Bar in folie bergere where the signature of the author. Impressionist paintings

The painting by Jacques Louis David "The Oath of the Horatii" is a turning point in the history of European painting. Stylistically, it still belongs to classicism; it is a style oriented towards Antiquity, and at first glance this orientation is retained by David. The Oath of the Horatii is based on the story of how the Roman patriots, the three brothers Horace, were chosen to fight against the representatives of the hostile city of Alba Longa, the brothers Curiatii. Titus Livius and Diodorus Siculus have this story; Pierre Corneille wrote a tragedy on its plot.

“But it is precisely the oath of the Horatii that is missing from these classical texts.<...>It is David who turns the oath into the central episode of the tragedy. The old man is holding three swords. He stands in the center, he represents the axis of the picture. To his left are three sons merging into one figure, to his right are three women. This picture is amazingly simple. Before David, classicism, for all its orientation towards Raphael and Greece, could not find such a harsh, simple masculine language for expressing civic values. David seemed to hear what Diderot was saying, who did not have time to see this canvas: “You must write as they said in Sparta.”

Ilya Doronchenkov

In the time of David, Antiquity first became tangible through the archaeological discovery of Pompeii. Before him, Antiquity was the sum of the texts of ancient authors - Homer, Virgil and others - and a few dozen or hundreds of imperfectly preserved sculptures. Now it has become tangible, down to furniture and beads.

“But none of this is in the picture of David. In it, Antiquity is strikingly reduced not so much to the surroundings (helmets, irregular swords, togas, columns), but to the spirit of primitive furious simplicity.

Ilya Doronchenkov

David carefully staged the appearance of his masterpiece. He painted and exhibited it in Rome, garnering enthusiastic criticism there, and then sent a letter to a French patron. In it, the artist reported that at some point he stopped painting for the king and began to paint it for himself, and, in particular, decided to make it not square, as required for the Paris Salon, but rectangular. As the artist expected, the rumors and the letter fueled public excitement, the painting was booked into an advantageous place at the already opened Salon.

“And so, belatedly, the picture is put into place and stands out as the only one. If it were square, it would be hung in a row of others. And by changing the size, David turned it into a unique one. It was a very powerful artistic gesture. On the one hand, he declared himself as the main one in creating the canvas. On the other hand, he riveted everyone's attention to this picture.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The picture has another important meaning, which makes it a masterpiece for all time:

“This canvas does not appeal to the individual - it refers to the person standing in the ranks. This is a team. And this is a command to a person who first acts and then thinks. David very correctly showed two non-intersecting, absolutely tragically separated worlds - the world of acting men and the world of suffering women. And this juxtaposition - very energetic and beautiful - shows the horror that actually stands behind the story of the Horatii and behind this picture. And since this horror is universal, then the "Oath of the Horatii" will not leave us anywhere.

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

In 1816, the French frigate Medusa was wrecked off the coast of Senegal. 140 passengers left the brig on a raft, but only 15 escaped; they had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive the 12-day wandering on the waves. A scandal erupted in French society; the incompetent captain, a royalist by conviction, was found guilty of the disaster.

“For liberal French society, the catastrophe of the frigate Medusa, the sinking of the ship, which for a Christian person symbolizes the community (first the church, and now the nation), has become a symbol, a very bad sign of the beginning of a new Restoration regime.”

Ilya Doronchenkov

In 1818, the young artist Théodore Géricault, looking for a worthy subject, read the book of the survivors and set to work on his painting. In 1819, the painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon and became a hit, a symbol of romanticism in painting. Géricault quickly abandoned his intention to portray the most seductive scene of cannibalism; he did not show stabbing, despair, or the very moment of salvation.

“Gradually, he chose the only right moment. This is the moment of maximum hope and maximum uncertainty. This is the moment when the people who survived on the raft first see the Argus brig on the horizon, which first passed the raft (he did not notice it).
And only then, going on a collision course, stumbled upon him. On the sketch, where the idea has already been found, “Argus” is noticeable, and in the picture it turns into a small dot on the horizon, disappearing, which attracts the eye, but, as it were, does not exist.”

Ilya Doronchenkov

Gericault renounces naturalism: instead of emaciated bodies, he has beautiful courageous athletes in his picture. But this is not idealization, it is universalization: the picture is not about specific Meduza passengers, it is about everyone.

