Manet's paintings "Breakfast on the Grass" and "Olympia" are the stars of the parlor of outcasts. The Nine Symbols Encoded in Manet's Olympia
In the main building of the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin opened the exhibition "Olympia" - brought to Moscow famous masterpiece Impressionist Édouard Manet. "Around the World" tells about the symbols encrypted in this picture.
Painting "Olympia" (Olympia)
Canvas, oil. 130.5×190 cm
Year of creation: 1863
Located in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris
The feelings of the public are so easily offended... Now this can be achieved by pulling a poster with Christ on the stage or dancing the dance of the bees. And in the 19th century, when nudity could not surprise anyone, Edouard Manet painted a naked prostitute - the scandal was sky high. The author of the sensation himself did not count on this.
In 1865, almost the biggest scandal broke out at the Paris Salon in its entire, at that time, almost two-century history. Armed guards had to be posted in front of one of the paintings to protect the work from the indignant crowd. Outraged visitors tried to spit on the canvas, hit it with a cane or umbrella. Critics branded the picture for cynicism and depravity and conjured to protect pregnant women and young maidens from this monstrous spectacle. It would seem that what distinguished the naked girl from Manet's painting from "Venus", "Susanne", "Bathers" and other nudes, which in mid-nineteenth century were present at every exhibition? But his Olympia was neither a figure of myth or ancient history, neither allegory nor abstract example female beauty. Judging by the velvet on the neck and shoes, the artist portrayed a contemporary, and everything, including the title of the painting, clearly indicated the girl's profession. Olympia was the name of a courtesan, the heroine of the novel and drama by Alexandre Dumas, the son of The Lady of the Camellias; this spectacular ancient name served " creative pseudonym» to many expensive Parisian prostitutes. Lying on a prepared bed, a girl from a painting by Manet looks directly at the viewer with a frank and slightly cynical look - as if she were a client who has just entered, and this angered the respectable (at least in public) metropolitan bourgeois.
At the exhibition, the ill-fated work was hung in the far room almost to the ceiling so that no one could damage it. Recognition, as often happens, came to the masterpiece after the death of the artist.
1. The pose of the heroine and the composition of the picture- a direct reference to the "Venus of Urbino" by Titian Vecellio. "Olympia"- a kind of modernized version of the masterpiece of the Renaissance - as if parodying it in many details.
2. Model. The representative of the Parisian bohemia, model Victorine Meuran, nicknamed Shrimp for her diminutiveness, served as a model not only for Olympia, but also for many others. female images from paintings by Manet. Subsequently, she herself tried to become an artist, but did not succeed. Art historian Phyllis Floyd believes that one of the prototypes of Olympia was the most discussed courtesan of those years - Marguerite Bellanger, mistress of Emperor Napoleon III.
3. Mules, or panty shoes. These mules were common indoor shoes of the time. The removed shoe is an erotic symbol, a sign of lost innocence.
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4. Bracelet and earrings. They repeat the decorations of Venus from Titian's painting, emphasizing the connection between the two paintings.
5. Flower. Olympia's hair is adorned with an aphrodisiac - an orchid.
6. Pearls. Attribute of Venus, goddess of love.
7. Cat. A symbol of female sexual promiscuity. In the painting by Manet, she is in the same place where on the canvas of Titian the dog is a symbol of marital fidelity (“Venus of Urbino” is dedicated to the joys of marriage, was originally intended to decorate the chest with the bride’s dowry).
8. Bouquet. A traditional offering to courtesans from their clients.
9. Maid. While in the painting by Titian the confidantes of Venus the bride are laying out her dowry in chests, in Manet the maid carries a kind of "deposit" from the client to the hostess. Some expensive prostitutes in 19th-century Paris kept dark-skinned servants whose appearance evoked associations with the exotic pleasures of Oriental harems.
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1832
- Born in Paris in the family of an official of the Ministry of Justice and goddaughter of the Swedish king. |
Courbet himself, seeing the Olympia exhibited there in the Salon of 1865, exclaimed: “But this is flat, there is no modeling here! This is some Queen of Spades from a deck of cards, resting after a bath!
To which Manet - always ready to hit back - replied: “Courbet is tired of us, after all, with his modeling! Listen to him, so the ideal is a billiard ball.
Gustave Courbet was not alone in misunderstanding the works Edouard Manet. I wonder how the modern public will accept "Olympia": will they be just as outraged and point at the picture with umbrellas, because of which the museum staff will have to hang the picture higher so that visitors do not spoil it? Most likely no. Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin presents an exhibition of the legendary Olympia, surrounded by several more images of female beauty. In this material, it is proposed to trace the fate of the main work Edouard Manet, who went down in history as "a passionate polemicist against bourgeois vulgarity, petty-bourgeois stupidity, philistine laziness of thought and feeling."
Edouard Manet often known to everyone as an impressionist, but he began to paint revolutionary paintings even before the popularization of impressionism in 19th-century painting. The artist not only wanted to tell the truth about his time, but also to change the system of salon art from the inside with the help of plots. By the way, his manner differs from other impressionists in that he works with portraits, and not with nature in different time days, in his manner one can trace larger strokes, and the color scheme does not completely get rid of dark tones, as, for example, in Pierre Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet or Edgar Degas.
As mentioned earlier, critics and artists did not favor the artist's desire to change salon art. Then, in the dominance of mythological plots, Mane dared to paint pictures about the life that surrounds him: he painted his contemporaries, who could be unremarkable and not have a high status in society, but be interesting for sketches and paintings. The most important thing is the truth, for which he was rejected in salon art. Of course, Manet also had defenders, among whom was Emile Zola And Charles Baudelaire, A Eugene Delacroix supported his paintings for salons. Emile Zola on this occasion, he remarked: “Look at the living persons walking around the hall; look at the shadows cast by these bodies on the parquet and on the walls! Then look at the pictures Mane and you will see that they breathe truth and power. Now look at the other canvases smiling stupidly at you from the walls: you can't get over your laughter, can you? .
