Tag: diagrams Page 2 of 3

Manet and Emotions (P 16)

On July 8, 2021

Manet is not known as a painter of great emotions.
At his time, Eugene Delacroix was famous for painting expressive, emotional scenes, usually, referring to a mythological or historical event.
In case of Manet, critics complain that the figures in his paintings are curiously lacking emotions. They are not only “arrested” in their motions but also in their emotions.
Manet presents his figures in a way that the viewer feels like interrupting ongoing activities.
But typically, it is not even evident what kind of activities are interrupted and how the activity will be resumed.

The gaze of Manet’s figures is often described as evasive and unfocused or blunt and distancing.
Yet, they are not without emotion and their faces vary quite clearly in their expression.

Figure 1: Four faces in Manet’s painting – four different expressions

In Figure 1, we see four faces – each one of the central figure in the painting (Luncheon, Christ Mocked, Olympia, and The Balcony) – and each with a very different expression. Two of the paintings we have already discussed, in case of Olympia and The Balcony we will take a closer look later.

Luncheon on the Grass, for instance, shows the woman recognizing the viewer somewhat sympathetically,
but we do not know what activity the couples are engaged in – presumably a picnic before or after bathing in the river – and what their relationships are – perhaps students having a good time in the park.
But then, the woman should not be naked in a public park…and the man next to her appears to be daydreaming rather than having fun.

How are we to interpret the somewhat reduced or detached expression of emotionality in Manet?

As stated previously, Manet does not want to tell Romantic or Historic “stories”. He considers himself a Realist and wants to show “what exists and what one sees” (Post 10).
And Manet wants do show contemporary life with the means of a painter and not with words, music, or dancing, or their combination in theatre and opera. His paintings are to show reality, but they do not talk or sing.

Strictly avoiding storytelling, Manet seems to except the consequence that he has to avoid emotions, too, since emotions characteristically arise in and are aroused by stories.

A painter cannot avoid telling stories without limiting the kind of emotions he can present in a painting.
In Impressionism we find emotional qualities reduced to general moods. In Expressionism, even Abstract Expressionism, emotionality is vibrant in paintings through colours, brushstrokes, and dynamic compositions,
but the scope of emotions is restricted compared to the subtleties of Symbolism.

I suggest that Manet’s choice can be understood better in view of recent theory of emotion.
He, obviously, was not acquainted with it, but he very well could have had an intuitive understanding of it, as we will see.
Jenefer Robinson in Deeper than Reason. Emotion and its Role in Literarture, Music, and Art (2005) offers a very readable discussion of recent theories of emotion and their application in the arts including painting.
Emotions are described as a very complex and multi-layered dimension of our experience and actions.

On a “deep” layer, emotions are reactions or physiological states which respond directly to states of the body or environmental impacts and their sensory perception (pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue, arousal, etc.).
Manet never painted pain, although he painted death – the ultimate arrest of motion and emotion.

On a behavioural level, basic emotions (Richard Lazarus) are integral parts of our coping behaviour;
they are based on affective appraisals of the person-environment-relation (e.g. pleasurable, threatening).
These appraisals are non-cognitive and may not reach our consciousness.
Manet does not show people in the process of coping with some problem or threat. Such scenes inevitably would involve dynamic “stories”. More often, we find his sitters on a sofa reading or in deep thought.

On the next level, emotions are “cognitively monitored” (Robinson). Integrating emotional feelings with cognitive evaluations allows for more differentiated ways of “being in the world”.
For instance, fright or fear, disgust, envy, guilt, shame, sadness, pride, anger relief, hope, compassion, love, jealousy, anxiety, and happiness have been identified as basic emotions integrated into our way of life.

Such basic emotions are common to all human beings; we experience our natural and social world through our emotions as well as through our cognitive faculties. Some of us are more skilled and creative in experimenting with emotions than others, but we all can “be” and “do” things, relating to our environment and expressing our emotions while pursuing cognitively our goals and values (except in certain pathological cases).
This is the level of emotionality many critics are missing in Manet’s paintings:
Emotions as conscious expression of subjective feelings or individual subjectivity, expressions of who we are as a person.

These emotions are further developed and differentiated by socio-cultural learning.
We learn which emotions are adequate in certain relations and situations and how to modify and express them (or not) in specific cases, and to recognize them and their variation in others. The emotions we express – or others express – are not necessarily mirroring the feelings we subjectively have.
But these emotions are public, they are meant to be understood by others.
This means that the emotions exist objectively for everybody to see.
The emotions can affect the emotions of others, including their subjective feelings.
In as much as situations define what actions persons can chose, they also influence what kind of emotions the actors will have or at least display.

Just like the fashion we wear, displayed emotions present in part who we are, although they may not be authentic and present only a certain side to others and to the public.
Manet was certainly much aware of the role of fashion and of the fact that Parisians – especially in his upper-middle class social circle – were very careful in displaying “appropriate” emotions.
“Appropriate emotions” correspond to the character or structure of a situation and depend on the respective position one occupies, the emotions will be objective.
Looking at the position a person occupies should tell us something about the emotions that person is likely to have and help us interpreting available emotional cues which typically are ambiguous.

Identifying the pattern of emotions is a capacity which we learn together with orienting us in a multi-person context where different actions are motivated by different goals and emotions.
More generally, we learn to frame situations as certain types with characteristic actions and emotions of participants:
“This is a situation I have experienced before and I did not like what a person in a certain role was doing to me!”
This learning process occurs in childhood and by learning by example from others – e.g. mother and father, sister and brother.
Cognitive and emotional aspects of experience and actions are in this process not separated but intimately related, both are embedded in our body and in our everyday life environment which we take for granted as we pursue our goals.

The process involves necessarily more than the child and its “environment”.
Focusing on the development of the subjective self, we (and much of psychology, including Robinson) tend to neglect that we learn emotions in a multi-person context where others play certain roles:

–   To love somebody, there must be somebody to love.
–   To be envious, one must experience that somebody (your brother; second person) gets something from somebody (your mother; third person) what you (first person) don’t get.
–   To be competitive, one (first person) has to learn that an offer made by the other (second person) is only good if it is better than the alternative offer (by a third person) and that – if you are greedy and not trusted –
both may choose to exchange offers with somebody else entirely (fourth person).