“Géricault scatters the dead in the foreground. He did not invent it: the French youth raved about the dead and wounded bodies. It excited, hit on the nerves, destroyed conventions: a classicist cannot show the ugly and terrible, but we will. But these corpses have another meaning. Look at what is happening in the middle of the picture: there is a storm, there is a funnel into which the eye is drawn. And over the bodies, the viewer, standing right in front of the picture, steps onto this raft. We are all there."

Ilya Doronchenkov

Géricault's painting works in a new way: it is addressed not to an army of spectators, but to every person, everyone is invited to the raft. And the ocean is not just an ocean of lost hopes in 1816. This is the destiny of man.

Abstract

By 1814, France was tired of Napoleon, and the arrival of the Bourbons was received with relief. However, many political freedoms were abolished, the Restoration began, and by the end of the 1820s, the younger generation began to realize the ontological mediocrity of power.

“Eugène Delacroix belonged to that stratum of the French elite that rose under Napoleon and was pushed aside by the Bourbons. Nevertheless, he was favored: he received a gold medal for his first painting at the Salon, Dante's Boat, in 1822. And in 1824, he made the painting "Massacre on Chios", depicting ethnic cleansing, when the Greek population of the island of Chios was deported and destroyed during the Greek War of Independence. This is the first sign of political liberalism in painting, which touched still very distant countries.

Ilya Doronchenkov

In July 1830, Charles X passed several laws severely restricting political freedoms and sent troops to sack the printing press of an opposition newspaper. But the Parisians responded by shooting, the city was covered with barricades, and during the "Three Glorious Days" the Bourbon regime fell.

The famous painting by Delacroix, dedicated to the revolutionary events of 1830, shows different social strata: a dandy in a top hat, a tramp boy, a worker in a shirt. But the main one, of course, is a beautiful young woman with bare breasts and a shoulder.

“Delacroix succeeds here with something that almost never happens with artists of the 19th century, who are thinking more and more realistically. He manages in one picture - very pathetic, very romantic, very sonorous - to combine reality, physically tangible and brutal (look at the corpses in the foreground loved by romantics) and symbols. Because this full-blooded woman is, of course, Freedom itself. Political development since the 18th century has made it necessary for artists to visualize what cannot be seen. How can you see freedom? Christian values ​​are conveyed to a person through something very human - through the life of Christ and his suffering. And such political abstractions as freedom, equality, fraternity have no shape. And now Delacroix, perhaps the first and, as it were, not the only one who, in general, successfully coped with this task: we now know what freedom looks like.

Ilya Doronchenkov

One of the political symbols in the painting is the Phrygian cap on the girl's head, a permanent heraldic symbol of democracy. Another talking motif is nakedness.

“Nudity has long been associated with naturalness and nature, and in the 18th century this association was forced. The history of the French Revolution even knows a unique performance, when a naked French theater actress portrayed nature in Notre Dame Cathedral. And nature is freedom, it is naturalness. And that's what, it turns out, this tangible, sensual, attractive woman means. It signifies natural liberty."

Ilya Doronchenkov

Although this painting made Delacroix famous, it was soon removed from view for a long time, and it is clear why. The spectator standing in front of her finds herself in the position of those who are attacked by Freedom, who are attacked by the revolution. It is very uncomfortable to look at the irresistible movement that will crush you.

Abstract

On May 2, 1808, an anti-Napoleonic rebellion broke out in Madrid, the city was in the hands of the protesters, but by the evening of the 3rd, mass executions of rebels were taking place in the vicinity of the Spanish capital. These events soon led to a guerrilla war that lasted six years. When it is over, two paintings will be commissioned from the painter Francisco Goya to commemorate the uprising. The first is "The uprising of May 2, 1808 in Madrid."

“Goya really depicts the moment the attack began - that first Navajo strike that started the war. It is this compactness of the moment that is extremely important here. He seems to bring the camera closer, from the panorama he moves to an exceptionally close plan, which also did not exist to such an extent before him. There is another exciting thing: the feeling of chaos and stabbing is extremely important here. There is no person here that you feel sorry for. There are victims and there are killers. And these murderers with bloodshot eyes, Spanish patriots, in general, are engaged in butchering.

Ilya Doronchenkov

In the second picture, the characters change places: those who are cut in the first picture, in the second picture, those who cut them are shot. And the moral ambivalence of the street fight is replaced by moral clarity: Goya is on the side of those who rebelled and die.

“The enemies are now divorced. On the right are those who will live. It's a series of people in uniform with guns, exactly the same, even more the same than David's Horace brothers. Their faces are invisible, and their shakos make them look like machines, like robots. These are not human figures. They stand out in a black silhouette in the darkness of the night against the backdrop of a lantern flooding a small clearing.