Edouard Manet studied with couture, salon artist, but realized that the simulated poses of sitters on quasi-historical or mythological subjects are "an idle and useless occupation." He was inspired by several main themes: Italian Renaissance painting ( Filippino Lippi, Rafael, Giorgione- "artists of pure and bright harmony"), creativity Velasquez mature period. He was also influenced by the French painting XVIII century ( Watteau, Chardin). He copied "Venus of Urbino" Titian what has become Starting point for the emergence of Olympia. Edouard Manet wanted to paint the Venus of his time, that is, to some extent it was an ironic rethinking of mythology and an attempt to raise modernity to high classical images. But criticism did not favor such an approach at the Paris Salon of 1865, the title itself referred to the heroine of the novel (1848) and the drama of the same name (1852) Alexandre Dumas son"The Lady of the Camellias". There, Olympia is presented as the antagonist of the main character, besides being a public woman (her name has become a household name for all the ladies of her profession).
In fact, the artist wrote Quiz Meran, who posed for him in different guises: she was both a girl from the "Railway" and a boy in an Espada costume. Returning to Olympia, it must be said that Edouard Manet worked with colors that convey body tones without harsh changes in light and shadow, without modeling, as noted Gustave Courbet. The depicted woman dries after bathing, which was the first name of the picture, but over time, as you know, another name was assigned to her.
Female images that surround Olympia in the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin is a sculpture (cast) of Aphrodite by an ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles, "Lady behind the toilet, or Fornarina" Giulio Romano, "Queen (king's wife)" Paul Gauguin, who, as you know, took his reproduction of Olympia on a trip and created charming paintings under its influence.
sculpture (cast) of Aphrodite by the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles
Olympia - Edouard Manet. 1863. Oil on canvas. 130.5x190 cm
Created in 1863, the Olympia painting immediately attracted attention. True, its creator Edouard Manet did not count on such a resonance. Today, we, sophisticated viewers, find it hard to believe, but a naked girl reclining on white sheets caused an uproar.
The Salon of 1865 went down in history as one of the most scandalous in the history of world art. People openly resented, scolded the artist, tried to spit on the canvas, and some even tried to pierce it with umbrellas or canes. In the end, the management of the exhibition had to hang it up to the very ceiling, and put up guards below.
What offended the viewer's gaze so much, because this is far from the first work in the nude style in the visual arts? The thing is that before Manet, painters depicted the heroines of myths, beautiful goddesses, and the painter ventured to “undress” a modern, quite concrete woman in his work. The public could not bear such shamelessness!
The model for the work was Edouard Manet's favorite model, Quiz Meran, and the master was inspired to write the canvas of just some classics - Velasquez, Giordano,.
Attentive viewer will notice that the author of Olympia completely copied the compositional scheme of his illustrious predecessors. But although the canvas bears a clear imprint, Manet managed to breathe a completely different character into his work through his own style, as well as an appeal to a real heroine. The author, as it were, was trying to tell the viewer: contemporaries are no less attractive than the repeatedly sung Venus of the past.
Young Olympia lies on a white bed, her fresh, light golden skin contrasting with the sheets, written in a cool blue hue. Her posture is relaxed and free, but a strong-willed rebellious look, directed directly at the viewer, gives her image dynamism and hidden grandeur. Her figure (unlike classical examples) is devoid of emphasized roundness, on the contrary, a certain “angularity” is read in it - an intentional device of the author. By this, he wanted to emphasize the modernity of his model, as well as to indicate a strong-willed character and independence.
Having enjoyed the image of a naked beauty, the viewer shifts his gaze to the left - there is a dark-skinned maid with a bouquet of flowers, which she brought to present to the charmer. Dark color the skin of a woman contrasts sharply with both bright colors and white clothes.
In order to focus the viewer on the main character as much as possible, Edouard Manet, as if on purpose, did not work out the background in detail, as a result, the carefully and carefully drawn Olympia comes forward, as if stepping over the closed space of the picture.
Not only the innovative plot and brilliantly calibrated composition make the painting an exceptional masterpiece - the color palette of the canvas deserves special admiration. The finest nuances of ocher, golden, beige hues surprisingly harmonize with the blue and white colors, as well as the smallest gradations of golden, with which the shawl on the heroine's bed was painted.
The picture is somewhat reminiscent of a sketch or sketch. This impression is caused by the smallest elaboration of details and lines in the image of the main character, as well as the somewhat flat technique of the painter - Manet deliberately abandoned the traditional alla prima writing. The artist was sure that such a flat interpretation makes the work more emotional and vivid.
It is known that after the painting was exhibited at the Salon, the public began to violently persecute Manet, and he was even forced to flee to the provinces, and then completely leave for.
Today, the delightful "Olympia" is numbered among the best pictures created ever, and its author forever entered the history of world art as a great and exceptional creator.
In the pandan, earrings are matched to the pearl, and on the right hand of the model there is a wide gold bracelet with a pendant. The girl's legs are decorated with graceful pantalette shoes.
The second character on Manet's canvas is a dark-skinned maid. In her hands she holds a luxurious bouquet in white paper. The black woman is dressed in a pink dress that contrasts brightly with her skin, and her head is almost lost among the black tones of the background. A black kitten settled down at the foot of the bed, serving as an important compositional point on the right side of the picture.
