art.Le Déjeuner contains sophisticated references and allusions to
many painting genres—history painting, portraiture, pastoral scenes,
nudes, and even religious scenes. What Le Déjeuner thus represents is
an impressive synthesis and critique of the history of painting.
The negative response to this painting by public and critics alike
extended beyond subject matter. Manet’s manner of presenting his
figures also prompted severe criticism. He rendered them in soft fo-
cus and broadly painted the landscape, including the pool in which
the second woman bathes. The loose manner of painting contrasts
with the clear forms of the harshly lit foreground trio and the pile of
discarded female attire and picnic foods at the lower left. The light-
ing creates strong contrasts between darks and highlighted areas. In
the main figures, many values are summed up in one or two lights or
darks. The effect is both to flatten the forms and to give them a hard
snapping presence. Form, rather than a matter of line, is only a func-
tion of paint and light. Manet himself declared that the chief actor in
the painting is the light. Manet used art to call attention to art. In
other words, he was moving away from illusionism and toward open
acknowledgment of painting’s properties, such as the flatness of the
painting surface, which would become a core principle of many later
19th- and 20th-century painters. The public, however, saw only a
crude sketch without the customary finish. The style of the painting,
coupled with the unorthodox subject matter, made this work excep-
tionally controversial.
OLYMPIAEven more scandalous to the French viewing public
was Manet’s 1863 painting Olympia (FIG. 30-34). This work depicts
a young white prostitute (Olympia was a common “professional”
name for prostitutes in the 19th century) reclining on a bed that ex-
tends across the foreground. Entirely nude except for a thin black rib-
bon tied around her neck, a bracelet on her arm, an orchid in her
hair, and fashionable mule slippers on her feet, Olympia meets the
viewer’s eyes with a look of cool indifference. Behind her appears a
black maid, who presents her a bouquet of flowers from a client.
Olympiahorrified public and critics alike. Although images of
prostitutes were not unheard of during this period, the shamelessness
of Olympia and her look that verges on defiance shocked viewers. The
depiction of a black woman was also not new to painting, but the view-
ing public perceived Manet’s inclusion of both a black maid and a nude
prostitute as evoking moral depravity, inferiority, and animalistic sexu-
ality. The contrast of the black servant with the fair-skinned courtesan
also made reference to racial divisions. One critic described Olympia as
“a courtesan with dirty hands and wrinkled feet ...her body has the
livid tint of a cadaver displayed in the morgue; her outlines are drawn
in charcoal and her greenish, bloodshot eyes appear to be provoking
the public, protected all the while by a hideous Negress.”^9 From this
statement, it is clear that viewers were responding not just to the sub-
ject matter but to Manet’s artistic style as well. Manet’s brush strokes
are rougher and the shifts in tonality are more abrupt than those found
in traditional academic painting. This departure from accepted prac-
tice exacerbated the audacity of the subject matter.
ADOLPHE-WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU To understand bet-
ter the public’s reaction to Manet’s radically new painting style, it is in-804 Chapter 30 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1800 TO 1870
30-34Édouard Manet,Olympia,1863. Oil on canvas, 4 3 6 21 – 4 . Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Manet scandalized the public with this painting of a nude prostitute and her black maid carrying a bouquet from a client. Critics also
faulted him for using rough brush strokes and abruptly shifting tonality.1 ft.