On the left are those who die. They move, swirl, gesticulate, and for some reason it seems that they are taller than their executioners. Although the main, central character - a Madrid man in orange pants and a white shirt - is on his knees. He is still taller, he is a little on a hillock.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The dying rebel stands in the pose of Christ, and for greater persuasiveness, Goya depicts stigmata on his palms. In addition, the artist makes you go through a difficult experience all the time - look at the last moment before the execution. Finally, Goya changes the understanding of the historical event. Before him, an event was portrayed by its ritual, rhetorical side; in Goya, an event is an instant, a passion, a non-literary cry.

In the first picture of the diptych, it can be seen that the Spaniards are not slaughtering the French: the riders falling under the horse's feet are dressed in Muslim costumes.
The fact is that in the troops of Napoleon there was a detachment of Mamelukes, Egyptian cavalrymen.

“It would seem strange that the artist turns Muslim fighters into a symbol of the French occupation. But this allows Goya to turn a contemporary event into a link in the history of Spain. For any nation that forged its self-consciousness during the Napoleonic Wars, it was extremely important to realize that this war is part of an eternal war for its values. And such a mythological war for the Spanish people was the Reconquista, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim kingdoms. Thus, Goya, while remaining faithful to the documentary, modernity, puts this event in connection with the national myth, forcing us to realize the struggle of 1808 as the eternal struggle of the Spaniards for the national and Christian.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The artist managed to create an iconographic formula of execution. Every time his colleagues - be it Manet, Dix or Picasso - turned to the topic of execution, they followed Goya.

Abstract

The pictorial revolution of the 19th century, even more tangibly than in the event picture, took place in the landscape.

“The landscape completely changes the optics. Man changes his scale, man experiences himself in a different way in the world. A landscape is a realistic depiction of what is around us, with a sense of moisture-laden air and everyday details in which we are immersed. Or it can be a projection of our experiences, and then in the play of a sunset or in a joyful sunny day we see the state of our soul. But there are striking landscapes that belong to both modes. And it's very hard to know, really, which one is dominant."

Ilya Doronchenkov

This duality is clearly manifested by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich: his landscapes both tell us about the nature of the Baltic, and at the same time represent a philosophical statement. There is a lingering sense of melancholy in Friedrich's landscapes; a person rarely penetrates them beyond the background and usually turns his back to the viewer.

In his last painting, Ages of Life, a family is depicted in the foreground: children, parents, an old man. And further, behind the spatial gap - the sunset sky, the sea and sailboats.

“If we look at how this canvas is built, we will see a striking echo between the rhythm of human figures in the foreground and the rhythm of sailboats in the sea. Here are tall figures, here are low figures, here are big sailboats, here are boats under sail. Nature and sailboats - this is what is called the music of the spheres, it is eternal and does not depend on man. The man in the foreground is his finite being. The sea in Friedrich is very often a metaphor for otherness, death. But death for him, a believer, is a promise of eternal life, about which we do not know. These people in the foreground - small, clumsy, not very attractively written - follow the rhythm of a sailboat with their rhythm, as a pianist repeats the music of the spheres. This is our human music, but it all rhymes with the very music that for Friedrich fills nature. Therefore, it seems to me that in this canvas Friedrich promises - not an afterlife paradise, but that our finite being is still in harmony with the universe.

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

After the French Revolution, people realized that they had a past. The 19th century, through the efforts of romantic aesthetes and positivist historians, created the modern idea of ​​history.

“The 19th century created history painting as we know it. Non-distracted Greek and Roman heroes, acting in an ideal environment, guided by ideal motives. The history of the 19th century becomes theatrical and melodramatic, it approaches man, and we are now able to empathize not with great deeds, but with misfortunes and tragedies. Each European nation created its own history in the 19th century, and constructing history, it, in general, created its own portrait and plans for the future. In this sense, European historical painting of the 19th century is terribly interesting to study, although, in my opinion, it did not leave, almost did not leave truly great works. And among these great works, I see one exception, which we Russians can rightly be proud of. This is Vasily Surikov's "Morning of the Streltsy Execution".

Ilya Doronchenkov

19th-century history painting, oriented towards external plausibility, usually tells of a single hero who directs history or fails. Surikov's painting here is a striking exception. Her hero is a crowd in colorful outfits, which takes up almost four-fifths of the picture; because of this, it seems that the picture is strikingly disorganized. Behind the live swirling crowd, part of which will soon die, stands the colorful, agitated St. Basil's Cathedral. Behind the frozen Peter, a line of soldiers, a line of gallows - a line of battlements of the Kremlin wall. The picture is held together by the duel of the views of Peter and the red-bearded archer.