Olympia was modeled by Manet's favorite model, Quiz Myuran. However, there is an assumption that Manet used the image in the picture famous courtesan, mistress of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte Marguerite Bellange .
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Edouard Manet:
Venus Urbinskaya
Copy of a painting by Titian
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Edouard Manet:
Sketch for Olympia
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Edouard Manet:
Sketch for Olympia
Sanguina
Edouard Manet:
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Watercolor 1863
Edouard Manet:
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Etching 1867
Edouard Manet:
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Etching with aquatint 1867
Edouard Manet:
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Woodcut
Iconography
Predecessors
Olympia was one of the most famous nudes of the 19th century. However, Olympia has many well-known examples that preceded it: the image of a reclining naked woman has a long tradition in the history of art. The direct predecessors of Manet's Olympia are " Sleeping Venus"Giorgione 1510 and" Venus Urbinskaya» Titian 1538. Nude women are painted on them in almost the same pose.
"Olympia" by Manet reveals a great resemblance to the painting by Titian, because it was from her that Manet wrote a copy during the years of his apprenticeship. Both Venus of Urbino and Olympia are depicted at home; as in the painting by Titian, the background of Manet's Olympia is clearly divided into two parts by a vertical in the direction of the bosom of a reclining woman. Both women equally lean on their right hand, both women's right hand is decorated with a bracelet, and the left hand covers the bosom, and the gaze of both beauties is directed directly at the viewer. In both paintings, a kitten or a dog is located at the feet of the women and there is a maid. Manet already used a similar manner of quoting with the transfer of the Renaissance motif to modern Parisian realities when creating " Breakfast on the Grass".
The direct and open look of naked Olympia is already known from Goya's Naked Maja, and the contrast between pale and dark skin was already played out in the painting Esther or Odalisque by Leon Benuville in 1844, although in this picture the white woman is dressed. By 1850 nude photographs of reclining women were also widely circulated in Paris.
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Giorgione:
Sleeping Venus
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Leon Benouville:
Esther or Odalisque
Manet was influenced not only by painting and photography, but also by Charles Baudelaire's poetry collection Flowers of Evil. The original idea of the painting was related to the poet's metaphor " Catwoman”, passing through a number of his works dedicated to Jeanne Duval. This connection is clearly seen in the original sketches. IN finished painting a bristling cat appears at the woman's feet with the same expression as the mistress's eyes.
Title of the canvas and its subtext
One of the reasons for the scandalousness of the canvas was its name: the artist did not follow the tradition of justifying the nudity of a woman in the picture with a legendary plot and did not call his nude a "mythological" name like " Venus" or " Danae". In 19th century painting Numerous Odalisques appeared, the most famous of which, of course, is The Great Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, but Manet neglected this option as well.
On the contrary, the style of the few jewelry and the style of the girl's shoes indicate that Olympia lives in modern time, not in some abstract Attica or the Ottoman Empire.
The very name that Manet gave the girl is also unusual. A decade and a half earlier, in 1848, Alexandre Dumas published his famous novel The Lady of the Camellias, in which the main antagonist and colleague of the heroine of the novel bears the name Olympia. Moreover, this name was a household name: the ladies of the demimonde were often called that. For the artist's contemporaries, this name was associated not with the distant Mount Olympus, but with.
This is confirmed by the symbolic language of the picture:
- In the Titian painting "Venus of Urbino", the women in the background are busy preparing the dowry, which, together with the sleeping dog at the feet of Venus, should mean home comfort and fidelity. And at Manet, a black maid carries a bouquet of flowers from a fan - flowers are traditionally considered a symbol of a gift, a donation. The orchid in Olympia's hair is an aphrodisiac.
- Pearl jewelry was worn by the goddess of love Venus, the jewelry around the neck of Olympia looks like a ribbon tied on a wrapped gift.
- A bowed kitten with a raised tail is a classic attribute in the depiction of witches, a sign of bad omens and erotic excesses.
- In addition, the bourgeois were especially outraged that the model (a naked woman), contrary to all norms of public morality, did not lie down modestly with her eyes downcast. Olympia appears before the viewer not dormant, like George's Venus, she looks him straight in the eye. Her client usually looks directly into the eyes of a prostitute, in this role, thanks to Manet, everyone who looks at his Olympia turns out to be.
Who came up with the idea to name the painting "Olympia" remains unknown. In the city, a year after the creation of the picture, the poem “ Daughter of the Island"and poems by Zachary Astrukdedicated to Olympia. This poem is listed in the catalog of the Paris Salon in 1865.
Zachary Astruc wrote this poem inspired by a painting by his friend. However, it is curious that in the 1866 portrait by Manet, Zachary Astruc is depicted not against the background of Olympia, but against the background of Titian's Venus of Urbino.
Scandal
paris salon
For the first time, Manet tried to present his work at the Paris Salon in 1859. However, his Absinthe Lover was not admitted to the salon. In 1861, at the Paris Salon, two works by Manet won the favor of the public - "Guitarero" and "Portrait of Parents". In 1863, Manet's works again did not pass the selection of the jury of the Paris Salon and were shown as part of the Salon of the Rejected, where Breakfast on the Grass was already at the epicenter of a major scandal.
Probably Manet was going to show "Olympia" at the Paris Salon in 1864, but since the same nude Quiz Meuran was again depicted on it, Manet decided to avoid a new scandal and offered to the Paris Salon of 1864 instead of "Olympia" " Bullfight Episode" and " Dead Christ with angels”, but they were also denied recognition. It was only in 1865 that Olympia was presented at the Paris Salon along with The Mockery of Christ.