Social relations and interactions are “charged” with emotions from the beginning before and while we learn to make finer cultural distinctions, tell stories about our emotional life to our friends or express emotions in the arts.
Social relations come in patterns; one person’s happiness may be somebody else’s misery.
Just like we learn (more or less skilfully) to locate ourselves in physical space and time allowing us to evaluate the accessibility of opportunities, and
just as we learn to claim and sustain our social position in relation to the position of others,
we learn to see our emotions as adequate feelings in view of the emotions of others.
Seeing the anger of the other because of the ruthless oppression by a third person, we find ourselves feeling sympathy for the underdog – unless we have learned to enjoy the exercise of power identifying with the oppressor.

Which brings us back to Manet.

Avoiding “great emotions” and storytelling in painting does not mean to avoid emotions altogether.
What we have to identify are “existing” dispositions and options for emotion in social relations,
which are, in a sense, “above” the subjective feelings and expressions embodied in each individual
and “below” the finer distinctions warranted by the “story” which a novelist might expound.
These are the emotions residing in the structure of the relations or which correspond to the way participants frame their activities.

Back to Manet again, let us recall how he frames the situation of painting:

In My Manet, we assume that Manet shows a great interest in the social relations of painting.
These social relations reach beyond the figures in the picture space (“on stage”) and include the viewer, the painter, the model and other participants.

In discussing Manet’s realism, I also have proposed that Manet is aiming at “objectivity” rather than “subjectivity”. This means, he is interested not in showing how a person expresses his or her very personal emotional life
but rather what opportunities exist for certain emotional states given a certain position in social space.
In the analogy of the theatre, Manet is not showing the performance but the role in the script and the position of the actor on stage.

Relations in social space have a form and a content, they form a pattern and create opportunities for actions and emotions as content.
To visualize form and content in this structural sense, let us look at a simple social scene and represent its structure in diagrams:

Example:
Imagine a mother telling her somewhat reluctant son to bring out the garbage (certainly a realistic scene!).
Now she can say either of four things:

A: “O.K., if you bring out the garbage, then I will give you time for your gaming.”
(meaning: you give something I want, I give something you want
– an exchange of goods)

B: “Otherwise, when you don’t bring it out, then I will not allow you to go out tonight!”
(meaning: you do not something I want, then I see to it that you cannot do what you want
– an exercise of power)

C: (now pleading) “Look, we share the belief that in a nice family the children follow the wish of their parents. My wish is now that you bring out the (d…..) garbage.”
(meaning: you and I accept a norm, I invoke now the norm, and you should act accordingly)
– an interpretation or truth of a legitimate order)

D: (now exasperated) “I don’t want to offer you something each time I ask you to do something, and I don’t want to force you again and again, and surely I don’t want to have a big argument every time about why it is meaningful to follow the rules
– would you, please, do it just because you care for me?”
(meaning: you and I are members of a group or community caring for and trusting each other)
– an appeal to love and trust

We don’t know how the story goes on, but these are the basic options.
The mother can frame the issue either as a matter of exchange, power, truth, or trust.

The framework sets “the stage” for the basic content of the interaction.
Whenever one person wants that another person takes the next step in an interaction, these alternatives (or a combination) are “in the air”. They are the medium for creating motivations and, depending on the actions chosen, they determine the scope of appropriate emotions.
Daniel Coleman – in his bestseller Emotional Intelligence (1995, p.111-2) – describes a wonderful case where a 2 ½-year-old boy is already pulling all four registers in trying to calm down his 5-year-old brother.
We learn the basics of emotion in interaction already early in life!

The situation becomes more complicated when more than two persons are involved. The situation will also change as the interaction goes on and alternative actions are chosen by the participants, perhaps altering the frame.

But as a first step – with Manet in mind – we can now draw simple diagrams involving only the self and the other as in Figure 2.
As a frame, we use the four options from the little scene above. In the centre we place the four faces and assign – tentatively – an emotion to each one.
The faces and frames are arranged in a fourfold table or a “field of four forces” since each corner wields its particular influence over all options.

Figure 2 : Four Faces and their Emotional Expression in Manet’s Paintings in the Structural Framework

Let me comment each face and its place in the framework, starting with the Luncheon on the Grass.

Luncheon on the Grass
The self is the central woman looking at the viewer, the other in this case.
Her gaze is mildly sympathetic and trusting. We assume a relation to the viewer which is characterized by some communality and symmetry indicated by the enclosing ellipse.

Olympia
The self is the courtesan looking at the viewer who finds himself potentially in the role of a customer.
Her gaze is somewhat distancing and self–asserting demonstrating that she is defending her high-ground. The relationship is clearly asymmetrical and “business” with no underlying communality (no circle).

The Balcony
The self is a woman sitting on her balcony, in public view, but she directs her attention not to the viewer but to some other person or to some event of interest to her in the street.
The relationship is unclear, perhaps the other shows also interest in her. The relationship is basically symmetrical – since the other seems not to exercise any power – but it is also not inclusive (no circle).

Christ Mocked by the Soldiers
The self is here Christ directing his gaze to God Father (Big Other) in awe and humility.
The relationship is obviously inclusive (circle) but also asymmetrical with God Father representing an inclusive entity exercising “authority” and representing a legitimate order or higher truth which, in this case, can even demand the sacrifice of Christ’s life.

Obviously, there is much more to say about the paintings and their figures including the other roles of Manet’s scheme.
And I will say more about the essential social categories – highlighted in italics – and represented in the little diagrams as we go along to other paintings.
The point is here that we can approach the question of emotions in paintings in different ways:

The usual approach focuses on the individuals and their expression of very individual feelings.
Their emotions might be triggered by events or “stories” depicted in the painting.
Or: In expressionistic paintings, the viewer might find himself or herself in the role of being emotionally affected by the painting.

Manet seems to prefer another approach.
He positions his figures in a network of formal relations, a social form, and provides only the necessary cues for interpreting the emotional dimension of the objective scene without digging into their very personal emotional life or imposing the emotions of a “drama” on the actors.

Manet does this in a Realistic manner in two ways:
– He opens the social space of the painting to include the viewer and others around the painting, since the reality is that the paintings gain their reality only by “being-seen”.
– He shows what exists and what one sees in the reality of the painting situation – typically in his atelier.
Here, Manet arranges his models “on a stage” which he indicates in his compositions and he shows the emotions his models really show in that situation. Sometimes, he makes a lot of effort to create an arrangement in his atelier which transports an outside “reality”, e.g. a bar, into his atelier. But his realism demands that this fact remains transparent to the viewer.

