JOURNAL ARCHIVES

SUMMER 2008

WATERSHED ART

Vertumnus: Portrait of Rudolph II (Giuseppe Arcimboldo)

Nude descending a staircase, No. 2 (Marcel Duchamp)

The kiss (Gustav Klimt)

Luncheon on the grass (Édouard Manet)

Olympia (Édouard Manet)

The scream (Edvard Munch)

Impression, Sunrise (Claude Monet)

The sleeping gypsy (Henri Rousseau)

Carnation Lily, Lily Rose (John Singer Sargent)

The girl with the peaches: portrait of Vera Mamontova (Valentin Serov)

Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte (Georges Seurat)

The Arnolfini Marriage (Jan Van Eyck)

 

 

SUMMER 2008

LUNCHEON ON THE GRASS (ÉDOUARD MANET)

Luncheon on the grass (Le dejeuner sur l'herbe). Édouard Manet. 1863. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France Though Édouard Manet never enjoyed popular acceptance and acclaim as an artist, his early masterworks, Olympia and Luncheon in the grass, were a cultural watershed that marked the advent of Modern Art and laid the groundwork for the Impressionistic movement. Both works also ignited a furious public outcry which prompted Manet to lament: The insults rain down on me like hail. Modern art historians, attempting to explain the furor over these two paintings, look to their cultural context. During the 1860's, although it was common practice for Victorian men to seek paid sexual services, it was quite another for them to be confronted with it. One major reason Luncheon in the grass was so controversial was that many interpreted the scene as referencing the Bois de Boulogne, a large Parisian park. In 1863, when the painting was on exhibition, the Bois de Boulogne was a well-known site for prostitution. For the Parisians, it was one thing to know about the sexual activities in that park, but it was quite another to publicly reveal it. In their eyes, Manet was breaking a closely held sexual taboo. Notes Luncheon on the grass has its source in Judgment of Paris by Marcantonio Raimondi, designed by Raphael (1510-20).