incomprehensible.
Placed between X-ray and final version, Wilson-Bareau apparently would expect more resemblance with the X-ray.
But why would Manet do that kind of study after the fact?
Certainly not to prepare the later version (B) which is in many ways different again, as I will show below.

An alternative interpretation is suggested in MyManet.

First, it is telling that the left side of the painting is not explicated in the study. This side includes in the final version the attractive “still life”. Why would this be neglected in the – admittedly, unfinished – study?
Second, it seems that Manet wanted to clarify the formation of the group before changing the left side:

The crucial change from the X-ray appears to be the face and head of the man next to the nude!

For the direction of this gaze Manet has no example in either Pastoral Concert or Judgement of Paris. He has to decide where the man should look, and he is not satisfied with an internal communicating gaze to the other male or with an “absorbed” gaze within the triad – as in the X-ray.
If Judgement of Paris is to be the model, then the gaze has to be directed toward the “authority” or Big Other – the god Jupiter arriving from the sky.
Thus seeing the study as an experiment for the gaze of the Third – in terms of MyManet – also underlines the importance that Manet attaches to this gaze!
To my knowledge, only Gisela Hopp (1968, p.23) has declared the gaze of the Third, in connection with the gaze of the nude, a decisive centre of gravity in the design of the painting, although she tries to derive this crucial role only in terms of internal design of areas, colours and perspectives.
(In her words: “Sein Blick ist erst der endgültige Kernpunkt des Bildes, nicht zu lösen von dem der Frau, aber auch für diesen Ausgangs- und Anziehungspunkt.”)
MyManet could not agree more!

It is interesting or puzzling that the nude’s gaze in the study (C) seems to follow the gaze of the man next to her – not gazing to the viewer! This is difficult to understand, if the study is made after the final version, as Wilson-Bareau proposes.
Rather, experimenting with her gaze in conjunction with experimenting with his gaze demonstrates what Manet is attempting: designing the interactive effects of the gazes in constituting a certain social and pictorial space.
When the nude is not looking at the viewer, the interaction with the viewer is lost and the gaze of the man is not effective anymore either, because it loses its singular force.

Finally, we have to consider the later copy (B).

Wilson-Bareau offers a questionable interpretation – from the view of MyManet.
She perceives in the copy “a more coherent, close-knit relationship between the foreground figures, while … improving the perspective view of the bather in the background” (p.39).
In my view, Manet appears to be testing after the fact and after receiving all kinds of harsh criticisms about his “failures”, whether his programmatic scheme is successful in achieving what he wants to achieve.
He revises all the major changes which account for the originality and modernity of Luncheon on the Grass:

The perspective is “improved” by reducing the size of the background woman, setting her lower and lowering the horizon, and creating a more integrated background across the painting breaking the dark vertical above the nude.
The man to the right is moved closer to the other two figures creating more intimacy (see right red line and perspective). He is also positioned a little bit lower and to the front (white triangle), while the other man appears a little smaller following the perspective toward the woman in the back.
Together, these changes produce a less “flat” middle ground extending into the depth of the painting.
The man next to the nude is now modestly looking toward the man to the right – sinking back into insignificance.

The result is a more “natural” setting which might have caused less of a scandal, because viewers could “read” those pastoral scenes – but we certainly would not be talking about this painting as a starting point for modern art!
The dynamics in the composition – the perceived lack of intelligibility, of inconsistencies and ambiguities – aroused the criticism of the art community, but caused also the later recognition of its ingenuity.

No wonder that Manet did not finish or exhibit this version!
Maybe he kept it ready at hand in his studio to show it to anybody worth to be engaged into a discussion about his innovative great scheme in the final version.

To be sure, this scheme is a hypothesis about the concepts guiding Manet. But I think it demonstrates two things:

It is necessary to consider not only the sources inspiring Manet to understand his compositions, especially, since he is substantially changing and adapting them to the needs of the emerging painting.
It is not enough to interpret Manet’s composition as “defined in terms of their rejection of academic conventions” (John House 1986, p. 12). The rejection is a critical attitude certainly shared by Manet, but it does not yet explain the programmatic choices and specific innovations introduced by Manet.

