The Balcony (Manet)

Last updated • 5 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
The Balcony
Edouard Manet - The Balcony - Google Art Project.jpg
Artist Édouard Manet
Year 1868
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions170 cm× 124 cm(67 in× 49 in)
Location Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The Balcony (French: Le balcon) is an 1868–69 oil painting by the French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts four figures on a balcony, one of whom is sitting: the painter Berthe Morisot, who married Manet's brother Eugène in 1874. In the centre is the painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is Fanny Claus, a violinist. The fourth figure, partially obscured in the interior's background, is possibly Léon Leenhoff, Manet's son. [1]

Contents

It was exhibited at the 1868 Paris Salon, and then kept by Manet until his death in 1883. It was sold to the painter Gustave Caillebotte in 1884, who left it to the French state in 1894. It is currently held at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Inspiration and description

The painting, inspired by Majas on the Balcony by Francisco Goya, was created at the same time and with the same purpose as Luncheon in the Studio .

The three characters, who were all friends of Manet, seem to be disconnected from each other: while Berthe Morisot, on the left, looks like a romantic and inaccessible heroine, the young violinist Fanny Claus and the painter Antoine Guillemet seem to display indifference. The boy in the background is probably Manet's son, Léon. Just behind the railings, there are a hydrangea in a ceramic pot, and a dog with a ball below Morisot's chair. [2]

This was the first portrait of Morisot by Manet. Manet adopts a restrained colour palette, dominated by white, green and black, with accents of blue (Guillemet's tie) and red (Morisot's fan).

Manet made many preparatory studies, painting the four subjects individually many times: Guillemet as many as fifteen times. A preparatory study for The Balcony was painted at Boulogne in 1868. This unfinished portrait of Fanny Claus, the closest friend of Manet’s wife Suzanne Leenhoff; Claus married Manet's friend Pierre Prins in 1869. The work was bought after Manet's death in a studio sale by John Singer Sargent. The portrait had only been seen once in public since it was first painted in 1868, but in 2012 the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford succeeded in raising the funds to acquire it and keep it permanently in a public collection in the United Kingdom. [3] [4]

Reception

The painting was not well received after it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1869. The bold green of the balcony rails attention from the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle in 1878 which stated: [5] "This painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1869 and is one of those who contributed to form this reputation for eccentricity realistic, this reputation of bad taste that was attached to Mr. Manet." The press considered the painting as "discordant". The contrast of colours (the background completely black, the white faces and clothes, the blue tie of the man, and the green railings) contributes to create an atmosphere of "mystery". [2]

Manet deliberately abandoned any sense of connection between the figures, treating them more like objects in a still life than living people. None of them looks at the others. One commentator, the caricaturist Cham, sarcastically called for the shutters to be closed. Morisot herself said "Je suis plus étrange que laide; il paraît que l'épithète de femme fatale a circulé parmi les curieux ("I look more peculiar than ugly; it seems that people asking about it have used the words femme fatale to describe me."). Albert Wolff described it as "coarse art"" at "the level of house painters".

He kept the painting until his death in 1883, hanging it near his painting of Olympia . It was bought from the sale of Manet's estate in February 1884 by Gustave Caillebotte, who paid 3,000 francs. Caillebotte displayed it in a prominent position in his house at Gennevilliers. On his death in 1894, Caillebotte's will left the painting, with other works, to the French state. It was displayed at the Musée du Luxembourg from 1896 to 1929, then at the Musée du Louvre until 1986 (from 1947, at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume ). It was transferred to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986.

René Magritte painted Perspective II: Manet's Balcony in 1950, a commentary on the work. [6] On the balcony are four coffins (one "seated") in place of the four people. Michel Foucault said of Magritte's painting, "C'est bien cette limite de la vie et de la mort, de la lumière et de l'obscurité, qui est là, manifestée par ces trois personnages" (It is this limit of life and death, of light and darkness, which is there, manifested by these three characters). [7] Magritte told Foucault, "For me the setting of The Balcony offered a suitable place to put coffins. The 'mechanism' at work here might form the object of a learned explanation, which I am unable to provide. The explanation would be valid, indeed beyond question, but that would not make it any less mysterious." [8]

Manet's Flaneuse: Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus

Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus has been considered a sketch for The Balcony. As a preparatory sketch for the finished product, Mademoiselle Claus' portrait captures the artist's overarching intentions. It is her peering eyes over the balcony that suggest her position as a flaneuse, the feminine equivalent to the flâneur who would have been described at the time as a passante. Nesci (2007) introduces the concept of the flaneuse and positions the existence of this feminine figure as early as the 1830s. [9] By scrutinising the masculine figure of the flaneur and uncovering the figure of the flaneuse, "helps us question the conditions of inclusion and exclusion of public urban life". [9] Both the balcony context of The Balcony and the Portrait depict this question of inclusion and exclusion of public urban life, placing women on a balcony peering onto (and therefore gazing) the public urban life, whilst retaining a close physical proximity with their domestic environment (the inside of the house alluded to by the dark space between the two green windows. This act of gazing onto public urban life and reflecting on it without being a part of it is "central to the definition of the flaneur". [10] Manet's The Balcony and the individual sketches he produced prior to the full composition and therefore examples of what 21st century scholars are unravelling in their scrutiny of the masculine flaneur and uncovering of the existence of a very present flaneuse.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berthe Morisot</span> 19th-century French artist

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Édouard Manet</span> French painter (1832–1883)

Édouard Manet was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musée d'Orsay</span> Art museum in Paris, France

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustave Caillebotte</span> French painter (1848–1894)

Gustave Caillebotte was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was known for his early interest in photography as an art form.