“A lot can be said about the conflict between society and the state, the people and the empire. But it seems to me that this thing has some more meanings that make it unique. Vladimir Stasov, a propagandist of the work of the Wanderers and a defender of Russian realism, who wrote a lot of superfluous things about them, spoke very well about Surikov. He called paintings of this kind "choral". Indeed, they lack one hero - they lack one engine. The people are the driving force. But in this picture the role of the people is very clearly visible. Joseph Brodsky in his Nobel lecture perfectly said that the real tragedy is not when the hero dies, but when the choir dies.

Ilya Doronchenkov

Events take place in Surikov's paintings as if against the will of their characters - and in this the concept of the artist's history is obviously close to Tolstoy's.

“Society, people, nation in this picture seem to be divided. Soldiers of Peter in a uniform that seems black, and archers in white are contrasted as good and evil. What connects these two unequal parts of the composition? This is an archer in a white shirt, going to execution, and a soldier in uniform, who supports him by the shoulder. If we mentally remove everything that surrounds them, we will never be able to assume that this person is being led to execution. They are two buddies who are returning home, and one supports the other in a friendly and warm manner. When Petrusha Grinev was hanged by the Pugachevites in The Captain's Daughter, they said: “Don't knock, don't knock,” as if they really wanted to cheer him up. This feeling that a people divided by the will of history is at the same time fraternal and united is the amazing quality of Surikov’s canvas, which I also don’t know anywhere else.”

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

In painting, size matters, but not every subject can be depicted on a large canvas. Different pictorial traditions depicted the villagers, but most often not in huge paintings, but this is precisely the “Funeral at Ornans” by Gustave Courbet. Ornan is a prosperous provincial town, where the artist himself comes from.

“Courbet moved to Paris but did not become part of the artistic establishment. He did not receive an academic education, but he had a powerful hand, a very tenacious eye and great ambition. He always felt like a provincial, and he was best at home, in Ornan. But he lived almost all his life in Paris, fighting with the art that was already dying, fighting with the art that idealizes and talks about the general, about the past, about the beautiful, not noticing the present. Such art, which rather praises, which rather delights, as a rule, finds a very large demand. Courbet was, indeed, a revolutionary in painting, although now this revolutionary nature of him is not very clear to us, because he writes life, he writes prose. The main thing that was revolutionary in him was that he stopped idealizing his nature and began to write it exactly as he sees, or as he believed that he sees.

Ilya Doronchenkov

About fifty people are depicted in a giant picture almost in full growth. All of them are real persons, and experts have identified almost all the participants in the funeral. Courbet painted his countrymen, and they were pleased to get into the picture exactly as they are.

“But when this painting was exhibited in 1851 in Paris, it created a scandal. She went against everything that the Parisian public was used to at that moment. She offended the artists with the lack of a clear composition and rough, dense impasto painting, which conveys the materiality of things, but does not want to be beautiful. She frightened off the ordinary person by the fact that he could not really understand who it was. Striking was the disintegration of communications between the audience of provincial France and the Parisians. The Parisians took the image of this respectable wealthy crowd as the image of the poor. One of the critics said: “Yes, this is a disgrace, but this is the disgrace of the province, and Paris has its own disgrace.” Under the ugliness, in fact, was understood the ultimate truthfulness.

Ilya Doronchenkov

Courbet refused to idealize, which made him a true avant-garde artist of the 19th century. He focuses on French popular prints, and on a Dutch group portrait, and on antique solemnity. Courbet teaches us to perceive modernity in its originality, in its tragedy and in its beauty.

“French salons knew images of hard peasant labor, poor peasants. But the image mode was generally accepted. The peasants needed to be pitied, the peasants needed to be sympathized with. It was a view from above. A person who sympathizes is, by definition, in a priority position. And Courbet deprived his spectator of the possibility of such patronizing empathy. His characters are majestic, monumental, they ignore their viewers, and they do not allow you to establish such a contact with them that makes them part of the familiar world, they break stereotypes very powerfully.

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

The 19th century did not like itself, preferring to look for beauty in something else, be it Antiquity, the Middle Ages or the East. Charles Baudelaire was the first to learn to see the beauty of modernity, and it was embodied in painting by artists whom Baudelaire was not destined to see: for example, Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet.

