The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

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CHAPTER 30 Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style 101

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From an historical perspective,
Manet’s subject matter—the female
nude in a landscape—was quite tra-
ditional; the artist might have had
reference to such works as Titian’s
Pastoral Concert (Figure 30.17).
Déjeuner’s three central figures are
based directly on a sixteenth-century
engraving based on a Renaissance
tapestry, itself derived from a lost
painting by Raphael (Figure 30.18).
Nevertheless, the figures in the
painting are neither woodland
nymphs nor Olympian gods; rather,
they are Manet’s favorite model
(Victorine Meurent), and his future
brother-in-law (the reclining male
figure).
By “updating” traditional imagery
with such off-handed, in-your-face
immediacy, Manet was making a
statement that—as with Madame Bovary—targeted the
degeneracy of French society. Like Flaubert, who combined
authenticity of detail and an impersonal narrative style,
Manet took a neutral stance that presented the subject with
cool objectivity. It is no surprise that the jury of the Royal
Academy rejected Déjeuner, refusing to hang the painting in
the Salonexhibition of 1863. Nevertheless, that same year it
was displayed in an alternate venue: the Salon des Refusés,
a landmark exhibition of rejected paintings, was authorized
by the French head of state in response to public agitation
against the tyranny of the Academy. No sooner was Manet’s
painting hung than visitors tried to poke holes in the
canvas and critics launched attacks on its coarse “impropri-
eties.” Déjeuner was pronounced scandalous. “The nude does

not have a good figure,” wrote one journalist, “and one

cannot imagine anything uglier than the man stretched

out beside her, who has not even thought of removing, out

of doors, his horrible padded cap.” While Manet’s paintings

met with repeated criticism, they were defended by his

good friend Emile Zola, who penned a short biography of

the artist in 1867 (see Figure 30.7). Zola praised Manet’s

works as “simple and direct translations of reality,” observ-

ing with some acuity: “He treats figure paintings as the

academic painter treats still lifes... He neither sings nor

philosophizes. He paints, and that is all.”

In a second painting of 1863, Olympia, Manet again

“debased” a traditional subject: the reclining nude (Figure

30.19). Lacking the subtle allure of a Titian Venus or an

Ingres odalisque, the short, stocky nude (Victorine

Meurent again) looks boldly at the viewer. Her satin slip-

pers, the black ribbon at her throat, and other enticing

details distinguish her as a courtesan—a high-class prosti-

tute. Manet’s urban contemporaries were not blind to this

fact, but the critics were unsparingly brutal. One journalist

called Olympia “a sort of female gorilla” and warned,

“Truly, young girls and women about to become mothers

would do well, if they are wise, to run away from this spec-

tacle.” Like Flaubert’s Madame Bovaryor Zola’s Nana,

Manet’s Olympiadesentimentalized the female image. By

rendering the ideal in commonplace terms, he not only

offended public taste, but challenged the traditional view

of art as the bearer of noble themes.

Manet also violated academic convention by employing

new painting techniques. Imitating current photographic

practice, he bathed his figures in bright light and, using a

minimum of shading, flattened forms in a manner inspired

by Japanese prints (see Figure 31.13). His practice of elim-

inating halftones and laying on fresh, opaque colors

Figure 30.18 MARCANTONIO RAIMONDIdetail from The
Judgment of Paris, ca. 1520. Engraving after Raphael tapestry.

Figure 30.17 TITIAN (begun by Giorgione), Pastoral Concert,

ca. 1505. Oil on canvas, 3 ft. 7^1 ⁄ 4 in.  4 ft. 6^1 ⁄ 4 in.