Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me.
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This diagram shows how the perspective works in Manet's famous painting Un bar aux Folies Bergère. We are viewing the woman at an angle, and while the man is outside our field of view, his reflection can be seen.
Astounding! But it's not just a technical feat. It allowed Manet to make a deep point. While the woman is busy serving her customer, she is internally completely detached - perhaps bored, perhaps introspective. She is SPLIT.
To fully understand the painting you also need to know that many of the barmaids at the Folies Bergère also served as prostitutes. Standing behind the oranges, the champagne and a bottle of Bass ale, the woman is just as much a commodity as these other things. But she is coldly detached from her objectification.
The woman in the painting was actually a real person, known as Suzon, who worked at the Folies-Bergère in the early 1880s. For his painting, Manet posed her in his studio.
Before I understood this painting, I wasn't really looking at it - I didn't see it. I didn't even see the green shoes of the trapeze artist. I can often grasp music quite quickly. But paintings often fail to move me until someone explains them.
When Manet came out with this painting in 1882, some critics mocked him for his poor understanding of perspective. Some said he was going senile. It was, in fact, his last major painting. But he was a genius, and he was going... whoosh... over their heads, just like he went over mine.
This diagram created by Malcolm Park and Darren McKimm. For more details go here:
https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/manet_bar/looking_glass.html
(3/3)
@johncarlosbaez It is very interesting, especially that the perspective implies that the scene was seen away from the center of vision, i.e. the observer was watching from the corner of his eyes, implying it was shameful of sorts. At least that is how I interpret the schema with the frame of view not being aligned with the center of vision.
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This diagram shows how the perspective works in Manet's famous painting Un bar aux Folies Bergère. We are viewing the woman at an angle, and while the man is outside our field of view, his reflection can be seen.
Astounding! But it's not just a technical feat. It allowed Manet to make a deep point. While the woman is busy serving her customer, she is internally completely detached - perhaps bored, perhaps introspective. She is SPLIT.
To fully understand the painting you also need to know that many of the barmaids at the Folies Bergère also served as prostitutes. Standing behind the oranges, the champagne and a bottle of Bass ale, the woman is just as much a commodity as these other things. But she is coldly detached from her objectification.
The woman in the painting was actually a real person, known as Suzon, who worked at the Folies-Bergère in the early 1880s. For his painting, Manet posed her in his studio.
Before I understood this painting, I wasn't really looking at it - I didn't see it. I didn't even see the green shoes of the trapeze artist. I can often grasp music quite quickly. But paintings often fail to move me until someone explains them.
When Manet came out with this painting in 1882, some critics mocked him for his poor understanding of perspective. Some said he was going senile. It was, in fact, his last major painting. But he was a genius, and he was going... whoosh... over their heads, just like he went over mine.
This diagram created by Malcolm Park and Darren McKimm. For more details go here:
https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/manet_bar/looking_glass.html
(3/3)
@johncarlosbaez
It was this painting and this explanation that hooked me into Art History as a degree subject.
It was part of the Humanities introduction, and we later did the sort of deep dive into the location, the people and the sociology of it later.
There's so much to see and learn from apparently straightforward artworks! -
Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
@johncarlosbaez Did we get recommended the same video on YouTube?
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Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
Oh, dear. I always thought that there were literally two barmaids working and it was a two-sided bar.
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Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
@johncarlosbaez I loved the analysis at https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/123385-000-A/le-monde-dans-un-tableau/ (in French)
especially the japanese point of view.
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@johncarlosbaez @antopatriarca @ojs
Waldy did a nice item on it a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye5kbf2_wdI
#art #Manet #ABarAtFoliesBergère #Suzon@spacemagick @johncarlosbaez @antopatriarca @ojs "Waldy", heh. In our family we call him "Wally the hobbit" and watch anything he makes.
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Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
@johncarlosbaez This painting and your thread caused an interesting discussion with my 16-year old son and my wife, starting with my son asking "why do you have this painting open in your computer".
Edit. My son doesn't buy your explanation. I haven't made up my mind.
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@johncarlosbaez This painting and your thread caused an interesting discussion with my 16-year old son and my wife, starting with my son asking "why do you have this painting open in your computer".
Edit. My son doesn't buy your explanation. I haven't made up my mind.
@johncarlosbaez From my reading of the painting, the first thing that caught my attention was not what you pointed out about the perspective, but the expression of the face. The painting is all about that, as I understand it.
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Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
this desreves an ol fashioned
NEAT-O! -
Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
It's even more fascinating in the original.
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Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
@johncarlosbaez Fascinating! I instinctively parse the reflection as a different woman---I see two barmaids, working a bar that's an island in the middle of a large room, in an environment that's depersonalizing enough that the barmaids are expected to look alike.
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Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
@johncarlosbaez Ha, Manet screwed one detail! If the reflection of the flower is at the right edge of the painting, the reflection of the leftmost champagne bottle should be visible under the maid's left arm.
Nice post (-;
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