New style of writing
Because of "Olympia" Manet broke out one of the biggest scandals in the art of the XIX century. Scandalous turned out to be both the plot of the picture and the pictorial manner of the artist. Manet, addicted Japanese art, refused to carefully study the nuances of light and dark, which other artists aspired to. Because of this, contemporaries could not see the volume of the depicted figure and considered the composition of the picture to be rough and flat. Gustave Courbet compared Olympia to the Queen of Spades from a pack of cards, fresh out of her bath. Manet was accused of immorality and vulgarity. Antonin Proust later recalled that the painting survived only thanks to the precautionary measures taken by the exhibition administration.
| Never and no one has ever seen anything more cynical than this "Olympia", - wrote contemporary critic. - This is a female gorilla, made of rubber and depicted completely naked, on a bed. Her hand seems to be cramping obscenely ... Seriously speaking, I would advise young women in anticipation of a child, as well as girls, to avoid such impressions. |
The canvas exhibited at the Salon caused a stir and was subjected to wild mockery from the crowd, agitated by the criticism that had fallen from the newspapers. The frightened administration placed two guards at the picture, but this was not enough. The crowd, laughing, howling and threatening with canes and umbrellas, was not frightened even by the military guard. Several times the soldiers had to draw their weapons. The painting gathered hundreds of people who came to the exhibition only to curse the painting and spit on it. As a result, the painting was hung in the farthest hall of the Salon to such a height that it was almost invisible.
The artist Degas said:
The life path of the canvas
- - the picture is painted.
- - the painting is exhibited in the Salon. After that, for almost a quarter of a century, it is kept in the author's workshop, inaccessible to outsiders.
- - the painting was exhibited at the exhibition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. A wealthy American expresses a desire to buy it for any money. Manet's friends collect 20,000 francs by subscription and buy Olympia from the artist's widow to bring it as a gift to the state. Not too happy with such a gift, the authorities, after some resistance, nevertheless accept the gift and deposit it in the storerooms of the Luxembourg Palace.
- - Without too much noise, "Olympia" is transferred to the Louvre.
- - finally, the picture still takes pride of place in the newly opened Museum of Impressionism.
Painting influence
The first artist to create his work based on Olympia was Paul Cezanne. However, in his Modern Olympia”He went a little further, depicting, in addition to the prostitute and the maid, also the client. Paul Gauguin painted a copy of Olympia in 1891, Olympia inspired both Edgar Degas and Henri Fantin-Latour. In his parody of Olympia, Pablo Picasso replaced a dressed maid with two naked men.
Throughout the 20th century, the motif of Olympia was in great demand among the most different artists. These include Jean Dubuffet, René Magritte, Francis Newton Souza, Gerhard Richter, A. R. Penck, Félix Vallotton, Jacques Villon and Herrault. Larry Rivers wrote a black Olympia in the city and called his creation " I like Olympia in Black Face". In the 1990s three-dimensional Olympia appeared. American artist Seward Johnson created a sculpture based on Manet's Olympia titled " Confrontational Vulnerability».
In 2004, a cartoon depicting George W. Bush. in the pose of Olympia, was removed from the exhibition of the Washington City Museum.
Filmography
- "The Model with a Black Cat" film Alain Jaubert from the cycle "Palettes" (France, 1998).
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Notes
Links
- in the Musée d'Orsay database (fr.)
An excerpt characterizing Olympia (painting by Manet)
Bilibin was a man of about thirty-five, single, of the same society as Prince Andrei. They had known each other in St. Petersburg, but they got to know each other even more closely during Prince Andrei's last visit to Vienna with Kutuzov. As Prince Andrei was a young man, promising to go far in the military field, so, and even more so, Bilibin promised in the diplomatic one. He was still a young man, but no longer a young diplomat, since he began to serve at the age of sixteen, he had been in Paris, in Copenhagen, and now in Vienna he occupied quite a few significant place. Both the chancellor and our envoy in Vienna knew him and cherished him. He was not one of those many diplomats who are obliged to have only negative virtues, not to do famous things and speak French in order to be very good diplomats; he was one of those diplomats who love and know how to work, and, despite his laziness, he sometimes spent his nights at desk. He worked equally well, whatever the essence of the work. He was not interested in the question “why?”, but in the question “how?”. What the diplomatic matter was, he did not care; but to draw up skillfully, aptly and gracefully a circular, memorandum or report - in this he found great pleasure. The merits of Bilibin were valued, in addition to written works, also for his art of addressing and speaking in higher spheres.Bilibin loved conversation just as he loved work, only when the conversation could be elegantly witty. In society, he constantly waited for an opportunity to say something remarkable and entered into a conversation only under these conditions. Bilibin's conversation was constantly sprinkled with originally witty, complete phrases of common interest.
These phrases were prepared in Bilibin's internal laboratory, as if on purpose, of a portable nature, so that insignificant secular people could conveniently memorize them and transfer them from living rooms to living rooms. And indeed, les mots de Bilibine se colportaient dans les salons de Vienne, [Bilibin's reviews diverged in Viennese living rooms] and often had an impact on so-called important matters.
His thin, emaciated, yellowish face was all covered with large wrinkles, which always seemed to be as cleanly and painstakingly washed as the tips of fingers after a bath. The movements of these wrinkles constituted the main play of his physiognomy. Now his forehead was wrinkled in wide folds, his eyebrows went up, then his eyebrows went down, and large wrinkles formed on his cheeks. Deep-set, small eyes always looked directly and cheerfully.
“Well, now tell us your exploits,” he said.
Bolkonsky in the most modest way, never mentioning himself, told the case and the reception of the Minister of War.
- Ils m "ont recu avec ma nouvelle, comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles, [They accepted me with this news, as they accept a dog when it interferes with the game of skittles,] he concluded.
