The Power Gained in Modern Society

Manet: Le dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863. Musee d'Orsay Herbert.

This painting was a shock to modern Parisian society. Manet places two nudes in a painting with two fully clothed male students. Because these women are in the situation they are of a "dubious virtue."9 Even though artists in the past had done nudes, the traditional ones did not spark as much controversy as Manet's nudes. He placed his nudes within the context of modern society, not in a historical or biblical context. This made them more realistic and less idealistic. All of the characters in the piece seem to be average people who are lounging on the grass right after they finished a picnic in the forest. But how did the women get to be undressed while the men remained fully clothed?

The viewer would then assume that the women took off all of their clothes to bathe in the water and did not care how anyone else would react. Based on the type of bold actions that these women did, one would assume that they were "liberated" modern women. However, the relationship that she has with these two men does not seem to be of the purest nature. The woman in the front of the painting is sitting with a look of nonchalance, almost a smirk, across her face. The face she has seems to be Manet's answer to the conservatives of the modern time who found his painting to be too radical, too risque.

Manet's views on society and art are closely related. These women were not traditional modern women. They do not follow the domestic drudgery that a women's place is in the home because the setting of this painting is far from it. Even though the ideals of domesticity were ones that began in the modern world, social mobility also began in the modern world. Therefore, the women in this painting are in the place they are in because the modern world allows for this mobility.

The painting itself was not in a traditional fashion either. One woman is bathing in the body of water that is in the background. It appears as if she is floating above the other figures in the painting. This spacing is opposite the old-fashioned way that a painting was once drawn, that is with perfect perspective. His views on society and art are mirror reflections of each other. The way he sees society and the way that he paints society are both radical. Traditional nudes were mythological yet he placed them in a contemporary setting. Women were supposed to be bound to a domestic realm yet he placed them in a situation far from home. In both cases he was ridiculing tradition.

9 Robert L. Herbert, Impressionism Art, Leisure, & Parisian Society (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1988)

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