“Manet is a provocateur. Manet is at the same time a brilliant painter, whose charm of colors, colors that are very paradoxically combined, makes the viewer not ask himself obvious questions. If we look closely at his paintings, we will often be forced to admit that we do not understand what brought these people here, what they are doing next to each other, why these objects are connected on the table. The simplest answer: Manet is primarily a painter, Manet is primarily an eye. He is interested in the combination of colors and textures, and the logical conjugation of objects and people is the tenth thing. Such pictures often confuse the viewer who is looking for content, who is looking for stories. Mane does not tell stories. He could have remained such an amazingly accurate and refined optical apparatus if he had not created his latest masterpiece already in those years when he was possessed by a fatal disease.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The painting "The Bar at the Folies Bergère" was exhibited in 1882, at first earned ridicule from critics, and then was quickly recognized as a masterpiece. Its theme is the cafe-concert, a striking phenomenon of Parisian life in the second half of the century. It seems that Manet vividly and reliably captured the life of the Folies Bergère.

“But when we begin to look closely at what Manet did in his picture, we will understand that there are a huge number of inconsistencies that are subconsciously disturbing and, in general, do not receive a clear resolution. The girl that we see is a saleswoman, she must, with her physical attractiveness, make visitors stop, flirt with her and order more drinks. Meanwhile, she does not flirt with us, but looks through us. There are four bottles of champagne on the table, warm, but why not on ice? In mirror image, these bottles are not on the same edge of the table as they are in the foreground. The glass with roses is seen from a different angle than all the other objects on the table are seen. And the girl in the mirror does not look exactly like the girl who looks at us: she is stouter, she has more rounded shapes, she leaned towards the visitor. In general, she behaves as the one we are looking at should behave.

Ilya Doronchenkov

Feminist criticism drew attention to the fact that the girl with her outlines resembles a bottle of champagne standing on the counter. This is an apt observation, but hardly exhaustive: the melancholy of the picture, the psychological isolation of the heroine resist a straightforward interpretation.

“These optical plot and psychological mysteries of the picture, which seem to have no definite answer, make us approach it again and again each time and ask these questions, subconsciously saturated with that feeling of beautiful, sad, tragic, everyday modern life, which Baudelaire dreamed of and which forever left Manet before us."

Ilya Doronchenkov 

"... At the Salon of 1881, Manet expects a long-awaited award - the second medal for the portrait of Pertuise, a lion hunter. Now Manet becomes an artist "out of competition" and has the right to exhibit his works without the consent of the jury of the Salon.

Manet hopes to do "something" for the Salon of 1882 - for the first Salon, where his canvases will appear with the mark "V.K." ("out of competition"). He won't miss this!

But now, when at last the glory won with such difficulty has come to him, will her gifts fall into powerless hands? Is it really just when he will finally be rewarded for his labors and hardships. will it all be over?.. Manet's disease progresses inexorably; he knows this, and anguish gnaws at him, and his eyes become clouded with tears. Live! Live! Mane resists. Couldn't his will be able to overcome the disease?..

Manet gathers all his will. They want to bury him too soon. And now you can meet him in the cafe "New Athens", near Tortoni, in the cafe Bad, in the Folies Bergère; at friends, I will give half the world. And he always jokes, ironically, has fun about his sore leg, his "infirmities." Manet wants to carry out a new plan: a new scene of Parisian life, a view of the Folies-Bergere bar - the lovely Suzon at the bar lined with wine bottles; Suzon, who is well known to all the regular visitors of this place.

The Bar at the Folies Bergère is a work of picturesque delicacy and extraordinary boldness: the blond Suzon at the counter; behind - a large mirror, which reflects the hall and the audience that filled it. She has the same black velvet around her neck that Olympia had, she is just as bewitchingly motionless, her gaze is cold, it excites with its indifference to the environment.

This complex work is moving forward with difficulty. Mane beats over him, repeatedly remaking. In May 1882, he knows happiness, contemplating in the Salon "Spring" and "Bar in the Folies Bergère", accompanied by a sign "V.K." They no longer laugh at his canvases. If some people still allow themselves to criticize them, if, for example, the construction of the "Bar" with its mirror and the play of reflections is found too complicated, they call it a "rebus", then all the same, Mane's paintings are considered seriously, carefully, they are argued about as works, which should be taken into account. However, the sign "V.K." puts the audience in a position of respect. By the will of these two letters, Manet becomes a recognized artist; these letters call for reflection, encourage sympathy (before they did not dare to express it aloud), shut up hostile mouths ... "