Manet does not follow a naturalistic approach trying to copy what he sees but shows what exists beyond the accidental appearance of the arrangement – a “reasoned imagination” (see Post 10).
Applied to emotions, this means showing the emotional dimension of figures, their positions and relations as they are displayed and publicly accessible in the situation – just like the fashion and cosmetics of a beautiful woman!

A final remark for today:
Manet does not show or express his own emotions.
Critics – especially, under the influence of Expressionism and Marx or Freud – have attempted to demonstrate how Manet was hiding his own emotions, but “betraying” (Robinson) these emotions in subtle ways in his paintings.
This may well be.
But in MyManet, we do not need to assume that Manet somehow suppressed his own emotionality.
His Realism motivated him to “show what exists and what one sees” when painting.
Manet was a “sincere painter” – as all who knew him confirmed.

Speaking of beautiful women, now that we have clarified how Manet treats emotions, we are prepared to look at the greatest scandal of his painterly career, the Olympia.

Sorry,
but I have to change my usual invitation “See you next Week!
I will enjoy a summer pause like everyone and everything in Finland.

So, See You in a month on August 12^th!

Painting Christ – Another Self-Portrait? (P15)

By Richard Pieper

On July 1, 2021

In Edouard Manet

Both paintings of Christ – Christ Mocked by the Soldiers and Dead Christ with Angels – have been interpreted as hidden self-portraits.
A certain likeness exists, especially in Christ Mocked (see previous Post 14).

But I agree with James Rubin (2010) that the relation is more metaphorical:
Manet is presenting himself as a painter through the painting rather than representing himself as a person in the painting.
This prompts Rubin to draw a connection to the Self-Portrait with a Palette
(see Post 12).

Figure 1: Comparing Dead Christ with Angels(1864) and Self-Portrait with a Palette (1879)

Here, I like to cite Rubin (2010) at length:

“Additionally, Christ’s body is so intensified by its life size, frontal position, and proximity more blatant than in any art-historical precedent that as an image in reverse it could connote a literal mirror image of whoever contemplates it … imposing on the viewer’s actual space and forcing a response. “(p. 102-3; emphasis added)

“In his paintings of the 1860s, Manet responds not just to the eye but to the gaze; he represented not just the hand but its creative function; he imagined not only the appearance of the body but its vitality. The body, whether nude of clothed, was rarely neutral but rather powerfully present and communicating with the viewer’s realm as well as bearing the marks of the process of its creation.
The Dead Christ with Angels is the painting in which these characteristics are perhaps most compelling.
For here the marks of a corpse coming into being within art ironically suggest the opposite processes of decay and death….The drama of life and death, creative power and inanimate substance, is represented by the hand
– the hand of Christ as represented by the painter and, as in the self-portrait, by the painter’s hand painting itself.” (p.156; emphasis added)

Three themes are suggested by Rubin:
– Manet’s motivation to present himself in the image of Christ
– the meaning of the mirror
– the role of the eye and the hand in the representation of the painter and painting.

For all three themes Rubin offers an interpretation which goes beyond the limits of this post, and I recommend Rubin for deeper insights drawing on philosophy (Schopenhauer) and psychoanalysis (Lacan).
But I would like to add some comments in view of MyManet looking through the eyes of the painter in his aim to engage the viewer:

First, Manet does not imply a direct identification – the artist Manet as God-like – but Rubin points out that Dead Christ with Angels is an “optimistic work” (p.105). The artist, the viewer, and Christ’s realistic body are sharing a rather intimate space and a close relationship in the experienced presence meaning that there is a potential for transcending suffering and being creative not only as an artist.

Second, the mirror is an important means of self-reflection, not only in the process of painting a self-portrait, but also for the reflection of one’s identity and role in life.
The mirror is not shown directly in either painting; in Figure 2, I have added a yellow frame indicating the mirror. Rubin points out that the paintings create the impression of a close distance as taken in front of a mirror.
This is obvious in case of the self-portrait but also in both paintings of Christ.
In the case of Dead Christ, the wound of Christ from the spear (under his heart) is on the wrong side – as if reflected in a mirror. Critics at Manet’s time were quick to point out this “mistake”. Manet refused to correct this, apparently because the effect of a mirror was intended.

Figure 2: Christ embodying Manet’s scheme and Study to Dead Christ with Angels (1864)

In fact, in the study (Figure2), the image is not mirrored and the wound on the “correct” side.
Since the study is not a print (where we might expect a reversed image) but in oil, Manet is experimenting again.

Another clue for the existence of a mirror is not mentioned by Rubin.
Looking closely at the toes of Christ’s foot extending toward the front, we see a strange diffuse spot reminding of the painting hand in the self-portrait (Figure 1).
The toe seems to be touching the mirror! (yellow circle in Figure 2)
In the study this detail is not indicated and the foot is not extended so far forward.
Thus, Manet made the change deliberately.

The self-reflective gaze into the mirror draws the viewer (and the painter) into the space of the painting.
At the same time, by making explicit the role of the painting as a mirror image beyond the picture plane, the painter/viewer can distance himself or herself from the image and take a fresh and objective look.
In the case of the self-portrait, we saw that the painting initiated and mediated a communication between the painter, his image and the viewer by having the painter “seeing you”. In case of Dead Christ, both painter and viewer are asked to reflect on themselves as if “seen as Christ”.

Moreover, a special effect of Dead Christ resides in the fact that Christ is not looking at the painter/viewer but presumably to God Father – though with an inward or “absorbed” gaze. The mirror supports an expectation of Christ “looking at you”, while Christ’s gaze redirects your gaze to God or the “Big Other”.
In the study (Figure 2), Christ is looking more toward the viewer establishing a direct contact in the role of the First. In the finished painting, Manet redirects the viewer’s gaze toward the body and the hands, and directs Christ’s gaze away from the viewer.

