I) ManetA) The Old Musician, 18621) Realism: a painting of modern life rather than literature or history2) Details of the painting serving as an encyclopedia of other (past) paintings3) Painterly paintingB) Interesting problems in his earliest work1) Copying the art of the past contracts his interest in realism2) All the genres come togethera) Is he calling criticism to them? Is he painting about the techniques of painting?II) Modernism turns on it’s own language and calls itself into question1) Self-consciousa) Flatness of painting—NOT an illusion2) Related to “art for art’s sake”3) NOT temporal in natureCurrent LectureI) ManetB) Why is he positioned as the first modernist?1) The Old Musician, 1862a) A series of marginalized figured of all agesi) Non-wealthy subjectsb) Portrayed on the outskirts of a space (landscape?)i) It is also a non-space that is poorly defined2) Realism: a painting of modern life rather than literature or history3) New ways to paint that would distinguish himself from and critique the methods of the official academy4) Details serving as an encyclopedia of other (past) paintingsa) Set of leaves at the top left which forces the perspective of the depth  taken directly from Velazquez’s Los Borrachos (1629)b) The same character featured in Manet’s painting as a child from Watteau’s Gilles (1719)c) Interesting because these details are not borrowed from paintings which feature similar themes to his owni) Self-consciousness about his medium of painting  it becomes a painting about painting by uniting all of the schools and several past worksd) Painterly paintingi) Color and looseness of the paintii) Effects of light and shadow as opposed to lineiii) Embrace the effects of the purely optical and visual5) The Absinthe Drinker (1858)—the same figure as featured in The Old Musiciana) Raggid clothes with a dandy-ish top hatb) One foot slightly off the groundi) He is in a stance of instability6) The Ragpicker (1869)a) Homeless figure; someone who wanders the world picking up discarded objects and reuses or re-sells them  sounds like what Manet has been doing with his paintings thus fari) If Manet is sighting himself in his work now, does he view himself as one of the great painters?ii) Manet was not attempting to create a coherent message, he was trying to create a message of incoherenceC) Interesting problems in his earliest work1) He was deeply involved in copying the art of the past (the typical method of teaching in the past)a) Seems to precisely contract his interest in realismb) What if he was trying to cast down the tradition? Discontinuity and incoherenceIII) More worksA) Dejeneuer sur l’herbe, Manet (1863)1) Rejected by the Academy for the Salon; the French Government created the “Salon of the Refused”2) Public scandala) Technique: loosely brushed paint application, rejection of the academic skills of finish—brush strokes can still be seenb) Based directly on past works of arti) From Raphael’s “The Judgment of Paris” (3 bodies from the right side—NOT the key players)c) His favorite model is nude posed next to his brother and brother-in-law who are fully clothed in modern garbi) Split between the genders and between the classical and modern ideasii) Myths and moderns are spending time together?3) Influencesa) Dete Champetre, Titian (1508)i) More painterly painting than the artists who are more associated with Rome – this was from the North of Italy4) All the genres come togethera) What is the meaning here? Is he calling criticism to them? Is he painting about the techniques of painting?5) If this is the beginning, it is so because it turns on it’s own language and draws attention to thosea) Draws it’s language into questioni) Self-consciousii) Related to “art for art’s sake”b) Tear down what is not neededc) Attends to what only painting can do and can do most properlyd) Modernist painting is NOT about duration in the way that other forms of art arei) Visual art takes place instantaneouslyii) Tiny bird in flight can be seen almost inconsequentially painted at the top center of the canvase) Pressure on the language of the bodyi) Flatness of the body in Vicorine’s breast and back and hipii) The elbow is the opposite, jutting out towards the vieweriii) Manet’s bodies embrace contradictionB) Portrait of M. and Mme, Manet (1860)1) Play with gazesa) The dissociation with lookingC) Nymph Surprised, Manet (1861)1) Playing on Susanna and the Elders2) Manet rids his painting of the narrative trackers (the old men) and features only the young womana) This creates a dynamic of the viewers as participants in the story; the viewers are the old men—our gaze takes on a very important role and creates confrontation (we have now been seen seeing)D) Olympia, Manet (1863)1) Scandalous relationship to the bodya) Flatness of the breastsb) Dimensionality of the hand—confronting the viewerc) The body exists at two extremes at once (illusion and disillusion)2) The pillow doesn’t appear to recede into the illusion of space, but is laid fatly on the canvas3) Bisecting of white and black, dark and light, human and animal4) Gazesa) The white woman and the black cat5) Citation of past artworksa) Venus of Urbino, Titian (1538)i) Same body positionii) Borrowed composition with bisection done with a curtain behind the head of the woman6) Is this a scene from modern life? If so, it is a scene of prostitution confronting her client rather than a viewer or art—are we the client of prostitution? The trading of money for artwork.7) Foreground vs. background issuesa) Perspectival space crumbles, two dimensionality of the canvas spaceE) The Balcony, Manet (1868)1) About urban/modern life in Paris2) Why are the figures so dissociated from each other?F) Gare St. Lazare, Manet (1872)G) Argenteuil, Manet (1874)H) A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, Manet (1881)1) One of the last of his career2) Barmaid meets our gaze and looks away from our gaze at the same momenta) Language of gazes in contradiction that embrace incoherence and visual breakdownI) Portrait of Zacharie1) Uses the (previously unused) pieces from Titian’s Venus in the background of this paintingJ) The Birth of Venus, Cabanel (1863)1) Dressed in the language of the mythology, of the classicalK) Nymphs and Satyr, William Adolphe Bouguereau (1873)1) The nude had become something of fantasy by this point  directly opposite Olympia who confronts us with her prostitution (naked)a)