Art Collage JANG: Interesting Art Stories: 75. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Édouard Manet, ACJ Art Academy

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Interesting Art Stories: 75. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Édouard Manet, ACJ Art Academy

How are you?

Currently, I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art Stories”.

The 75th story is “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” by Édouard Manet.

Self-Portrait with Palette, Édouard Manet
(1878–79)

“A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” is Édouard Manet's last major painting. Painted in 1882 and exhibited at the Paris Salon of that year, this painting depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris. The painting belonged to Manet's close friend, composer Emmanuel Chabrier, hung over his piano and is now in the Courtauld Gallery in London.

The Folies-Bergere (2013)

Courtauld Gallery

The detailed depiction of a modern scene demonstrates Manet's dedication and commitment to Realism.

Manet used a mirror in this painting and placed the bartender woman, in the center of the painting, who appears to have a conversation with a gentleman on the right. However, in 2000, to recreate this scene as painted by Manet, a photograph taken from the perspective of a staged reconstruction was shown.

According to this reconstruction, what many people thought the bartender woman and the gentleman were talking turned out to be a visual trick. In other words, based on the painter, since this gentleman must be standing to the left of the painter, outside the painting area, who is painting in the front, he must be far from the bartender, not standing directly in front of her.

Also, from the point of view of the observer, this observer should be standing closer to the bar and to the right than the gentleman in the painting. This appearance characterizes Manet, who has been criticized by critics for ignoring perspective, as it is an unusual departure from the perspective point of view.

The mirror in this painting also appears in Diego Velázquez's masterpiece "Las Meninas", who was a painter Manet admired.

Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez (1656)

The bartender woman in the painting is a real person, known as Suzon, who worked at the Folies-Bergère in the early 1880s.

Other notables include the pair of feet in green shoes in the upper left-hand corner, which belong to a trapeze artist who is performing from the restaurant's ceiling.

Also, from the red triangle on the label on the depicted beer bottles, it can be seen that it is a “Bass Pale Ale,” and the emphasis on the English beer brand instead of the German beer can be interpreted as evidence of anti-German sentiment that arose in France after the Franco-Prussian War.