Contented Cat

Hommage à Manet?

A critical eye may see this oil painting as somewhat in the style of some works by Édouard Manet (he said, qualifying himself at every turn). That is, we have fairly flat regions of color with strong contrasts of light and dark and using a "neutral" palette. But let's hasten to say this rendering was not a deliberate pastiche. That's just the way it turned out.

Yes, yes, we know Manet fans will say "I knew Édouard Manet, Édouard Manet was a friend of mine, and you, sir, are no Édouard Manet." But that's probably a good thing. After all, at age 51 Édouard succumbed to what he and his fellow countrymen referred to as la maladie anglaise.

Édouard didn't start out as a painter. Mama and Papa Manet, as do many affluent and well set up parents, wanted young Édouard to pursue a respectable career. They suggested the field of law where Édouard could make good money by putting on a long sleeved dress, a bib, and a funny hat while trying alternatively to keep people from being shipped to what we incorrectly call Devil's Island or trying to get them shipped there. But law wasn't to Édouard's taste, and after not doing too well as a military student (in fact, he didn't even get in the school) or a river boat pilot, he convinced his dad that art was his true calling. Papa Manet agreed as it was evident that the kid wasn't worth a damn at anything else.

It was common for aspiring artists to sign up in an atelier of an established artist. Atelier is a rather broad term. It could mean the (established) artist's workshop where his apprentices and assistants worked. Or it could be a teaching studio entirely given to instruction of students who were not apprentices. The last type of atelier was a good deal for the teachers since they were often administered by the students themselves. They located the space, collected the rent, and hired the models, while the teacher only had to come in a couple of times a week and criticize the student's work and collect his dough. A further advantage of the teaching atelier is that if the teacher left for a better job (such as a professorship at one of Paris's big name art schools), another teacher could step in and seamlessly continue the instruction.

Édouard studied art with Thomas Couture. Thomas was a quite successful artist, and although his rather ridiculous painting of a Roman orgy had the ultimate indignity of serving as the cover art for various 20th and 21st century paperbacks, it won great praise at the 1847 Salon.

The Salon, as art aficionados know, was France's national art show held each year in Paris. Since showing in the Salon was de rigeur for the success of up-and-coming artists, Édouard began submitting his paintings. His first painting to be shown was the Spanish Singer in the 1861 Salon. An official CooperToons opinion is the painting is OK, but Édouard could do better.

For the 1863 Salon Édouard sent in the now-iconic Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass). Virtually everyone who is familiar with 19th century art has seen this painting of the guys in their best suits and the gals in their birthday suits. Édouard sent the painting to the 1863 Salon.

Although in the '63 Salon the percentage of paintings put on display compared to the total sent in wasn't as low as you sometimes read on the Fount of All Knowledge (i. e., the Internet), the widespread indignation of the increasingly disaffected artists ended up with the King of France, Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (then styling himself as the Emperor Napoleon III), saying, well, he'd set up a Salon des Refusés. That way the public could decide for themselves if the judges' judgment was sound. Amongst the refusés, of course, was the Déjeuner.

After he toured the exhibit, Napoleon III said he thought the refusés were every bit as good as the art in the official show. But all in all, the journalistic reviews of the Salon des Refusés were biting jibes and sneers. The story even started circulating that when Louis Napoleon's wife, the Empress Eugénie (who according to Karl Marx suffered from an "indelicate complaint") saw Édouard's painting, she quickly averted her eyes and hurried on past. Others, though, just laughed and snickered, as, alas, some people still do today.

The big question that can lead to a lot of bar and tavern arguments (at least in some bars and taverns) was whether Édouard was an Impressionist. Actually, some professional historians do not call him such. Instead they usually rank him in the artistic generation before and transitory to la Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes (Peintres, Sculpteurs, et Graveurs) (that is, Artists (Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers), Inc.), which is what the Impressionists called themselves before some journalist dubbed them (ptui) Impressionists. Virtually all Impressionists were about a decade younger than Édouard, with the notable exceptions of Camille Pissaro, Édouard's senior by two years and Edgar Degas, his junior by the same span. So Édouard's role was more as an influence or mentor to the younger bunch. But the critical point, we read, is that Édouard's style, particular his use of colors, was not typically impressionistic.

