How are you?
On every Thursday,
I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the
title “Interesting
Art Stories”.
The 38th story for
this week is “Le
Déjeuner sur l'herbe” by Édouard Manet.
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| Édouard Manet |
“Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe” originally titled “Le Bain” is an oil painting by Édouard Manet on a large canvas (208 cm × 264.5 cm) completed in 1863. This painting depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather enjoying a picnic with two fully dressed men in the countryside.
Manet exhibited this painting,
which was rejected by the Salon in 1863, at the Salon des Refusés in the same
year, where the painting provoked a great debate with the public criticism. The
painting is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and a smaller, earlier version
(89.5 cm x 116.5 cm) is in the Courtauld Gallery in London.
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| Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Édouard Manet (Courtauld) |
Despite the mediocre
subject, Manet deliberately used a large canvas for this paintings, generally
used for historical, religious and mythological subjects.
Manet often used real models
and people he knew for his paintings. The female nude in this painting is
presumed to be Victorine Meurent, the woman who became his favorite and
frequently modeled, who later was the subject of “Olympia.” The man on the
right is believed to be a combination of his two brothers, Eugène and Gustave
Manet, while the other man is believed to be his brother-in-law, Dutch sculptor
Ferdinand Leenhoff.
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| Portrait of Victorine Meurent, Édouard Manet |
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| Olympia, Édouard Manet |
Like many of his works,
including "Olympia," Manet's paintings reflects his study about the
old masters, such as the disposition of figures derived from "The Judgment
of Paris", which is Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving after a drawing by
Raphael.
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| Judgement of Paris, Marcantonio after Raphael |
Scholars also refer to two
works as important precedents of this painting: “The Pastoral Concert” by
Giorgione (or Titian) and “The Tempest” by Giorgione.
“The
Tempest”, featuring a fully dressed man and a nude woman in a rural area,
offers an important precedent for this painting, and “The Pastoral Concert”, featuring
two dressed men seated in a rural setting with two undressed women, is much
more similar to Manet's painting than “The Tempest”. Also, since the “The
Pastoral Concert” is a collection of the Louvre in Paris, it is very likely
that Manet had seen and studied the work.
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| The Tempest, Giorgione |
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| The Pastoral Concert, Giorgione or Titian |
A connection between this painting and Jean Antoine Watteau’s "La Partie Carrée" was also argued among scholars. The woman bathing alone in Manet's painting is also very similar to the woman in Watteau's “La Villageoise”, and the possibility that Manet adopted her pose in Watteau’s work is more clearly seen in a sketch before creating this painting.
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| La Partie Carrée, Antoine Watteau |
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| La Villageoise, Antoine Watteau |
There are some works
inspired by this painting as follows:
1. Claude Monet's “Le
Déjeuner sur l'herbe” was inspired by this painting.
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| Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Claude Monet |
2. French painter James
Tissot’s “La Partie Carrée” seems to be a non-nude version of this painting.
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| La Partie carrée, James Tissot |
3. Paul Cézanne painted the
same theme in his “Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe”, at the Musée de l'Orangerie in
Paris.
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| Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Paul Cézanne |
4. Picasso adopted some of
Manet's techniques, including the development of the nude in the foreground in
“Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.”
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| Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Pablo Picasso |
5. Paul Gauguin may have
been inspired by this painting in his “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where
are we going?”
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| Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, Paul Gauguin |
6. German painter Max Ernst
painted a parody version of this painting named “Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre” in
1944.
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| Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre, Max Ernst |
7. This painting inspired
1959 film of the same name by Jean Renoir.
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| Film poster "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe", Jean Renoir |
8. French artist Alain
Jacquet copied this painting in 1964 in his “Déjeuner sur l'herbe.”
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| Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Alain Jacquet |
9. British New Wave band Bow
Wow Wow copied this painting in the cover photo of their albums “See Jungle!
See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!” and “The Last
of the Mohicans.”
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| Album "See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!", Bow Wow Wow |
Thank you.
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