Bilibin grinned and loosened the folds of his skin.
- Cependant, mon cher, - he said, examining his nail from afar and picking up the skin above his left eye, - malgre la haute estime que je professe pour le Orthodox Russian army, j "avoue que votre victoire n" est pas des plus victorieuses. [However, my dear, with all due respect to the Orthodox Russian army, I believe that your victory is not the most brilliant.]
He continued all the same in French, pronouncing in Russian only those words that he contemptuously wanted to emphasize.
- How? You, with all your weight, attacked the unfortunate Mortier with one division, and this Mortier is slipping between your hands? Where is the victory?
“However, speaking seriously,” answered Prince Andrei, “we can still say without boasting that this is a little better than Ulm ...
“Why didn’t you take us one, at least one marshal?”
- Because not everything is done as expected, and not as regularly as in the parade. We thought, as I told you, to go to the rear by seven o'clock in the morning, and did not arrive even at five in the evening.
"Why didn't you come at seven o'clock in the morning?" You should have come at seven o'clock in the morning, - Bilibin said smiling, - you should have come at seven o'clock in the morning.
“Why didn’t you convince Bonaparte by diplomatic means that it was better for him to leave Genoa? - Prince Andrei said in the same tone.
“I know,” Bilibin interrupted, “you think it’s very easy to take marshals while sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace.” It's true, but still, why didn't you take it? And do not be surprised that not only the Minister of War, but also the august emperor and King Franz will not be very happy with your victory; and I, the unfortunate secretary of the Russian embassy, do not feel any need to give my Franz a taler as a token of joy and let him go with his Liebchen [darling] to the Prater ... True, there is no Prater here.
He looked directly at Prince Andrei and suddenly pulled the collected skin off his forehead.
“Now it’s my turn to ask you why, my dear,” said Bolkonsky. - I confess that I don’t understand, maybe there are diplomatic subtleties beyond my weak mind, but I don’t understand: Mack loses an entire army, Archduke Ferdinand and Archduke Karl do not give any signs of life and make mistakes after mistakes, finally, one Kutuzov wins a real victory, destroys the charme [charm] of the French, and the Minister of War is not even interested in knowing the details.
“It is from this, my dear. Voyez vous, mon cher: [You see, my dear:] hooray! for the tsar, for Rus', for the faith! Tout ca est bel et bon, [all this is fine and good,] but what do we, I say, the Austrian court, care about your victories? Bring us your good news about the victory of Archduke Charles or Ferdinand - un archiduc vaut l "autre, [one archduke is worth another,] as you know - at least over a company of Bonaparte's fire brigade, this is another matter, we will thunder into cannons. Otherwise this , as if on purpose, can only tease us. Archduke Karl does nothing, Archduke Ferdinand is covered with disgrace. You leave Vienna, you no longer defend, comme si vous nous disiez: [as if you told us:] God is with us, and God is with you, with your capital. One general whom we all loved, Schmitt: you bring him under a bullet and congratulate us on the victory! ... You must admit that it is impossible to imagine more irritating than the news that you bring. C "est comme un fait expres, comme unfait expres. [This is as if on purpose, as if on purpose.] Besides, well, if you won a brilliant victory, even if Archduke Karl won, what would change the general course of affairs? It's too late now that Vienna is occupied by French troops.
- How busy? Vienna busy?
- Not only busy, but Bonaparte is in Schönbrunn, and the count, our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.
Bolkonsky, after fatigue and the impressions of the journey, the reception, and especially after dinner, felt that he did not understand the full meaning of the words he heard.
“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilibin continued, “and showed me a letter detailing the French parade in Vienna. Le prince Murat et tout le tremblement ... [Prince Murat and all that ...] You see that your victory is not very joyful, and that you cannot be accepted as a savior ...
“Really, it doesn’t matter to me, it doesn’t matter at all! - said Prince Andrei, beginning to understand that his news of the battle near Krems really had little importance in view of such events as the occupation of the capital of Austria. - How is Vienna taken? And what about the bridge and the famous tete de pont, [bridge fortification,] and Prince Auersperg? We had rumors that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna,” he said.
- Prince Auersperg stands on this, on our side, and protects us; I think it protects very poorly, but still protects. Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and, I hope, will not be taken, because it is mined and ordered to be blown up. Otherwise, we would have been in the mountains of Bohemia long ago, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour between two fires.
“But this still does not mean that the campaign is over,” said Prince Andrei.
- I think it's over. And so the big hats here think, but dare not say it. It will be what I said at the beginning of the campaign, that it’s not your echauffouree de Durenstein, [the Durenstein clash,] not gunpowder that will decide the matter at all, but those who invented it, ”Bilibin said, repeating one of his mots [words], loosening his skin on the forehead and pausing. - The only question is what the Berlin meeting of Emperor Alexander with the Prussian king will say. If Prussia enters into an alliance, on forcera la main a l "Autriche, [force Austria,] and there will be war. If not, then the only thing is to agree on where to draw up the initial articles of the new Samro Formio. [Campo Formio.]
“But what extraordinary genius! - Prince Andrei suddenly cried out, squeezing his small hand and hitting it on the table. And what a blessing this man is!
— Buonaparte? [Buonaparte?] - Bilibin said inquiringly, wrinkling his forehead and thus making it feel that now it will be un mot [a word]. - Bu onaparte? - he said, striking especially on u. - I think, however, that now that he prescribes the laws of Austria from Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l "u. [I must save him from and.] I resolutely make an innovation and call it Bonaparte tout court [just Bonaparte].
“No, no joke,” said Prince Andrei, “do you really think that the campaign is over?