Time to summarize the elements of this scheme in form of a diagram integrating the results so far:

Figure 2: Manet’s Scheme – Composition in Social Space

The diagram should not be understood as a “manual” which Manet is following in the composition of Luncheon on the Grass, or in the creation of any of the other paintings to which we will apply the scheme. The diagram is mediating between the painting itself as experienced by us today and the process of painting as an event happening about 160 years ago. It is a tool for understanding – as are all diagrams – not a “theory” of the painting.

The essential dynamic is the interaction of social and pictorial space, of the roles outside the painting with the roles inside the painting.
Obviously, such a dynamic is – in the strict sense – only meaningful in figurative painting. And not all figurative paintings, and not all of Manet’s figurative paintings, are exemplifying this scheme as developed in Luncheon.
To understand our experience of other types of painting, we will have to introduce new concepts and schemes which appeal to different ways of relating to “What do pictures want?”(Mitchell 2005).

Manet is inspired by the structure of the puppet theatre which provides a model or stage for the activity of painting.
As anybody who has witnessed a puppet performance knows, there is no clearly defined inside and outside in the relation between audience and performance. The relationship is negotiated as the “show goes on” in each performance.
In terms of painting, we should imagine a situated installation artwork with the painting presenting certain elements “performing” on the “stage” carried by the canvas. The essential medium for this “performance” is the way our eyes move through the painting following the network of gazes and gestures of figures in the painting while engaging us and other agents outside the painting. In a sense, the relations are the “spiderweb” that stretches the social and spatial relations “in mid-air” reaching beyond the frame.

As indicated in Figure 2, Manet does not see these relations as realized on the flat surface of the canvas, although he is certainly aware of the material vehicle. He creates his own version of a socio-spatial “reality” which does not follow the rules of perspectives but stages figures and objects in a layered way, similar to a collage.
The “stage” is structured into a picture space rather narrow in depth and delimited by a front plane and a back plane. The front plane defines the foreground and is often accentuated by a “still life”, symbolized in the diagram by the lemon.
The picture space holds the triad of social roles with the First relating to the viewer and the painter, the Second integrating the relations on stage, and the Third linking to the “world beyond”, to society and tradition, symbolized as the Big Other or – in Manet’s case – by his idol of painting Diego Velazquez.

An interesting role in Manet’s scheme is taken by the “Other”. The “Other” reflects Manet’s insight that placing the scene “on stage” – like a puppet theatre performance – implies that there is an alternative perspective “from the back”. This “Other” may be represented within the picture, “painted on the coulisse” as in Luncheon, but the role may be only implied by the way the scene is staged.
As we will see in some interpretations of Manet, this “Other” – besides the relation between Third and Big Other – provides a welcome entrance for psychological or psychoanalytical interpretations looking from an unconscious “deep back stage” (often symbolized by a dark background) or for sociological interpretations emphasizing societal influences.

Similarly, the other external agents may be presented or unrepresented and only invoked by elements in the painting. Manet strongly reminds us of the presence of the painter by the very style of his painting. The viewer is, obviously, engaged by the outward gaze of the First; only on rare occasions does Manet introduce a “represented” viewer. The Big Other is implied by the diversion of the gaze of the Third, which avoids the gaze of the viewer and makes the viewer aware that looking at the painting is not only an individual subjective affair by the viewer – there is a “world beyond”. Finally, we have seen that Manet produces an awareness for the model – in case of Luncheon, by the amused gaze of Victorine Meurent who contacts the painter Manet in the process of painting.

The diagram offers a tool especially for the structural features of Manet’s scheme.
In that sense, it can be understood as representing aspects of the aesthetic form of the painting. However, the scheme is not simply aesthetic, it is incorporating a social form. It reflects how Manet (and, consequently, how the viewer) experiences the social reality and transforms it aesthetically in the painting.
This interaction between social form and aesthetic form, between the social reality of the painter and the development of new ways of seeing and expressing the reality in painting, has been brilliantly described, in the case of impressionism, by Robert Herbert (1988).