Of course, as Humpty Dumpty said, words mean what we want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less, and there were some art historians calling Édouard an Impressionists over 60 years ago. Certainly today more and more books and sites on the Fount list Édouard as an Impressionist. And if you look at some of Édouard's paintings - like his 1874 painting, Boating, then they can certainly be called impressionistic in brush work and color. So if Impressionists are artists who at least sometimes paint like Impressionists, then we suppose Édouard was indeed an Impressionist.

But in Édouard's time to really sport the title une Impressioniste, you had to be one of the artists (painters or sculptors or engravers) who exhibited by invitation in what have now become known as the Impressionist Exhibits. These were independent shows that were organized by Claude Monet and friends and which started in 1874. Although Édouard's sister-in-law, Bertha Morisot (ten years younger than Édouard), did exhibit with this bunch, all his life Édouard politely declined invitations to do so. As far as he was concerned, he was a perfectly mainstream artist, and preferred to submit to the Salon. Moi? Une Impressioniste? Absolument pas!

There was no Salon in 1871 because France lost the Franco-Prussian War which led to the famous (and short lived) Paris Commune. After all, if your - quote - "Emperor" - unquote - is taken prisoner-of-war (albeit briefly), and there is a civil war with barricades in the streets of Paris, your national art show is not of high priority. And of course, the war was what started the horrible jokes about the French and the Germans that cause the British and Americans so much mirth. But soon the problems sorted themselves out, the Third Republic (sans the Emperor) was declared, and, hey, presto!, the Salon returned in 1872.

The Salon did not have a quota per se. Instead, the works were supposed to be accepted simply if they were good enough for the staid, old-fashioned fuddy-duddies who reviewed the exhibits and equated great art with standards pioneering those of the 1950's men's magazines. Each artist could submit three works and from the mid-1800's on, anything from 2000 to 5000 works would appear in the show.

The trouble was the Salon also had the rule that if you won a prize you were guaranteed to have a place for your art reserved in the future shows (kind of like being one of the top PGA players who can skip the qualifying rounds). So at the end of the 1870's, there were so many automatic acceptances that 4000 paintings and sculptures would be on display before any new artwork could be considered. Of course, there would be no point to the show if you didn't accept new artists, and so by 1880 the Salon had to find places for over 7000 works.

Although Édouard continued to submit to the Salon, his success was sporadic, and once he even rented his own space nearby to set up a one-man private exhibition. This wasn't cheap, and his parents were afraid he'd blow his family legacy (when Édouard's dad died, he left his son with enough money to live comfortably without working). But all in all, Édouard did well enough, and some of France's most famous public figures such as writer Émile Zola (of "J'Accuse!" fame) championed Édouard's art as long as the artist lived.

That, as we said, wasn't too long, and Édouard finally fell prey, as we said, to the malady that even today remains controversial and of which the more prudish references simply call "a malady". However, objective and qualified physicians who read of his symptoms (seizures, gangrenous lower limbs requiring amputation, etc.) say yes, Édouard's did have the malady.

Eventually the famous Salon collapsed under its own weight and broke apart into splinter-group exhibitions, privately sponsored shows, and independent organizations. After the massive and unwieldy 1880 show, the French government abandoned its official patronage, and although the exhibition continued under private sponsorship, it really wasn't the same. By the early 20th century what had been the famous Paris Salon had disintegrated into separate shows, more than one of which called themselves a Salon.

Édouard's last submission was in 1882 with his last "major" painting. This was his famous Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Much has been made of the fact that the viewer appears to be the actual customer of whom the lady bartender is serving. But if you look in the mirror, you see the reflection which doesn't quite fit either with the line of the mirror or with the person talking to the bartender, especially if the viewer is a lady.

Édouard himself did not survive the following year. His health had pretty much hit the nadir, and he was almost incapacitated. Then the gangrene set in in his leg. He had the leg amputated in mid-April but died two weeks later, on April 30, 1883.

Although it is considered a legitimate technique to adjust photographs of paintings to correct for color distortion and loss of contrast, this photograph is unretouched. Instead, the painting was photographed under artificial, but "natural spectrum" lighting and posted here with no further ado. So this is probably what the picture would look like in a gallery lit by a skylight. Also standing a bit away. The actual size is 18" X 24".