Third, the redirection of the viewer’s gaze creates a very complex situation which leads us back to Manet’s scheme. Christ looking at God Father places him into the role of the Third looking outward. The two angels are “absorbed” in mourning (yellow); perhaps the one holding Christ from the back may be seen as doubling in the role of the “Other” (light green). I prefer interpreting the angels as creating the mourning atmosphere or a “coulisse” (this effect is stronger in the study) while Christ is presented “on stage” (light middle ground).
In the case of the self-portrait, I suggested that the self in the mirror may be seen in either of the four roles of the scheme.
In the case of Christ, we might see him incorporating all four roles:

The illumination on the “stage” creates a strange depth in the painting:
The foot reaches forward into the darker frontstage (enhanced in red), while the head recedes into the darker backstage (green triangle).
The gaze of Christ is directed inward/outward relating to the external “authority” or the “Big Other” (purple circle).
For the roles of the First and the Second, we return to Rubin’s interpretation relating the painter’s eye and hand. Eyes or gazes and hands or gestures constitute for Manet the space of painting.
In the self-portrait, the eye is “seeing” and representing reality, the hand is “performing” and presenting the reality as seen by the painter.

Christ is not looking at the viewer (or painter) but reaches out with his foot which bears the mark of a wound like an eye. Similarly, the two hands are opened and presented to us with their wounds like eyes.
Christ is “facing” us with his wounds.
The “eye” on his foot takes the role of the First (red circle), the “eyes” on his hands mediate in the middle ground taking the role of the Second (blue circles) and preserving the unity of Christ’s vulnerable body.
We have seen this unifying role already in the Luncheon on the Grass, where the hand of the Second – the person to the right – is placed in the centre of the triad with an inclusive gesture.
Finally, compared with the study, Manet places Christ’s head further back into the dark and moves the head of the caring angel into the light. This supports a double role of Christ:
– as the Third, he directs his dying gaze toward God Father;
– as the “Other”, he is looking from the dark background increasing his distance from the viewer who is focusing on the illuminated dead or dying body.

We need not agree on one or the other interpretation. Clearly, Manet is creating an ambiguous space, as Rubin characterizes it, with a dynamic of intimate approach and mourning retreat, of an optimistic view of life and a process of decay and death – “the drama of life and death”(Rubin).
The point is:

While Manet’s scheme is not immediately guiding the composition, as in Christ Mocked, we still can sense its influence in the way the dynamics of eye and hand, of gazes and gestures unfold in the painting and engage the viewer into an intimate social space.
Although the “drama of life and death” is the theme, Manet does not draw us into a dramatic narrative.
Again, Manet is presenting a “moment in between” and not telling a “story”.
Still, the two paintings of Christ are loaded with emotion compared with the other paintings we have considered so far.
But, typical for Manet, the emotions appear to “arrested” like the activities.
How does this fit into his formal scheme?

See you next week!

Manet Painting Christ (P14)

By Richard Pieper

On June 25, 2021

In Edouard Manet

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!

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!

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!

The Emergence of the Scheme (P7)

By Richard Pieper

On May 6, 2021

In Edouard Manet

Manet’s scheme – the MyManet scheme – did not emerge in one creative step, but over several paintings experimenting with figures, their gazes, and their roles.
As we have seen, the scheme implies at least three figures and their gazes within the painting. Therefore, we look especially at his multi-figure paintings, and try to find elements of the emerging scheme:

Question 5: How can Velazquez – figures within – and Courbet – figures outside – be combined in a social scheme?

According to Michael Fried, the years 1862-63 saw the breakthrough of Manet’s art (1996, p.1).
After copying The Little Cavaliers (1859) and before he created The Luncheon on the Grass (1863) and Olympia (1863), Manet painted four scenes with three or more figures (excluding graphical works and sketches):

Music in the Tuileries (1862), Spanish Ballet (1862), The Old Musician (1862), and The Fishing (1863).
In Figure 1, the four paintings are shown together.

Figure 1: Four multi-figure paintings preceding the Luncheon on the Grass

Music in the Tuileries

Spanish Ballet

The Fishing

The Old Musician

What I find striking is that these painting are so different!
Would anybody (without some acquaintance with Manet) guess that they are even from the same artist?

As Fried demonstrates in detail, this is at least in part due to Manet’s attempt to integrate very different sources from past Old Masters.
In Spanish Ballet and The Old Musician, the reference to Valezquez and Spanish art is obvious.
In The Fishing, we find references to the French tradition (e.g. Watteau) but also to Rubens.
Music in the Tuileries seems to pick up The Little Cavaliers, and – assuming (wrongly) that the original was from Velazquez and that the Master pictured himself at the far left – Manet is putting himself in his place.
But citations go also across these lines e.g. with French masters also appearing in The Old Musician and Spanish influences in Music in the Tuileries.

Actually, Manet kept generations of art historians busy to find the references to past and present art and to identify persons in the painting.

While I find these discussions of sources and influences of different painting traditions very interesting in themselves, these interpretations emphasize the differences between the four paintings. Typically, Manet is described as experimenting with different styles and techniques, and often he is said to be still lacking certain skills.
What is somewhat missing – as far as I dived into the literature – are the common themes or issues guiding Manet’s exploration in these paintings. The theme of combining past and present in each painting is always acknowledged but the common themes cutting across these paintings are reduced to the development of different aspects of his painting style.
Music in the Tuileries receives in this perspective most recognition, since the painting appears to be most “modern” both in subject and in painting technique. The other three examples owe more to the past, it seems.

In Post 3, I pointed out one theme that unites Music in the Tuileries and The Fishing with Luncheon on the Grass, namely, the issue of scale. The paintings are different from Luncheon in their scale of the figures and the social and spatial relations between them, but they have in common an exploration of the effects of scale:
The Old Musician is, in this respect, comparable to the Luncheon: it shows the figures on the level of direct face-to-face interaction.
Music in the Tuileries and Spanish Ballet are like The Little Cavaliers in showing the figures lined up in a middle distance trying to keep contact with each other at least by proximity.
In The Fishing, this contact is broken or rather restricted to relations of body orientation and gestures. The grouping dissolves into a pattern of distributed small groups or individuals.

Manet does not like to paint large groups – like the traditional paintings of historical mass scenes of war or festivities. To connect larger groups in a composition, the painting needs a “story” uniting the figures – Manet avoids telling stories. The number of people produces problems, when you want each individual to play a specific role. It becomes even more of a problem when each person in the painting is assumed to have his or her own “story”. This is especially the case in a group portrait, where we expect that each individual has a distinct personality and a contact to the viewer – as in the typical portrait.