Obviously, the diagram does not tell us everything about Manet’s approach to painting.
There is much more to be told about the form and content of Luncheon on the Grass.
The diagram must be placed in a broader context to be meaningful.

Two important themes, we have already identified and postponed:
One theme is about the question how the paradigm of a puppet theatre can be aligned with Manet’s avoidance of “telling stories”. His figures are typically not engaged in clearly identified activities.
Another theme is closely related; it is about Manet’s realism which seems in conflict with the idea of a puppet theatre as well as with the application of an abstract compositional scheme.
Enough stuff for another post!

Meet you next week!

The Composition of Luncheon on the Grass (P8)

By Richard Pieper

On May 14, 2021

In Edouard Manet

The “story” of Luncheon on the Grass has been told many times, and the interpretation usually focuses on two themes:
The scandal provoked by the female nude, and the fact that
Manet borrowed the basic composition from two Old Masters, Titian and Raphael.

As far as the scandal is concerned, I tend to agree with Robert Herbert (1988), among others, that Manet himself did not intend to produce a scandal. The “story” of Manet, the rebel, causing a scandal, is based on the reception of the painting by the public and the rejection by contemporary criticism.
To some extent, we have to attribute the interpretation of the Luncheon to the reactions to the other painting causing an even greater scandal, the Olympia (1863). The latter painting does show a prostitute or, rather, a courtesan reclining on an impressive diwan who could afford a coloured woman as a maid presenting a quite expensive flower bouquet from a well-to-do customer.
There were literally hundreds of paintings with nude women in the Salon in 1863 when Luncheon was rejected, or in 1865 when Olympia was exhibited.
So what exactly caused the scandal?

Figure 1: Two scandals starting Manet’s career – Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia

The relationship between the two paintings is, indeed, very interesting. But in my view, the fascinating relations are not linked to the presumed allusion of both to the issue of modern life and prostitution in Paris of the time. I do not think that Luncheon on the Grass is about prostitution at all, although it is about modern urban life.
I will return to the theme of social scandal in a following post.

What I find interesting has more to do with the second theme, the question of composition of the Luncheon.
The two paintings are created at the same time, and yet they seem to be totally different in their approach to composition. This is easily explained, if we are content with pointing out that they cite very different Old Master paintings.
This causes a problem, however, if we propose – like in MyManet – that Manet developed in Luncheon a programmatic scheme for other paintings to follow.
How are the two paintings related on a structural level?
We have to return to this question when discussing Olympia, and after clarifying the scheme for Luncheon on the Grass.
So we ask:

Question 6: How can I paint a female nude following the formal scheme?

As Michael Fried – an expert on Manet – describes the painting:
It is “his sheerest, most intractable masterpiece” (1998, p. 57; emphasis added).
He notes that Manet’s “use of previous art was highly conscious, even programmatic, though it has not yet fully emerged what that program was” (p. 81). He goes on to argue that Manet aimed at a new synthesis of the French art tradition with Italian, Dutch and Spanish traditions. Manet’s way of achieving it, Fried sees in a certain kind of “theatricality” found in the realism of the French tradition, especially in the Le Nain brothers and Antoine Watteau.
Aspects he describes as “essentially theatrical – that the figures are grouped, that they either confront the beholder or in effect pose for him, that they participate only in the most formal or conventionalized of actions – were experienced not just as compatible with realism but as intensely, even uniquely realistic in their own right. The crucial notion, here as elsewhere, was that of naiveté” (fn 111, p. 485; italics added). Thus, Manet found “a new paradigm of what a painting was” (fn 97, p. 482).
But what is the compositional aspect in that paradigm of grouped figures?

I learned immensely from Fried’s analysis about the sources and the meaning of elements in Manet’s painting. However, his way of composition is not explained by the selection of elements, especially, since it is generally agreed that Manet did not simply “borrow” entire compositions.

John Rewald (1961, p. 86; emphasis added) detects a “curious lack of imagination” leading Manet to “borrow” subjects from other artists. But Manet certainly demonstrates a lot of creativity in integrating these citations into an own composition.