Those who have visited the CooperToons website in its salad days will notice that this is - at long last - the oeuvre which arose from the initial study posted, well, let's just say "some time ago". And without wearying the viewer with actual dates, the painting also took "some time" to complete - at least if you count time simply by the subtraction of the date of completion from the date of initiation. But then it took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the same time for Leonardo da Vinci to complete the Last Supper in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

On the other hand, the actual labor that went into this painting is better thought of as being spread out over days rather than weeks, months, or years. But that doesn't mean the extra time was for naught. If we believe the eyewitness account of Matteo Bandello, who as a young novice in the monastery of the Grazie, saw Leonardo at work, the great painter would sometimes go for days without touching a brush and just stand looking and "criticizing" his work. After all, Leonardo did say that men of genius are doing the most when they are doing the least.

You can't hurry great art - or modesty.

References

Édouard Manet: Rebel in a Frock Coat, Beth Archer Brombert, Little, Brown, and Company, 1996

Diseases & Diagnoses: The Second Age of Biology, Sander Gilman, Transaction Publications, 2009.

Musée d'Orsay, http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html. This museum is the part of the Louvre where the 19th century and later art is on exhibit. Contrary to popular belief, there are some American's represented, mainly James McNeil Whistler and Winslow Homer.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/. Has a fair number of Édouard's paintings.

Paris Salon Exhibitions: 1667-1880(A History in Collage), https://sites.google.com/a/plu.edu/paris-salon-exhibitions-1667-1880/home. An overview of the Salon when under official government sponsorship.

Rodin: A Biography, Frederic Grunfeld, Henry Holt and Company, 1987. This book has a lot of interesting information on the Paris Salons. For instance, today a sculpture made from a life cast (such as the work of sculptor Duane Hanson) would be considered fine to put in an art show or museum. In the 19th century, though, such a practice was not acceptable for the Salons. But Auguste was such a good sculptor that his submission in 1877, L'Âge d'Airain was judged to be surmoulage, ergo, made from direct last casting of the model. This wasn't true and Auguste provided the judges with affidavits from people who saw him model the sculpture. Auguste was of course a highly successful and mainstream artist who nonetheless was close to being an Impressionist and was a good friend of Claude Monet (who was born literally two days of Auguste in 1840) and who, although successful, was not mainstream.

Michelangelo, George Bull, St. Martin's Press, 1997.

Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind, Charles Nicholl, Viking, 2004

Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari, Oxford World Classics, Oxford University Press, 1998 (Original title: Le Vite de' Piú Eccellenti Architetti, Pittori, et Scultori Italiani, da Cimabue Insinio a' Tempi Nostri (1550, 1568) or the Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters, and Italian Sculptors from Cimabue [Bencivieni di Pepo] Until Our Times, 1550). The famous quote of Leonardo is usually rendered on the Fount of All Knowledge as "Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active." The actual - "quote" - quote - "unquote" - is "gl'ingegni elevati, talor che manco lavorano, più adoperano", which is perhaps over literally rendered as "The elevated intelligent, who sometimes lack work, accomplish more"). Alas, whichever way you want to put it, claims that this is a quote of Leonardo are not quite correct, not the least reason is that it is not really a quote from Leonardo.

Instead it is a hypothetical reconstruction based on an anecdote in Giorgio's famous book about when Leonardo was working on the Last Supper. Giorgio tells us that Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, at the behest of the prior of the Grazie, had asked why Leonardo was taking so long to finish the painting. Leonardo, we read, "persuaded him [the Duke] that the greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less."

A further difficulty in assessing what, if anything, Leonardo did say is bedeviled by the story being missing from Giorgio's earliest printing (1550) but is inserted into the second - and considerably expanded - edition. So at best the famous quote is a creation from a paraphrase of a conversation Leonardo may have had.

Still, Giorgio is admittedly one of the most important primary sources on the lives and history of Renaissance artists. And so it's OK for the historian to say Leonardo said something like men of genius are doing the most when they are dong the least. But we really shouldn't cite any wording as a bonafide Leonardo quote, à la what you find in his notebooks - or on the Fount of All Knowledge.

A Scandalous History of the Roman Emperors, Anthony Blond, Basic Books, 2000 (Original Edition: 1994). This uses Thomas's painting as the cover art.