“In his last great work, The Bar at the Folies Bergère, the artist seemed to say goodbye to the life that he cherished so much, about which he thought so much and which he never tired of admiring. Perhaps, never before has the master’s worldview expressed itself in a separate work with such fullness. It has love for a person, for his spiritual and pictorial poetry, and attention to his complex, imperceptible superficial view of relationships with others, and a sense of the fragility of being, and a feeling of bright joy when in contact with the world, and the irony that arises when observing it. " The bar in the Folies Bergère "absorbed everything that Manet, with such perseverance and conviction, sought, found and affirmed in an unremarkable life. The best images that entered his work were woven together to be embodied in this young girl standing behind the bar of a noisy Here, where people seek joy in contact with their own kind, where seeming fun reigns, a sensitive master rediscovers the image of a young woman. a life immersed in sad loneliness. The world surrounding the girl is vain and many-sided. Manet understands this and, in order to listen to only one voice, especially close to him, makes this world sound again "under the mute" - become a shaky reflection in the mirror, turn into an obscure, blurry haze of silhouettes, faces, spots and lights. The illusory duality of vision, which is revealed to the artist, physically, as it were, introduces the girl to the tinsel atmosphere of the bar, but not for long. Mane does not allow her to merge with this world, to dissolve in it. He makes her turn off internally even from a conversation with a random visitor, whose prosaic appearance also takes on a mirror located directly behind the counter, where the barmaid herself is seen at an angle from the back. As if starting from that reflection, Manet returns us to the only true reality of this entire ghostly spectacle of the world. A slender figure wrapped in black velvet is surrounded by the light radiance of mirrors, a marble counter, flowers, fruits, sparkling bottles. Only she, in this color-light-air flicker, remains the most tangibly real, the most beautiful and irrefutable value. The artist's brush slows down its movement and lies more densely on the canvas, the color thickens, the contours are defined. But the feeling that finally arose of the physical stability of the heroine of the canvas is not finite: the sad, slightly absent-minded and perplexed look of the girl, immersed in dreams and detached from everything around, again evokes a feeling of fragility and elusiveness of her state. The value of her concrete givenness, it seemed, should be reconciled with the duality of the world surrounding her. But no, the structure of her image, far from exhausted to the end, continues to excite the imagination, evoke poetic associations in which sadness is mixed with joy.

It is hard to believe that "Bar" was created by a dying man, to whom every movement brought severe suffering. But it is so. Edouard Manet remained a fighter even before his death, as in life he was a fighter against bourgeois vulgarity, philistine laziness of thoughts and feelings, a man of rare soul and mind. He went through a difficult path before he discovered the true beauty that he was looking for in modern life: he wanted to discover it and discovered it in simple, inconspicuous people, finding in them that inner wealth to which he gave his heart.

Based on the materials of the book by A. Perrusho "Eduard Manet" and afterword by M. Prokofieva. - M.: TERRA - Book Club. 2000. - 400 p., 16 p. ill.

Edouard Manet - Bar at the Folies Bergère, 1882

Un bar aux Folies Bergère

Canvas, oil.

Original size: 96×130cm

Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Description: The Bar at the Folies Bergère (French: Un bar aux Folies Bergère) is a painting by Edouard Manet.

The Folies Bergère is a variety show and cabaret in Paris. It is located at Richet Street 32. At the end of the 19th century, this place was very popular. Manet frequented the Folies Bergère and ended up painting this painting, the last one he presented at the Paris Salon before his death in 1883. Manet made sketches for the picture right in the bar, located on the ground floor of the variety show to the right of the stage. Then he asked the bartender Suzon and his friend, the military artist Henri Dupray, to pose in the studio. Initially, the basis of the composition should be the barmaid and the client facing each other, carried away by the conversation. This is evidenced not only by the surviving sketches, but also by x-rays of the painting. Manet later decided to make the scene more meaningful. In the background, a mirror is visible, which reflects a huge number of people filling the room. Across from this crowd, behind the counter, is a bartender absorbed in her own thoughts. Manet managed to convey a feeling of incredible loneliness in the midst of a drinking, eating, talking and smoking crowd, watching an acrobat on a trapeze, which can be seen in the upper left corner of the picture.

If you look at the bottles on the marble bar counter, you will notice that their reflection in the mirror does not match the original. The reflection of the barmaid is also unrealistic. She looks directly at the viewer, while in the mirror she is facing the man. All these inconsistencies make the viewer wonder if Manet depicted the real or imaginary world. The mirror, which reflects the figures depicted in the picture, makes Bar in the Folies Bergère related to Velázquez's Las Meninas and van Eyck's Arnolfini.