This is not John Richardson’s view, he flatly states: “Manet’s sense of design was faulty”(1982, p. 9f; emphasis added). He initiates a discussion on “Manet’s compositional difficulties” referring to the Luncheon on the Grass as well as other paintings in the 1860ies.

Anne Coffin Hanson tries to defend Manet discussing critical reactions to Richardson’s evaluation. But in the end, we are left with few remarks on more formal principles of composition such as proportional systems, diagonals and triangles. “Of all the qualities of Manet’s art, his picture construction has been least understood”, is her resume (1977, p. 197ff; emphasis added).

For Sandblad (1954, p. 93f), Manet makes “efforts to transform the pastoral idyll which he had set up on the floor of his studio into a decorative and ordered picture on the surface of the canvas” … ” the three strictly contoured figures in the foreground appear like paper dolls pinned to the surface of the canvas”… “(Luncheon on the Grass) did not become the definitive work which Manet had presumably dreamt of” (emphasis added).
This – according to Sandblad – was achieved in Olympia.

Robert Herbert offers a brilliant description of the “social form” of picnics and the Parisians’ concept of leisure and landscape comparing it especially with Claude Monet’s version of the same theme two years later.
While pointing out Manet’s ironic way of “mocking history and its guardians, the academy”, Herbert also has his difficulties with the figures: “Not only do they appear as virtual cut-outs, arbitrarily transported from the studio, but their wooded clearing seems as artificial as a stage set. Among other things, our view back to the water on the left cannot be reconciled with our view through the center (the foliage over the nude’s head is too obvious a device to bridge the two perspectives successfully). … Manet’s painting, in fact, is built upon the juxtaposition, rather than the integration, of its separate parts.” It is not yet “a piece of contemporary leisure that embraces a more satisfactory narrative” (1988, p. 172f; emphasis added).

I find it amazing that one of the most famous paintings in European art history evokes such puzzled reactions from the art community!

The most convincing analysis I have found so far in the literature is the one by Michael Lüthy (2003).
His approach focuses directly on Manet’s use of gazes in the “internal” order of the painting and the “external” relationship to the viewer, and it places Luncheon on the Grass in the context of other paintings of Manet to discuss an emerging pattern.
MyManet is inspired by him, and I will return to his book for guidance in other cases, also discussing the differences of our approaches.

The emerging scheme is obviously only one perspective among many others, but it confronts the issue of Manet’s “compositional difficulties” directly. Interpretations of the composition are quick to demonstrate that Manet was inspired by at least two paintings. What is typically overlooked is the question:
Why these two – and not any of the countless other paintings in the Louvre museum?
Manet did not copy either one, he selected elements from both and combined them in a new way.
Why did he choose these elements and combined them the way he did?

Let us take a look at the first painting Pastoral Concert (1508) by Titian, attributed to Giorgione at Manet’s time. The painting was (and still is) in the Louvre museum and Manet made a free copy of it earlier.

Figure 2: The Pastoral Concert by Titian (1508)

The painting delivered the basic idea of two nude women and two dressed men. They have interrupted their music, and the female to the right seems to wait patiently until the two men have settled some issue, while the second woman gets the drinks (sounds somewhat familiar?).
In the background, a shepherd is tending to some sheep, but no one is alarmed; there is no sexual activity interrupted here. In the good old days (over 3oo years ago) painting this scene was no scandal, and it hanging in the Louvre at Manet’s time was no scandal either.

So, Manet transposed the scene into modern urban life – only, now it was a scandal if people did that sort of leisure activity in the Bois de Boulogne, the park near Paris! And a metaphorical interpretation – like long ago – was not acceptable by the viewers (and not intended by Manet). After all, these people could quite readily be identified as contemporary, living individuals, at least by insiders of the art community.

