the two men seem virtually unaware of their companion’s nakedness, and
one gestures in a conversational manner.
The naked woman’s skin tone is a bright, À at white, with little contrast of
light and shade, little modeling in the traditional sense, and so little À esh
tone that she seems to have spent her life thus far indoors. Only her face is
given a bit of color. Her body is posed in pure pro¿ le, which emphasizes the
À atness introduced by the lack of modeling. She is almost as À at as a playing
card, except that she turns her head to look directly at the viewer; this not
only gives her life, but it is the main connection between the pictorial space
and ours. Her expression explains nothing; it only adds to our puzzlement
about the situation.
Manet was a great painter of black and of white. Here, that is seen in the
white pants of the man beside the naked model, the diaphanous white
negligee of the other woman, and the black coats and hat worn by the men.
Black and white are the major accents in the composition; the rest, except
for the ¿ ne still life, is mostly given over to dark trees and green vegetation.
This painting was rejected by the Salon of 1863, but there was a great uproar
because so many works had been rejected by the artistic authorities that
year. Thus, the Emperor Napoleon III decreed that a separate pavilion—the
Salon des Refusés (“Salon of the Refused Works”)—be opened to display
the rejected works.
Manet had borrowed his composition and content from two works of the
Italian Renaissance. The grouping and gestures of the three foreground
¿ gures were taken literally from a corner group in an engraving of a lost
drawing by Raphael, and the theme was borrowed from a famous painting
by Giorgione, the Pastoral Concert (c. 1510). Manet had copied Giorgione’s
painting and must have pondered the subject, which also shows two clothed
men seated, one of whom plays a lute, and two nude women, one seated
with a recorder and the other standing by a well, pouring water from a clear
glass pitcher. Why didn’t this painting scandalize the public? Because, of
course, it was a Renaissance Old Master painting, in which nudes were not
unexpected. It had the patina of respectability.