Description of the painting by Edouard Manet “Bar at Folies Bergère”

This work of art has received great fame. It conveys everyday life in a 19th century French metropolitan bar. The artist himself was here quite often, which made him take up the brush.

What explains Manet's craving for idle pastime in this cabaret? The thing is that the creator did not like peace, silence. More he liked to have fun, communicate, have intimate conversations, meet people. That is why he was so attracted by the riotous lifestyle of a Parisian pub.

It seems that the artist began to paint his picture right inside the institution. At first, he sat near the stage, on the right side, and marked the sketch. Then he asked the barmaid to stand in front of him in her usual position - behind the bar, but already in Manet's creative workshop.

After the death of the artist, his first works from this cabaret were discovered. It turns out that the original idea of ​​the picture was somewhat different. It should have depicted a barmaid and a young man - a friend of Manet. They stood opposite each other and talked.

The result is different: the bartender stands in front of a crowd of customers who are visible in the mirror hanging behind her. She is thoughtful, distracted, does not listen to people, but dreams of her own. However, right there we see her on the right, as if the girl is talking with a man who has entered the bar. Is that her or the other bartender? This question has remained unanswered.

Perhaps what is in the mirror is what is in the head of the cabaret worker. That is, a display of her thoughts, memories of the just past. The viewer understands: the girl is lonely, and life is teeming around her. An acrobat, drunken faces, cheerful clients do not please the girl, she is all immersed in her sad thoughts. But she can’t leave here either, because this is her job. disharmony of life.

from impression /fr./ - impression (1874-1886)

An art movement that originated in France. This name, a style that had a major impact on the development of world art, received thanks to a sarcastic label coined by the critic of the magazine "Le Charivari" Louis Leroy. The mockingly truncated title of Claude Monet's painting "Impression. Sunrise" (Impression. Soleil levant) later turned into a positive definition: it clearly reflects the subjectivity of vision, interest in a specific moment of constantly changing and unique reality. Artists, out of a challenge, accepted this epithet, later it took root, lost its original negative meaning and came into active use. The Impressionists tried to convey their impressions of the world around them as accurately as possible. For this purpose, they abandoned the existing rules of painting and created their own method. Its essence was reduced to the transfer with the help of separate strokes of pure colors, the external impression of light, shadow, them on the surface of objects. This method created in the picture the impression of the dissolution of the form in the surrounding light - air space. Claude Monet wrote about his work: "My merit is that I wrote directly from nature, trying to convey my impressions of the most fickle and changeable phenomena." The new trend differed from academic painting both technically and ideologically. First of all, the Impressionists abandoned the contour, replacing it with small separate and contrasting strokes, which they applied in accordance with the color theories of Chevreul, Helmholtz and Rude. The sunbeam splits into its components: violet, blue, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, but since blue is a variety of blue, their number is reduced to six. Two colors placed side by side reinforce each other and, conversely, when mixed, they lose their intensity. In addition, all colors are divided into primary, or primary, and dual, or derivatives, with each dual color being additional to the first: Blue - Orange Red - Green Yellow - Violet, thus it became possible not to mix colors on the palette and get the desired color by properly overlaying them on the canvas. This later became the reason for the rejection of black.

Painters: Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet (Oscar-Claude Monet), Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro ( Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Alfred Sisley .

Exhibitions: There were eight in total, the first took place in 1874 in Paris, in the studio of the photographer Nadar, Boulevard des Capucines, 35. Subsequent exhibitions, until 1886, in various salons of Paris.

Texts: J.A.Castagnari "Exhibition on the Boulevard des Capucines. Impressionists", 1874; E. Duranty "New Painting", 1876; T. Duret "Impressionist Artists", 1878.

Description of some works:

Pierre Auguste Renoir "Ball at the Moulin de la Galette", 1876. Oil on canvas. Paris, Musee d'Orsay. The famous institution of Montmartre "Moulin de la Galette" was located not far from Renoir's residence. He went there to work for, and the friends depicted in this picture often helped him carry the canvas. The composition is made up of many figures, it creates a complete feeling of the crowd, captured by the joy of dancing. The impression of movement with which the picture is full arises due to the dynamic manner of painting and the light that freely falls on faces, costumes, hats and chairs. As if through a filter, it passes through the foliage of trees, changing the chromatic scale in a kaleidoscope of reflexes. It seems that the movement of the figures is continued and intensified by the shadows, everything is connected together in subtle vibrations that convey the feeling of music and dance.