We can see the problem in the Spanish Ballet.
Manet invited the group into the studio to make a group portrait, and we can imagine how he found everybody looking at him. This was not the social situation, he wanted – we can feel the distance he created between the group and himself. As a result, he focused on two couples, dispersed the group, placed some dancers in a darker background, and tried to achieve unity in the composition by spatial rather than social relations – and he never tried to paint a situation like this again!
I do not think that Manet was incompetent to paint large groups or group portraits. He was familiar e.g. with the Dutch tradition of group portraits, and he found innovative solutions whenever he wanted them. But his interest in the direct relationship between the viewer and the action “on stage” is impossible or missing in those situations.
So, Spanish Ballet demonstrated for Manet that his concept of pictorial space – the puppet theatre – is not in alignment with a viewer facing a crowd or a larger group facing the viewer.
This, indirectly, supports the view of MyManet. (It also tends to contradict Fried’s concept of “facingness” of the whole picture as a central aspect of Manet’s art.)

At first glance, Music in the Tuileries is a counter example to the point just made – that Manet does not like crowds. But a closer look shows that Manet emphasizes a series of distinct figures, small groups, and even specific faces lined up from left to right. We see a series of individuals, and many of them have been identified as members of his social circle. The art historian Niels Sandblad (1954) is right, I think, when he draws a close connection with The Little Cavaliers. Most figures in the crowd are not more than an atmospheric background – except a few figures (highlighted by red circles in Figure 1) stand out.

Interestingly, the painting is structured by the trees into three sections.
Only in the left section, perhaps 4-5 figures look towards the viewer, most prominently one of the ladies (First).
She catches our attention and induces us to “read” the painting from left to right – just like in The Little Cavaliers.
The centre breaks this move – by a deceptive perspective deep into the park – but it is puzzling with its diffuseness of figures except for the strangely enhanced gentleman (Second) looking down at a sitting woman and for the “absorbed” children playing at the front edge of the painting (or “stage”).
To the right, again one gentleman (Third) stands out greeting somebody outside the painting lifting his top hat – taken directly from The Little Cavaliers.
Finally, a strangely enlarged gentleman (a reversed “other”) with a grey top hat is looking toward the back.

I have emphasized the references to the diagrams to highlight the “testing” of roles occurring in the painting.
As Sandblad sees it, Manet is distributing a series of “faces” that are “flat, unmodulated areas on the surface” replacing “reality with a kind of sign-language” (p. 63), an element showing an unusual “respect for the pictorial surface … most remarkable in the whole painting” (p.23). Sandblad detects here first traces of symbolism modifying Manet’s realism (distinct from current naturalism or emerging impressionism).
I would agree with him that Manet is presenting here a hidden constructed scheme arranging symbols of faces and gazes. And that this is not to deny that the painting is also the first “modern” painting of leisure activities of the urban bourgeoisie, as many art historians point out (like Herbert 1988).
But Music in the Tuileries can also be seen as testing elements of the scheme. However, the model built on The Little Cavaliers turns out to be an alternative second scheme for the middle range of the scale. We will encounter it again in other paintings (like Masked Ball at the Opera 1873).

Considering The Fishing in this perspective, it shows dispersed groups and individuals with a combination of social relations across spatial distances in a rather free composition. This arrangement should also be regarded as an alternative third scheme for the large distant range of the scale (like View of the World Fair 1867).
As I suggested in a previous post (P3), Manet has, obviously, not only one scheme for his compositions.
But MyManet tries to demonstrate the impact of a specific scheme – realized in Luncheon on the Grass – on other paintings beyond this special case. We will see this influence even in paintings following alternative compositional schemes.

So, let us take a closer look at the remaining fourth picture: The Old Musician.

As Fried tells us, this painting is a perfect starting point for analysing the way Manet is citing and borrowing from other paintings – an El Dorado for art historians. It is also a great example for the way Manet is combining freely – like in a collage – elements for his own purposes. He is not copying.

I have engaged in some own collage making. In Figure 2, I combined The Old Musician with the figures from Courbet’s painting representing the roles outside the painting. Although not exactly, since I mirrored the inner group of three figures, and added some red ellipses and a face diagram to enhance the critical elements.

Figure 2: Combining The Old Musician with Courbet’s roles outside the painting

The diagram fits to the emerging scheme almost perfectly. We see all five roles outside the painting and their corresponding “partners” within:

The triad – First, Second, and Third in the middle (with Second and Third switching positions).
The girl – inspired by the boy? – looking from the left like another “represented” viewer.
The “other” – looking from the back; quite tellingly, he is The Absynth Drinker from Manet’s own painting (1959), thus, Manet is citing himself as the “other”.
The “authority”– the philosopher or the representative of society and tradition is cut off by the right frame.
And we find a little still life marking the front stage.
The “absorbed” figure is eliminated in this case; we have kind of an “absorbed half-figure” represented by the cut-off philosopher.

The experts agree that
“simplification”, “sincerity”, and a “new type of connection with the beholder”,
besides a “resistance to available modes of pictorial understanding” (Fried p.21-23), is characteristic for Manet.
So, Manet, looking at the painting as his own first viewer and critic, might have reached some conclusions:

For simplicity, the girl as a “represented” viewer is not really needed in a generic scheme realizing a new type of connection with the beholder. A painting surely should allow for additional figures, but they may vary with the subject.

In communicating the relationship with the “authority”, the Third has to be credible as connecting to an agent outside the picture space and not e.g. day dreaming. A boy, not even looking at the “philosopher”, may be not convincing and evoking other interpretations e.g. related to his youth or social class.

Placing the “authority” clearly outside the painting (like Velazquez) may be the better solution for the generic scheme. Although, depending on the subject, strong clues for the implication of “authority” may be required (like Velazquez representing the royal couple in the mirror of Las Meninas).

Citing the painter himself as the “other” is a nice ironic touch, but for a generic scheme it will not always work .
The “other” looking from the back should perhaps be less dominant.
Moreover, like in the lithograph with Polichinelle peeking out from the coulisse (Post 2), it might be better to imply the “other” rather than representing the figure in the painting e.g. by moving the background forward and making room for imagining a social space “behind the stage”.

So, in the perspective of a sincere, new scheme presenting the “painting of painting” – including roles inside and outside the painting – we should focus on the essential elements.

Now, Manet needs a subject that allows for the realization of the consolidated scheme, but also for his way of mediating between the past and the present while critically and ironically distancing himself from both.
The nude is clearly the “classical” subject which – transposed into the context of modern life – offers all the possibilities for confronting existing traditions in art and society.
The paradigm of the puppet theatre provides not only a vision for the composition, it clearly feeds into all ironic and critical intentions of the project.