– Here's what I think. Austria was left in the cold, but she was not used to this. And she will repay. And she was left in a fool because, firstly, the provinces were ruined (on dit, le Orthodox est terrible pour le pillage), [they say that the Orthodox are terrible in terms of robberies,] the army is defeated, the capital is taken, and all this pour les beaux yeux du [for the sake of beautiful eyes,] Sardinian majesty. And therefore - entre nous, mon cher [between us, my dear] - I can smell that we are being deceived, I can smell relations with France and projects for peace, a secret world, separately concluded.
- It can't be! - said Prince Andrei, - that would be too disgusting.
- Qui vivra verra, [Let's wait and see] - Bilibin said, unraveling his skin again as a sign of the end of the conversation.
When Prince Andrei came into the room prepared for him and, in clean linen, lay down on down jackets and fragrant heated pillows, he felt that the battle he had brought news of was far, far away from him. The Prussian alliance, the betrayal of Austria, the new triumph of Bonaparte, the exit and parade, and the reception of Emperor Franz for the next day occupied him.
He closed his eyes, but at the same instant, cannonade, firing, the sound of carriage wheels crackled in his ears, and here again the musketeers stretched by a string descend from the mountain, and the French fire, and he feels his heart tremble, and he rides forward next to Schmitt, and the bullets whistle merrily around him, and he experiences that feeling of tenfold joy in life, which he has not experienced since childhood.
He woke up...
“Yes, it all happened!…” he said happily, smiling childishly to himself, and fell into a sound, young sleep.
The next day he woke up late. Resuming the impressions of the past, he remembered, first of all, that today he had to introduce himself to Emperor Franz, remembered the Minister of War, the courteous Austrian adjutant's wing, Bilibin, and the conversation of the previous evening. Dressing in full dress uniform, which he had not worn for a long time, for a trip to the palace, he, fresh, lively and handsome, with a bandaged hand, entered Bilibin's office. There were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps in the office. With Prince Ippolit Kuragin, who was the secretary of the embassy, Bolkonsky was familiar; Bilibin introduced him to others.
The gentlemen who visited Bilibin, secular, young, rich and cheerful people, both in Vienna and here, made up a separate circle, which Bilibin, who was the head of this circle, called ours, les nеtres. This circle, which consisted almost exclusively of diplomats, apparently had its own interests of high society, relations with certain women, and the clerical side of the service, which had nothing to do with war and politics. These gentlemen, apparently, willingly, as their own (an honor that they did to a few), accepted Prince Andrei into their circle. Out of courtesy, and as a subject for entering into conversation, several questions were put to him about the army and the battle, and the conversation again crumbled into inconsistent, merry jokes and gossip.
“But it’s especially good,” one said, describing the failure of a fellow diplomat, “it’s especially good that the chancellor told him directly that his appointment to London was a promotion, and that he should look at it that way. Do you see his figure at the same time? ...
"But what's worse, gentlemen, I betray Kuragin to you: a man is in misfortune, and this Don Juan, this terrible man, is taking advantage of this!"
Prince Hippolyte was lying in a Voltaire chair, with his legs over the handle. He laughed.
- Parlez moi de ca, [Well, well, well,] - he said.
Oh, Don Juan! Oh snake! voices were heard.
“You don’t know, Bolkonsky,” Bilibin turned to Prince Andrei, “that all the horrors of the French army (I almost said the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man did between women.
- La femme est la compagne de l "homme, [A woman is a man's friend,] - said Prince Hippolyte and began to look at his raised legs through a lorgnette.
Bilibin and ours burst out laughing, looking into Ippolit's eyes. Prince Andrei saw that this Ippolit, whom he (he had to confess) was almost jealous of his wife, was a jester in this society.
“No, I have to treat you with Kuragins,” Bilibin said quietly to Bolkonsky. - He is charming when he talks about politics, you need to see this importance.
He sat down next to Hippolyte and, gathering his folds on his forehead, started a conversation with him about politics. Prince Andrei and others surrounded them both.
- Le cabinet de Berlin ne peut pas exprimer un sentiment d "alliance," Hippolyte began, looking around significantly at everyone, "sans exprimer ... comme dans sa derieniere note ... vous comprenez ... vous comprenez ... et puis si sa Majeste l "Empereur ne deroge pas au principe de notre alliance… [The Berlin cabinet cannot express its opinion on the alliance without expressing… as in its last note… you understand… you understand… however, if His Majesty the Emperor does not change the essence of our alliance…]
- Attendez, je n "ai pas fini ... - he said to Prince Andrei, grabbing his hand. - Je suppose que l" intervention sera plus forte que la non intervention. Et…” He paused. - On ne pourra pas imputer a la fin de non recevoir notre depeche du 28 Novembre. Voila comment tout cela finira. [Wait, I didn't finish. I think that intervention will be stronger than non-intervention. And ... It is impossible to consider the case as completed by the non-acceptance of our dispatch of November 28th. How will this all end?]
And he let go of Bolkonsky's hand, showing by the fact that now he had completely finished.
- Demosthenes, je te reconnais au caillou que tu as cache dans ta bouche d "or! [Demosthenes, I recognize you by the pebble that you hide in your golden lips!] - said Bilibin, whose hat of hair moved on his head with pleasure .
Everyone laughed. Hippolyte laughed the loudest. He was apparently suffering, suffocating, but he could not help laughing wildly, stretching his always motionless face.
- Well, gentlemen, - said Bilibin, - Bolkonsky is my guest in the house and here in Brunn, and I want to treat him as much as I can with all the joys of life here. If we were in Brunn, it would be easy; but here, dans ce vilain trou morave [in that nasty Moravian hole], it is more difficult, and I ask you all for help. Il faut lui faire les honneurs de Brunn. [I need to show him Brunn.] You take over the theatre, I take over society, you, Hippolyte, of course, take over the women.