Again, I am not worried about the scandal, but interested in two other aspects.
Therefore, I did a little transformation of the piece by mirroring it and moving the lady at the left edge into the background – see Figure 3.
First, this way it is obvious that Manet borrowed the theme and the basic composition from Titian. Mirroring images was something very common to him since he worked often with printing techniques.
Second, we see that Titian used a split horizon with a different perspective into the depth toward the shepherd, now on the left. We find the same split in Luncheon, and in both paintings the areas are separated by dark bushes and trees, as noted by Herbert (see above; although without mentioning the same element in Titian).
The relationship between the two paintings was generally recognized by contemporary critics.

Figure 3: Modifying Pastoral Concert to match Luncheon on the Grass

But there is an important difference which was not mentioned then, and not in later discussions.
In Pastoral Concert the three central figures are looking at each other – they are “absorbed” in their activity.
Why did Manet change that if the composition was so suitable?

Noticed by the art critic Ernest Chesneau at the time, Manet had a second inspiration from where he took the arrangement of the central triad, an etching by Raimondi of Raphael’s Judgement of Paris (ca. 1475).
Here we see three river gods sitting in the right-hand corner in the same arrangement as the triad in Luncheon.
In Raphael’s composition, the triad and especially the outlooking woman has the function of introducing the viewer into the picture. This relation to the viewer is exactly what Manet is aiming at – only that he is not interested in leading the viewer into an allegory or “story” shown in the main part of the painting.
The viewer relation is the “story”!

Figure 4: Etching by Raimondi of Raphael’s Judgement of Paris – with markings of Manet’s scheme

The elimination of the rest of Raphael’s painting induces certain changes – marked in Figure 4 following our scheme.
The basic orientation of the figures with the female (First, red) turning toward the viewer and their gazes away from each other is maintained.
But the male to the right (Second) is leading into the whole painting or onlooking (green) toward the scene to the left – his right hand extended by a palm branch behind the group. In the Luncheon, he is only looking at the other two (blue). His right hand is not needed to point to the scene beyond; in Luncheon, a somewhat indistinct pointing or arguing finger has to do. The oar in his left hand is substituted by a fashionable cane supporting a main diagonal in the painting.
The other male (Third, purple) is in the Luncheon not looking up and backward toward Jupiter arriving from heaven. In modern urban life in Paris, you might see the balloon of Manet’s friend Nadar drifting by in the sky, but this would occur more to the front where the light is coming through the foliage. (Remember, Manet was making lithographs of this balloon.)

For the interpretation of the Third in Manet’s triad we have previously identified the function of relating to some external “authority” or Big Other. This interpretation is readily supported in Raphael’s painting!
After all, Jupiter is the final authority arriving to confirm the judgement of Paris (the figure to the left in the inner circle) on the beauty of Venus (the female hugged by the little angel). I am sure, Manet appreciated the “theatricality” of the scene with a backfigure, the nude in the centre, wisping away the cloth hiding her beauty. But this kind of storytelling is exactly what he was trying to avoid.

Another intriguing element in Raphael’s painting is the figure of Hermes who is in the inner circle looking from the back onto the scene! So far, I found no reference to this element in the literature on Manet.
Quite clearly, Hermes is completing the inner scene to a group of four figures which again form a mirror image of Manet’s composition. Thus, Hermes is in the position of the “other”! Since Hermes is the messenger and mediator between humans and the divine, there hardly could be a better figure in Greek mythology to fill that position in Manet’s scheme.

Manet did not talk or write about the choices he made in the composition of Luncheon on the Grass.
We know that he made his decisions deliberately with knowledge about traditions in literature and art and with a witty irony directed both toward traditions and modern society. The choices for inclusion of elements and their arrangement in the Luncheon are no exception. What he deliberately modified into a composition of his own were the gazes of the figures establishing a relationship between an “internal” and an “external” order.

Manet was developing a programmatic scheme, a “new paradigm of what a painting was” characterized by a new realism and naiveté (Fried).

In the next post, I will pull all these elements together in a diagram of Manet’s scheme.

See you next week!

Explorations of Edouard Manet's paintings with diagrams

Tag: composition

The “Absent“ in Manet’s Painting (P29)

The Composition of Luncheon on the Grass (P8)