So, the subject will be a Luncheon on the Grass with a female nude accompanied by the three additional figures required by the scheme!

See you next week!

Beyond the Viewer: Who is Looking? (P6)

By Richard Pieper

On April 29, 2021

In Edouard Manet

In the previous post, we distinguished 5 positions inside the painting.
(see Figure 1 in Post 5)
Now, we consider the positions outside the painting:
Who is looking?

Or as the question in Installation My Manet has it:

Question 4: What kind of social roles are involved outside the painting?

For the answer, we turn to Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877) :

Figure 1: Gustave Courbet The Painter’s Studio – A Real Allegory (1855)
(with red ellipses added)

Unlike Vermeer, who depicted only himself and the model (see Post 1), Courbet shows himself in a crowded studio with all the members of society relevant for his realistic painting – with himself in the centre!

In the centre, the nude model looks over his shoulder – although he is painting not her, but a scene from his home province. Well, a nude is always helpful to get (male) attention, and the nude signals serious painting.
The little boy with the cat is allowed to take a closer look, and seems to admire the artist more than the painting.

To the left, we see members of society – both poor and rich (the sitting man with the dogs may be Napoleon III).

To the right, members of the art community are gathered: friends, writers, artists, art lovers, critics, and financiers (at the right edge, reading a book and not interested: Baudelaire, the realist writer and Manet’s friend).

Notably, only two people – besides the inner (red) circle around Courbet – are really interested in the painting (marked with red ellipses).
To the right, there is a woman looking over her shoulder from behind;
to the left, and at the very edge, we find an old Rabbi or philosopher observing the scene.
The others, presumably, play a role in the allegory of Courbet’s life, but they seem to be present just to support the Grand Ego of the painter.
Thus, if we count only the interested persons, we find 5 positions and social roles outside the painting:

The painter
The painter is clearly shown as independent, creative and skilled to transform ideas with paint into a visual object. There is a personal life depicted leading Courbet from his rural provincial region to the centre of French culture and society.
Painting is shown in a social context, but the context is not really involved in the process. The painter is the centre of the activity.
With Manet, the painter is present and active, but not represented.

The model
In Courbet’s painting, the model has a curiously passive role standing behind the painter, while he is painting his own provincial background.
As we will find, the model has a crucial and active role for Manet. In Luncheon on the Grass, the model has direct eye contact not only with the viewer, but also with Manet, the painter.
Manet preferred models interested in his art (family members, friends, supporters) and artists like his favourite model Victorine Meurent (who not only modelled but painted herself) or his friend and painter Berthe Morisot.
We will return to the relationship of Manet and his models.

The viewer
Courbet clearly takes pride in collecting a large group of viewers around him – he was a great painter, but also a great marketer of his art and engaged in public life. Paintings are created to be seen! And for Courbet, the painting can and should talk to the viewer, even presenting an allegory of a painter’s life.
For Manet, the communication of ideas through painting is a much more subtle thing. The viewer has a role in understanding and interpreting the ideas of a painting, but Manet is not telling the viewer a “story”.
In the reflection on the “painting of painting”, the painter is his own first viewer. Other viewers may be present on a visit to the studio or are an anticipated audience (if only in the museum), but they do not enter the painting.
Still, their viewpoint in front of the painting plays an important role in the composition, and their view, their anticipated reaction, and their role as customers influence the painting process.

The critic or the “other”
Members of the art community, critical evaluators including the artist’s friends, are vital because they provide the examples, role models, and feedback for the painter.
Courbet sought independence in his Realism from traditional Romantic schools early in his career – perhaps, this is why the group of artists and critics in the painting is somewhat distanced to the side. Still, he was well aware of the importance of the art community for his work.
Manet – besides attending for six years the art school of Thomas Couture – also was an integrated member of the art community, although in his own circle. Artists and critics were frequently visiting in his studio and he visited them in return.
While a painter is foremost his own critic, “others” taking a different perspective “from the back” were not only a virtual, but an actual presence in his painting practice. Charles Baudelaire, for instance, is said to have visited Manet almost daily. In later years, Stephane Mallarmé was another friend, art critic, and regular visitor.

The “Authority” or Big Other
Courbet does not include a reference to art traditions or a gaze outside the painting to any authority, he paints himself as the authority.
Manet valued highly the tradition and institution of art, and sought the recognition by the Academy of Fine Arts – eventually to present his art in the Louvre Museum. He initiated a “revolution” in art, but only because he sincerely pursued his own way of painting, not respecting established norms just because they were established. Unlike his Impressionist friends, he always tried to mediate between tradition and innovation.
He never founded an own school but experimented with different styles and built bridges between schools, past and present. The Great Masters – like Diego Velazquez, Antoine Watteau, Titian, and Frans Hals – gave him guidance. But he did not follow them.
Perhaps most telling of his independent orientation toward a more abstract ideal or “authority” of painting is the fact that he never really joined the impressionists, although he kept close contact with their community.
And he never styled himself as a genius transgressing the achievements of his predecessors (like Courbet). But he created his personal style, and art historians to this day have problems with assigning him to any particular “-ism”.
Velasquez was his idol all through his career – that is why I chose to take the Master’s silhouette as an icon for the “authority” in the diagrams.
I also like the term “Big Other” for this external referent, because it eases the connections between the “other” – as a different perspective by others in the social context – and the “Big Other” – as an authoritative value reference in art.
Different Interpreters of Manet’s art invoke different “authorities” (e.g. philosophical, historical, psychoanalytical, political, or even ethical frames of reference) and propose their relevance for understanding his art.
At this point, we just introduce this distinction, and will discuss different interpretations when they become relevant for understanding Manet’s paintings.

Now we can combine the positions or roles in our scheme: (updating the version of Figure 4 in Post 2)

Figure 2: Positions and social roles inside and outside the “painting of painting”

The diagram shows again the painting with its “stage” between front space and back space. The triad takes a prominent role within the painting with the onlooking other (green) and the absorbed other (yellow) playing supportive roles. The gazes of the figures create a social space within and are reaching out to the agents outside the painting. They relate the represented social reality within the painting to an unrepresented social reality outside.