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Edouard Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergère, 1881-1882. Canvas, oil. London, Courtauld Institute Gallery. It is difficult to unambiguously define the genre of Manet's last large painting, The Bar at the Folies Bergère, exhibited at the Salon in 1882. In the picture, the image of everyday life, and the portrait, and the still life, which here acquires a completely exceptional, although not of paramount importance, are uniquely combined. All this is combined into a scene of modern life, with an extremely prosaic plot motivation (what could be more banal than a saleswoman at the bar?), translated by the artist into an image of high artistic perfection. The mirror behind the bar, behind which the nameless heroine of the canvas stands, reflects a crowded hall, a luminous chandelier, the legs of an acrobat hanging from the ceiling, a marble board with bottles and the girl herself, to whom the gentleman in a top hat approaches. For the first time, the mirror forms the background of the whole picture. The space of the bar, reflected in the mirror behind the saleswoman, expands to infinity, turns into a sparkling garland of lights and color highlights. And the viewer, standing in front of the picture, is drawn into this second environment, gradually losing the sense of the line between the real and the reflected world. The model's direct gaze breaks the deceptive detachment (l'absorption) - the traditional method of re-perceiving the main character of the picture, who is concentrated on his own business and does not seem to notice the viewer. Here, on the contrary, Manet uses a direct exchange of views and "explodes" the isolation of the image. The viewer is involved in an intense dialogue and is forced to explain what is reflected in the mirror: the relationship between the waiter and the mysterious character in the top hat.

Edward Mane. Bar at the Folies Bergère. 1882 Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Edouard Manet painted his painting Bar at the Folies Bergère towards the end of his life, already a very sick man. Despite his illness, he created a picture that is different from all his previous works.

Basically, his work is unambiguous and concise. “The bar at the Folies Bergère, on the contrary, contains a number of mysteries that haunt the indifferent observer.

The painting depicts a bar saleswoman in the still famous cafe-variety show “Folies-Bergere” (Paris, rue Richet, 32).

Here the artist liked to spend time, so the atmosphere was very familiar to him. This is what the cafe looks like in real life:

Cafe-cabaret "Folies-Bergere" in Paris today
Cafe-cabaret "Folies-Bergere" in Paris today (interior)

Girl real and looking glass

The main mystery lies in the difference between how the bar and the saleswoman look in the foreground of the picture compared to how they appear in the rear mirror.

Pay attention to how thoughtful and even sad the saleswoman is. She even seems to have tears in her eyes. In a variety show setting, she is supposed to smile and flirt with visitors rather.

This, by the way, is what happens in the reflection of the mirror. The girl leaned slightly towards the male customer, and judging by the slight distance between them, their conversation is intimate.

Edward Mane. Bar at the Folies Bergère (detail). 1882 Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Unusual painting signature

The bottles on the bar also differ in their arrangement from those displayed in the mirror.

By the way, Manet put the date of painting and his signature right on one of the bottles (the leftmost bottle of rose wine): Manet. 1882.

Edward Mane. Bar at the Folies Bergère (detail). 1882 Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

What did Manet want to tell us with these riddles? Why is the girl in front of us even a figure different from the one displayed in the mirror? Why do objects on the bar change their position in the reflection?

Who posed for Manet?

The artist was posed by a real saleswoman named Suson from the Folies Bergère cafe. The girl was well acquainted with Manet. 2 years before writing the original painting, he painted her portrait.

It was common practice for artists to have a portrait of the model in case she refused to pose. To always be able to finish the picture.

Edward Mane. Model for the painting “Bar at the Folies Bergère”. 1880 Museum of Art in the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, Dijon, France.

Perhaps Suzon shared her life story with Manet, and Manet decided to portray her inner state and the role of a coquette that she is forced to play at the bar?

Or maybe what is happening in the present time is captured in front of us, and in the reflection - the past of the girl, so the image of the objects is different?

If we continue this fantasy, we can assume that in the past the girl became too close to the gentleman depicted. And she was in position. It is known that saleswomen in such variety shows were called girls who “serve both drinks and love.”

The master, of course, did not begin to break his legal marriage because of the girl. And as often happens in such stories, the girl was alone in her arms with a child.

She has to work to somehow survive. Hence the sadness and sadness in her eyes.

X-ray of a painting

We can see another unusual and hidden detail of the picture thanks to an x-ray. It can be seen that in the original version of the painting, the girl keeps her arms crossed on her stomach.