- We must show him Amelie, lovely! one of ours said, kissing the tips of his fingers.
“In general, this bloodthirsty soldier,” Bilibin said, “should be turned to more philanthropic views.
“I can hardly take advantage of your hospitality, gentlemen, and now it’s time for me to go,” Bolkonsky said, looking at his watch.
- Where?
- To the emperor.
- ABOUT! O! O!
- Well, goodbye, Bolkonsky! Goodbye, prince; come to dinner earlier, - voices followed. - We take care of you.
“Try as much as possible to praise the order in the delivery of provisions and routes when you speak with the emperor,” said Bilibin, escorting Bolkonsky to the front.
“And I would like to praise, but I can’t, as far as I know,” answered Bolkonsky smiling.
Well, talk as much as you can. His passion is audiences; but he does not like to speak and does not know how, as you will see.
At the exit, Emperor Franz only gazed intently into the face of Prince Andrei, who was standing in the appointed place between the Austrian officers, and nodded his long head to him. But after leaving yesterday's adjutant wing, courteously conveyed to Bolkonsky the emperor's desire to give him an audience.
Emperor Franz received him, standing in the middle of the room. Before starting the conversation, Prince Andrei was struck by the fact that the emperor seemed to be confused, not knowing what to say, and blushed.
Edward Mane. "Olympia".
1863 Oil on canvas. 130.5x190 cm.
Musée d'Orsay. Paris.
As soon as Olympia wakes up from sleep,
Black herald with a bunch of spring in front of her;
That is the messenger of a slave that cannot be forgotten,
The night of love turning the flowering of days.
Zachary Astruc
For us, Olympia is as classic as the paintings of the old masters, so it is not easy for a modern art lover to understand why a scandal erupted around this painting, which was first shown to the public at the Paris Salon of 1865, the likes of which Paris had never seen before. It got to the point that Manet had to attach armed guards to the work, and then completely hang it under the ceiling so that the canes and umbrellas of indignant visitors could not reach the canvas and damage it.
Newspapers unanimously accused the artist of immorality, vulgarity and cynicism, but the critics especially got the painting itself and the young woman depicted on it: “This brunette is disgustingly ugly, her face is stupid, her skin is like that of a corpse”, “This is a female gorilla, made of rubber and depicted completely naked, /…/, I advise young women in anticipation of a child, as well as girls, to avoid such impressions. “Laundress of Batignolles” (Manet’s workshop was located in the Batignolles quarter), “Venus with a cat”, “a sign for a booth in which a bearded woman is shown”, “yellow-bellied odalisque” ... While some critics excelled in wit, others wrote that “art, fallen so low, not even worthy of condemnation.
Edward Mane. Breakfast on the grass. 1863
No attacks on the Impressionists (with whom Manet was friendly, but did not identify himself) are incomparable with those that fell on the lot of the author of Olympia. There is nothing strange in this: the Impressionists, in search of new plots and new expressiveness, departed from the classical canons, Manet crossed a different line - he led a lively relaxed dialogue with the classics.
The Olympia scandal was not the first in Manet's biography. In the same 1863 as Olympia, the artist painted another significant painting - Breakfast on the Grass. Inspired by a canvas from the Louvre, Giorgione's "Country Concert" (1510), Manet reinterpreted its plot in his own way. Like a Renaissance master, he presented naked ladies and dressed men in the bosom of nature. But if Giorgione's musicians are dressed in Renaissance costumes, Manet's heroes are dressed in the latest Parisian fashion.
Giorgione. Village concert. 1510
The location and poses of the characters Manet borrowed from the engraving of the XVI century artist Marcantonio Raimondi "The Judgment of Paris", made according to the drawing of Raphael. Manet's painting (originally called "The Bath") was exhibited in the famous "Salon of the Rejected" in 1863, which showed works rejected by the official jury, and shocked the public.
It was customary to depict naked women only in paintings on mythological and historical subjects, so Manet's canvas, on which the action was transferred to the present, was considered almost pornographic. It is not surprising that after this the artist hardly decided to exhibit Olympia at the next Salon in 1865: after all, in this picture he “encroached” on another masterpiece classical art- a painting from the Louvre "Venus of Urbino" (1538), written by Titian. In his youth, Manet, like other artists of his circle, copied a lot of classical paintings of the Louvre, including (1856) and a painting by Titian. Working subsequently on Olympia, he, with amazing freedom and courage, gave new meaning composition well known to him.
Marcantonio Raimondi.
Judgment of Paris. First quarter. 16th century
Let's compare pictures. The painting by Titian, which, presumably, was supposed to decorate a large chest for a wedding dowry, sings of marriage joys and virtues. In both paintings, a naked woman lies, leaning her right hand on the pillows, and covering her bosom with her left.
Venus coquettishly tilted her head to one side, Olympia looks directly at the viewer, and this gaze reminds us of another painting - Francisco Goya's "Nude Sweep" (1800). The background of both paintings is divided into two parts by a strict vertical descending to the bosom of a woman.
Titian. Venus of Urbino.1538
On the left are dense dark draperies, on the right are bright spots: Titian has two maids busy with a chest with outfits, Manet has a black maid with a bouquet. This luxurious bouquet (most likely from a fan) replaced the rose (symbol of the goddess of love) in the right hand of Titian's Venus in Manet's painting. At the feet of Venus, a white dog curled up, a symbol of marital fidelity and family comfort, on the bed of Olympia a black cat flickers with green eyes, “coming” into the picture from the poems of Charles Baudelaire, a friend of Manet. Baudelaire saw in a cat a mysterious creature that takes on the features of its owner or mistress, and wrote philosophical poems about cats and cats:
"Home spirit or deity,
Everyone is judged by this prophetic idol,
And it seems that our things -
The economy is his own.”