The diagram differs clearly from the scheme for Vermeer, because it distinguishes a plurality of positions beyond the painter, the model, and the unrepresented viewer.
It is also different from Courbet and Velazquez and their depiction of the “painting of painting”, since they represent the painter within the picture.
Courbet, moreover, does not include the First – the direct contact with the viewer – or the Third – the gaze to an authority, unlike Velazquez.
As we have seen in Music in the Tuileries and The Fishing (Post 3) , Manet does include in some cases himself in a painting, but not in a prominent role. He appears as part of the depicted theme: as member of the art community enjoying their time in the park, or: as member of the future family (since The Fishing has been interpreted as a promise and announcement of his marriage with Suzanne, the mother of his son Leon depicted on the other side of the river).

The diagram, obviously, anticipates the composition of Luncheon on the Grass. We just have to drop the absorbed figure from the scheme. This raises the question, whether the scheme is only an abstract model of this specific painting. The thesis of MyManet proposes more, namely,
that the diagram is a generic scheme for other paintings, too, and that

the Luncheon on the Grass should be read as a programmatic statement about the “painting of painting”.

To support this thesis, we will look at a painting that precedes the Luncheon, and which MyManet understands as a first attempt by Manet to combine insights from his study of Velazquez and Courbet (and other paintings) in a programmatic way.
The painting is The Old Musician (1862), created just a year before the Luncheon and considered by many art historians as basic for Manet’s art in the early 1860ies.

See you next week!

System of Faces and Gazes (P5)

By Richard Pieper

On April 22, 2021

In Edouard Manet

Velazquez has demonstrated for us (in the previous post) that there is a range of different directions the gazes of persons will take – and how these gazes structure the social space within the painting and with “unrepresented” persons outside.
Time to have a more systematic look at these gazes and their meaning.
In some cases, the proper classification may be disputed, but this is not relevant for the following.
Since not all faces or gazes appeared in all three examples and some appeared more than once, we might ask:

Question 3: How many gazes or persons are needed as a minimum?

Or to be more specific:
If the “painting of painting” is the theme, how many and what kind of gazes are needed within the painting to communicate with a certain number and kind of persons assumed outside the painting?
The answer to this question will lead us into some rather theoretical territory – so, I hope for your patience, and hold on tight!
In Figure 1 we find an overview of the faces in the diagrams (see Post 4):

Figure 1: Formal positions and faces in Velazquez’ paintings

Actually, the overview presents not all the cases we might like to distinguish in MyManet:

The triad of persons, which are at the centre of Luncheon on the Grass (Figure 2), is not an obvious element in Velazquez’ examples. The triad comprises a gaze (red) to the viewer (the nude), a gaze (blue) to the members of the group (man to the right), and this strange gaze (purple) directed outside the painting (second man).
All three gazes appear in each example of Velazquez, but not in a specific arrangement and they are combined with other gazes.
In MyManet, I want to identify the members of the triad with specific names and formal positions:

The First
The First is making the essential contact with the viewer outside the painting.
As in The Drinkers, this may be more than one person. But then we may conclude that this is suggested by the theme – the joyful group – rather than needed in a more general scheme.
In The Little Cavaliers, we find also two Firsts (red) in the centre groups engaging the viewer. A third person to the right, looking towards the viewer, may be gazing toward the viewer accidentally, not really trying to engage the viewer.
In other paintings, we will find more of these “accidental Firsts”, especially, in paintings with larger groups. In some cases, the person looking toward the viewer will be so “distant” in the middle- or background that the engaging effect does not arise.
A special case is the viewer entering – as it were – the painting and appearing as a backfigure in the foreground (see Post 3). We might say that engaging the viewer is so effective that the viewer steps into the scene and takes the role of the First. An additional First is not needed to achieve the engagement.
In terms of Fried’s “facingness”, the picture as a whole has attracted full attention.
In a diagram we could depict the backfigure as a First (red) from the back (without eyes or face).
For reasons discussed below, I prefer to show the viewer as backfigure within the painting to keep the role of the First distinct. Manet does not use backfigures in his paintings. (With rare exceptions e.g. in the Masked Ball at the Opera with a Polichinelle from the back appearing on the left side.)

The Second
The Second has the role of creating the social space by looking at the other members of the group.
There may be more than one group, like in The Little Cavaliers, so we expect one of them in each group and social space. In some cases, the Second may be seen from the back (no eyes or face), but then we interpret the position to be “accidentally” turned away from the viewer. The position is not specifically calling for the identification of the viewer to take this position and look at the scene through the eyes of the Second.

The Third
The Third is acknowledging the existence of some external “authority” with his or her gaze.
The Third has a role that is crucial for Manet’s scheme – and it is, I think, one of the reasons why Manet is admiring Velazquez.
The best example, among the three paintings from Velazquez above, is Las Meninas with the Master himself (and some of the other figures) looking at the royal couple entering the scene. As indicated previously, all interpreters agree that the painting is celebrating the royal institution, not just the royal couple. And we should add that the dominant figure of the painter himself also aims to emphasize the importance of painting as a cultural institution, not only Velazquez’ personal success as royal painter.
This reference to an external “authority”, we see also in The Drinkers in the gaze of Bacchus; it is not so obvious in The Little Cavaliers, where the gazes (purple) out of the painting may be “accidental” to persons which just happen to be outside the picture frame.

The triad – First, Second and Third – is an essential element of MyManet, i.e. my view of the hidden meaning in Manet’s compositions.
It is not the only one, as we see shortly. But I like to remind you of the etching of the puppet theatre – shown already in Post 2 – where the triad is prominently on stage. (There is a fourth figure, perhaps Polichinelle subdued by the police officer? And there is the cat, which we meet again later!)
There is a painting by Velazquez focusing on just the triad (and a little monkey!) which is shown next to the Luncheon on the Grass in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The triad in Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass and in Velazquez’ Three Musicians (1618)

We return to this triad when we discuss the Luncheon in more detail.
Here, I want to point out that the triad can be understood in social theory as a basic social unit:
The first-person represents the subjective perspective of the focused individual, the second-person is the partner in a dialog acknowledging the mutual presence and communicating back to the first-person (and perhaps to others), and the third-person is a participant and/or observer depending on the nature of the interaction.
The sociologist Georg Simmel – mentioned before – was the first to analyse systematically the formal position of the “Third” and its different roles (e.g. as mediating referee or as dividing and dominating the others). He demonstrates that it is the triad which essentially constitutes the basic social unit, because it is the triadic relation in which we experience that a social interaction – like a dialogue – can happen without us as first-person!
There is an objective social reality in front of us which does not depend on our subjective view or any specific individual or viewer. Children learn this around the age of three years (Tomasello 2019).