Events from the year 1868 in art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victorine Meurent</span> 19th century French painter and model (1844–1927)

Victorine-Louise Meurent was a French painter and a model for painters. Although she is best known as the favorite model of Édouard Manet, she was an artist in her own right who regularly exhibited at the prestigious Paris Salon. In 1876, her paintings were selected for inclusion at the Salon's juried exhibition, when Manet's work was not.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Lerolle</span> French painter (1848–1929)

Henry Lerolle was a French painter, art collector and patron, born in Paris. He studied at Académie Suisse and in the studio of Louis Lamothe.

<i>The Fifer</i> 1866 painting by Édouard Manet

The Fifer or Young Flautist is a painting by French painter Édouard Manet, made in 1866. It is usually kept in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzanne Manet</span> Dutch pianist and art model (1829–1906)

Suzanne Manet was a Dutch-born pianist and the wife of the painter Édouard Manet, for whom she frequently modeled.

<i>Portrait of Emile Zola</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

Portrait of Émile Zola is a painting of Émile Zola by Édouard Manet. Manet submitted the portrait to the 1868 Salon.

<i>Luncheon in the Studio</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

Luncheon in the Studio is an 1868 oil painting by Édouard Manet. Partially a portrait of 16-year-old Léon Leenhoff — the son of Suzanne Leenhoff before her 1863 marriage to Manet, and possibly the son of Manet or Manet's father Auguste — it is also an enigmatic work that has received limited attention within Manet's oeuvre. Critic Nan Stalnaker notes that "despite continued questions about its meaning, the work is acknowledged to be brilliantly painted and a major Manet work".

<i>Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets is an 1872 oil painting by Édouard Manet. It depicts fellow painter Berthe Morisot dressed in black mourning dress, with a barely visible bouquet of violets. The painting, sometimes known as Portrait of Berthe Morisot, Berthe Morisot in a black hat or Young woman in a black hat, is in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Manet also created an etching and two lithographs of the same composition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugène Manet</span> French painter (1833–1892)

Eugène Manet was a French painter. He did not achieve the high reputation of his older brother Édouard Manet nor that of his wife Berthe Morisot, and devoted much of his efforts to supporting his wife's career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antoine Guillemet</span> French painter

Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Guillemet was a French renowned landscape painter and longtime Jury member of the Salon des Artistes Francais. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edma Morisot</span> French painter

Edma Morisot was a French artist and the older sister of the Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot.

<i>Berthe Morisot with a Fan</i> c. 1870 painting by Édouard Manet

Berthe Morisot with a Fan is a painting by French artist Édouard Manet, executed in 1874. It belongs to the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris, but since 2000 it is in loan to the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille.

<i>Argenteuil</i> (Manet) 1874 painting by Édouard Manet

Argenteuil is an 1874 oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet (1832-1883), first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1875. It is one of Manet's first works to qualify fully as an Impressionist work, due to its naturalistic subject and its bold palette, such as the blue of the river, mocked by the Figaro journalist Jean Rousseau as "in the foreground, Argenteuil jam on an indigo river" It is now in the Musée des beaux-arts in Tournai, Belgium.

<i>Madame Manet at the Piano</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

Madame Manet at the Piano is a portrait by Édouard Manet of his wife Suzanne, painted in 1867-68 and now in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris. It highlights her talent on the piano, having played Wagner to Baudelaire during his last days.

<i>Homage to Delacroix</i> 1864 painting by Henri Fantin-Latour

Homage to Delacroix is an 1864 painting by Henri Fantin-Latour painted in homage to the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix who died the year before. The work features a group of painters and writers, all of whom went on to become notable themselves, gathered around a portrait of the late Delacroix. The painting was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1864. Today the painting is part of the permanent collection of the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

<i>The Cradle</i> (Morisot) Painting by Berthe Morisot

The Cradle is an oil on canvas painting by the French Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, executed in 1872. It is on display at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

References

  1. ↑ "Manet's The Balcony". Smarthistory. Archived from the original on 9 June 2012. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
  2. 1 2 Ramos, Julie (1998). L'ABCdaire de Manet (in French). Paris: Flammarion. pp. 34, 35. ISBN   978-2-08-012582-8.
  3. ↑ "Saved by the public: Ashmolean to keep Manet portrait - University of Oxford". Archived from the original on 2012-08-10. Retrieved 2012-08-09.
  4. ↑ Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus by Edouard Manet, Art Fund
  5. ↑ Tome XVI, p. 281.
  6. ↑ Museum of Fine Arts of the city of Ghent (MSK Gent), Belgium : https://www.mskgent.be/en/featured-item/perspective-ii-manets-balcony
  7. ↑ Quoted in Sheaffer-Jones, Caroline. "Georges Bataille's Manet and the 'Strange Impression of an Absence'." Framing French Culture, edited by Natalie Edwards et al., University of Adelaide Press, South Australia, 2015, p. 236. JSTOR   10.20851/j.ctt1t304z1.13
  8. ↑ Meuris, Jacques (1994). René Magritte (trans. By J. A. Underwood). London: Greenwich Editions.
  9. 1 2 Boutin, Aimée (July 2012). "Rethinking the Flâneur: Flânerie and the Senses". Dix-Neuf. 16 (2): 124–132. doi: 10.1179/dix.2012.16.2.01 . ISSN   1478-7318. S2CID   194007045.
  10. ↑ D'Souza, A. & McDonough, T. (2006). The invisible flâneuse? : gender, public space and visual culture in nineteenth-century Paris. Manchester: Manchester University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.