Pearl earrings in the ears and a massive bracelet on the right hand of Olympia Manet borrowed from the painting by Titian, while he supplemented his canvas with several important details. Olympia lies on an elegant shawl with tassels, on her legs are golden pantolets, in her hair is an exotic flower, on her neck is a velvet with a large pearl, which only emphasizes the defiant nakedness of the woman. Spectators of the 1860s unmistakably determined from these attributes that Olympia was their contemporary, that the beauty who assumed the pose of the Venus of Urbino was nothing more than a successful Parisian courtesan.
Francisco Goya. Nude Maha. OK. 1800
The title of the painting exacerbated its "impropriety". Recall that one of the heroines of the popular novel (1848) and the drama of the same name (1852) by Alexandre Dumas the Younger "The Lady of the Camellias" was called Olympia. In Paris in the middle of the 19th century, this name was for some time a household name for "ladies of the half world." It is not known exactly to what extent the name of the painting was inspired by the works of Dumas and who - the artist himself or one of his friends - had the idea to rename "Venus" to "Olympia", but this name stuck. A year after the creation of the picture, the poet Zachary Astruc sang Olympia in the poem "The Daughter of the Island", the lines from which, which became the epigraph to this article, were placed in the catalog of a memorable exhibition.
Manet "offended" not only morality, but also the aesthetic sense of the Parisians. To today's viewer, the slender "stylish" Olympia (Manet's favorite model Victorine Meran posed for the picture) seems no less attractive than the feminine Titian Venus with her rounded shapes. But Manet's contemporaries saw in Olympia an unnecessarily thin, even angular person with non-aristocratic features. In our opinion, her body against the background of white and blue pillows radiates living warmth, but if we compare Olympia with the unnaturally pink languid Venus, written by the successful academician Alexander Cabanel in the same 1863, then better understand public reproaches: the natural color of Olympia's skin seems yellow, and the body is flat.
Alexander Cabanel. Birth of Venus. 1865
Manet, who became interested in Japanese art earlier than other French artists, refused to carefully convey the volume, from the study of color nuances. The unexpressed volume in Manet's painting is compensated, as in Japanese engravings, by the dominance of line, contour, but to the artist's contemporaries the picture seemed unfinished, carelessly, even clumsily written. Already a couple of years after the Olympia scandal, the Parisians who got acquainted with the art of Japan at the World Exhibition (1867) were fascinated and fascinated by it, but in 1865 many, including the artist’s colleagues, did not accept Manet’s innovations. So Gustave Courbet compared Olympia to "the queen of spades from a deck of cards who has just got out of the bath." “The tone of the body is dirty, and there is no modeling,” the poet Theophile Gautier echoed him.
Manet solves the most difficult color problems in this picture. One of them is the transfer of shades of black, which Manet, unlike the Impressionists, often and willingly used, following the example of his favorite artist, Diego Velasquez. The bouquet in the hands of a black woman, disintegrating into separate strokes, gave art historians a reason to say that Manet made a “revolution of the colorful spot”, affirmed the value of painting as such, regardless of the plot, and thus opened a new path for artists of subsequent decades.
Edward Mane. Portrait of Emile Zola. 1868
In the right upper corner- reproduction of "Olympia" and Japanese engraving.
Giorgione, Titian, Raphael, Goya, Velasquez, the aesthetics of Japanese engraving and ... the Parisians of the 1860s. In his works, Manet exactly followed the principle that he himself formulated: “Our duty is to extract from our era everything that it can offer us, not forgetting what was discovered and found before us.” This vision of the present through the prism of the past was inspired by Charles Baudelaire, who was not only a famous poet, but also an influential art critic. A real master, according to Baudelaire, must "feel the poetic and historical meaning of modernity and be able to see the eternal in the ordinary."
Manet did not want to belittle the classics and not to mock her, but to raise the present and the contemporary to high standards, to show that the Parisian dandies and their girlfriends are the same ingenuous children of nature as the characters of Giorgione, and the Parisian priestess of love, proud of her beauty and power over hearts, as beautiful as the Venus of Urbino. “We are not accustomed to seeing such a simple and sincere interpretation of reality,” wrote Emile Zola, one of the few defenders of the author of Olympia.
"Olympia" in the hall of the Musée d'Orsay.
In the 1870s, a long-awaited success came to Manet: the famous art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel bought about thirty works by the artist. But Manet considered Olympia his best canvas and did not want to sell it. After the death of Manet (1883), the painting was put up for auction, but there was no buyer for it. In 1889, the painting was included in the exhibition "One Hundred Years of French Art", arranged at the World Exhibition to commemorate the centenary of the Great french revolution. The image of the Parisian Venus won the heart of an American philanthropist, and he wished to buy the painting. But the artist's friends could not allow Manet's masterpiece to leave France. On the initiative of Claude Monet, they collected 20 thousand francs by public subscription, bought Olympia from the artist's widow and brought it as a gift to the state. The painting was included in the collection of paintings of the Luxembourg Palace, and in 1907, through the efforts of the then chairman of the French Council of Ministers, Georges Clemenceau, it was transferred to the Louvre.
For forty years "Olympia" was under the same roof with its prototype - "Venus of Urbino". In 1947, the painting moved to the Museum of Impressionism, and in 1986, Olympia, whose fate began so unfortunately, became the pride and decoration of the new Orsay Museum in Paris.
