Art...
ArtSleuth
A man
A woman
A background of lavish greenery
A painting by Manet
Our first impression is of an urban Adam and Eve, …
… or a moment of flirtation in the forest.
But it all seems wrong
Instead of being drawn to each other, the couple seem frozen.
Instead of an earthly paradise or outdoor scene, we get potted plants in a Paris apartment.
Parts of the picture itself seem merely sketched in.
Manet appears to be gleefully bent on not giving us what we expect:
instead of an erotically charged and highly worked image,....
.... we get a married couple....
.... with trouble on the way
So why does Manet take such an interest in this Parisian pair's mixed-up feelings?
"From “sex in the city” to modern painting"
"*Part 1: Male fantasies*"
First and foremost, the picture reflects an unbridgeable gap between:
1) the woman, in front - beautiful, desirable and supremely elegant.
With her grey jacket and pleated dress,
she has something of the siren - or the crayfish in its shell.
The bars at the back of the bench protect her against the indoor “jungle”
and the urban satyr it shelters.
2) and the man. Manet does everything to make him a secondary figure, submissive and harmless.
A caged lion,
cramped into stooping by the picture frame,
he implores the sphinx-like woman to look at him.
His faintly glimmering cigar looks fragile and pathetic
beside her parasol
he is, quite simply, outgunned.
The only consolation, the only hopeful sign
appears in the centre of the picture, between the two worlds:
an ungloved hand, which he shyly moves to touch.
There is also a dynamic progression from left to right.
On the woman’s side, flowers, delicate foliage and sharp colours.
On the man’s, darker colours and large, aggressive leaves.
The colours – blue, white, pink – and form of the ceramic pot mimic those of the woman!
Beside it, the earthenware pot, bearing Manet’s signature, stands for the man.
These flowers evoke desire:
the pink ones are suggestive of the woman’s complexion and lips;
the irises follow the direction of her gaze;
the two red roses symbolize passion.
Seen against the plants in the background, the hand itself becomes a flower.
The woman, of course, is aware of these connections:
she uses dress and make-up to imitate nature and enhance her allure.
But it is frustrated male desire, above all,
which gives the flowers, curves and hand the erotic power
of a whole woman ...
Part 2. "*Sex in the city: a new vision of women*"
A century earlier,
Fragonard painted idealised scenes of aristocratic lovers in natural surroundings.
As in *In the Conservatory*, the woman has roses on her side, …
… the man the forest on his.
But the low wall between them is made to be crossed:
a passionate embrace is sure to follow.
For Manet, the urbanite, “this is old hat!”:...
... “Paris and its suburbs - that’s where the action is!”
In his portrait of fashion house owners, Monsieur and Madame Jules Guillemet,
Manet is concerned with the new pattern of male/female relations in the city.
Marriage is often a facade, as it is in Manet’s own family.
The stiff posture of his father in this portrait points to syphilis,
the sexually transmitted disease which killed the painter too.
Nature is not idealised.
Unlike Monet in this picture of a garden bench,
Manet eliminates perspective and masks the horizon.
He also gives us a new image of women.
In Courbet, women are incomplete beings, who amuse themselves with animals
while waiting for “the man” to appear.
In Manet, they exist in their own right.
They are the ones whom animals obey.
And men, when they appear, are often backgrounded, forgotten and held at a distance...
When women are partly concealed, on the other hand,
the essential message is that snatched glimpses of a leg or an arm are all the male can hope for.
And so Madame Guillemet is one of the women who interest Manet:
she has the independence, the inner certainty
that go with her status as a fashion tycoon.
"*Part 3. From women to modern painting*"
In his pictures of women, Manet invents a new kind of art
which plays with the viewer’s expectations and wishes.
In Boating and Nana, we remain outside the picture,
but, by their looks, .... the man warns us that we are intruding, ....
.... and the actress calls attention to her current suitor.
In *the Conservatory and The Bar at the Folies Bergères* are both pictures
which we enter, as if tumbling into a mirror:
Madame Guillemet ignores us, just as she ignores her husband
- and so he and we become doubles, linked by the same fascination.
In *The Bar*, a man is reflected in the mirror behind the woman.
But the reflection is ours - caught in the act as would-be seducers.
And the woman gives us the same impassive look
that Manet’s painting seems to give its viewers.
Unlike conventional paintings, which try to make us forget the flat surface of the canvas by modelling the figures…
… and deepening the background …
... Manet’s pictures emphasize this flatness by ...
... reducing depth ...
... featuring verticals and horizontals which hint at the stretcher behind the canvas ...
... using sharper relief with stronger contrasts ...
... leaving certain parts apparently “unfinished”.
In this way, they tell viewers more plainly what they are to look at:
they are not allowed to linger over titillating details, while protesting hypocritically that brushwork is the draw.
The picture becomes more autonomous: it gives only what it wants to give.
Seen in these terms, Madame Guillemet is not just a queen of fashion, but an allegory of modern painting.
She excites and attracts us, so much so that we feel like reaching out to touch her -
….only to be led, with unrelenting firmness, back to the surface of the picture.
Manet builds his effect on a calculated blend of the artificial and the superficial,
and these are also the springs of the trap which he - and Madame Guillemet - set for covetous spectators,
who find themselves simultaneously attracted and repulsed.
Next ArtSleuth episode: Botticelli's *Birth of Venus* - Do you really know this woman?
Find more information on: www.canal-educatif.fr
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