In MyManet, we assume that Manet had at least an intuitive understanding of this social phenomenon.

That is why he chose three persons in the centre moving the fourth to the back. Moreover, Manet saw that this triad had to situate the activity of painting in a social context:

The First engages the viewer/painter, the Second establishes the social reality of the group in front of us, the Third acknowledges the wider institutional context, the society, or the “world” around the painting.

And Manet reflects in his painting on this reality in a distinctly modern way. He keeps a reflective distance putting this reality “on stage” where he can manipulate it as the painter-puppeteer.
We can understand now why Manet avoids the backfigure. Letting the viewer enter the “stage” as a backfigure would destroy this reflective distance and make it difficult to control the level and the kind of engagement between the First and the viewer.
The social and philosophical analysis of this social reality “on stage” is available only a generation after Manet.
But he experienced already the impact of modernity on his own life and his relations to others, and his literary friends (Baudelaire, Zola, Mallarmé) described it in their novels.

The “Other”
Another crucial element is the figure of the “other” (green) representing an outsider view.
The “other” is placed in parenthesis because it is a rather complex figure with many meanings in the literature, and often put into parenthesis in other texts.
Let us try to clarify its roles and meanings:

On a first level,
the “other” plays just a role within the painting. While the Second (blue) creates the social space by looking at other participants from within, the “other” confirms their social space from outside.
All three paintings by Velazquez show these figures. Especially in The Drinkers, we see the central group surrounded by onlookers. In The Little Cavaliers, the “other” is connecting the frontstage with the groups in the middle.
We could treat the “other” figure as a potential Second – like the figure in the back to the right in The Drinkers, who is communicating with the figure within the group and might be joining as the activity evolves.
Similarly, we could speak of the Second as being the “other” for the First and Third. Just consider how Manet – in Luncheon on the Grass – moves the Second to the right side of the painting looking onto the other two!
In a more general usage, the partners of a first-person in social interaction are often referred to as the “others”, no matter how close or distant the relationship.
In MyManet, I prefer to make a clear distinction between the members of a triad (or ingroup forming a social space) and outsiders.
In the case of The Drinkers, the onlooker to the right – presumably a beggar trying to get some coins or a drink – might even be a total stranger to the group. Again, Simmel has taught us to understand the special role of a “stranger”, especially in the context of modern urban life.
On this level, the “other” is characterized by a cultural role:
the individualism of modern urban life makes us partially “strangers” to each other. We must come back to this meaning of the “other”, when discussing Manet as a “painter of modern life”.

On another level,
the “other” is looking from outside of the picture frame, as it were. Discussing Caspar David Friedrich’s Romantic painting, we saw that the viewer might – in a way – enter the painting from the front to the point that the backfigure appears within the painting.
Similarly, a person with a different perspective – say, a critic or the “alter ego” of the painter – may enter the painting from the back and appear in the role of an onlooker.
The “classical case”, as I pointed out, is the person in the background of Velazquez’ Las Meninas!

On yet another level,
the concept of “other” has a background in social philosophy (Sartre, Levinas) or psychoanalysis (Lacan). In this case, we have to consider a “deep structure” of social reality – either in society or in the personality – which confronts the self as the “other” – as a stranger to itself – with effects of alienation.
Some art historians apply this level in their interpretation, but they reach beyond the realism guiding Manet in his paradigm of a puppet theatre. (We will see a “depth” in Manet’s realism when we discuss the role of the “uncanny” in a later post.) The concept of “other” assumed in MyManet looks at painting as a social activity, where the participants and “others” are taking roles either within or around the painting as an installation in an imagined setting. We will say more on “deep structures” discussing other views on Manet.

Again, we should distinguish the role of “accidental other” from the “other” in a special compositional role related to the outside.
In The Little Cavaliers and in The Drinkers, the onlookers (green) support social spaces and the wider setting within the painting. The role and the number of onlookers is determined by the theme of the painting; they help to create unity in the composition.
In Las Meninas, however, the “other” in the background clearly communicates also with the outside of the painting. As I suggested in the previous post, the figure in the door in the background is about to “leave the painting through the coulisse”. He is in a double role: playing a role in the scene and representing an alternative view or perspective on the entire scene, including the space in front of the painting or the audience in terms of the puppet theatre.

A special case, again, is the “unrepresented other”. As we will see later, in some of Manet’s paintings the “other” is not depicted within the painting – as in Luncheon on the Grass – but rather implied and deliberately hidden “behind the coulisse”. The “classical” case is certainly Olympia, a painting he is already working on at the same time.

The Absorbed
Finally, we find figures (yellow) in the paintings who focus on something other than a person within the painting or whose direction of gaze is undetermined. Following Fried, we could say that all persons not directly engaging with the viewer are “absorbed” within the painting. Absorption would be the normal case (with the exception of portraits, where the sitter is typically looking at the viewer/painter). In MyManet, we distinguish more roles within the painting, because Manet uses their gazes to engage with different roles inside and outside.

Again, it is meaningful to distinguish between absorbed persons and “accidentally” absorbed persons.
In some cases, rather isolated persons are part of the theme; in other cases, it might simply be difficult to determine who a person is attending to. But in The Drinkers, the absorbed guy (yellow) in the centre plays an essential role.
In Figure 3, we see two persons absorbed in a book or in their own thoughts. Especially in religious themes, say, a praying monk, it might be more adequate to treat this absorbed figure as a Third, since the figure is obviously “looking beyond the painting”, perhaps with closed eyes as in Figure 4.

Figure 3: On the Beach – Suzanne and Eugene Manet at Berck (1873)

Figure 4: Monk at Prayer (1865)

As indicated in Figure 1 above, the persons in the painting will take their places either in a social space defined by their gazes and gestures or in a wider setting. The picture frame or the “stage” will delimit what part of the implied environment is actually visible.
Beyond this visible environment, we have to imagine the setting or installation of the painting with actors engaged in the experience of the work of art.
In MyManet, we assume that the borders between the setting, the stage or frame, the environment, and the installation of the painting can be quite fluid – just like in the reality of a puppet theatre performance.

So far, we have identified 5 positions within the painting,
although the absorbed persons seem to depend on the specific theme and will be only “additional” elements in a more general scheme.
The next step is to take a closer look at the formal positions populating the environment of the painting.

So, meet you next week!