The Café-Concert
The Café-Concert | |
---|---|
Artist | Édouard Manet |
Year | c. 1879 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 47.3 cm × 39.1 cm (18.6 in × 15.4 in) |
Location | The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
The Café-Concert is an 1879 painting by the French painter Édouard Manet, who often captured café scenes depicting social life at the end of the nineteenth century similar to those depicted in this painting.[1]
History
The setting has been identified as the Brasserie Reichshoffen on the Boulevard Rochechouart.[2] Manet shows us men and women in the new brasseries and cafes of Paris, which presents the viewer with an alternate view of new Parisian life.[3] Manet claimed he was painting des oeuvres sinceres or "sincere works". The women depicted in these scenes were courting certain risks with regards to perception and morality.[4]
Composition
In The Café-Concert, Manet presents a café-concert in which three central figures form a triangle but are all engaged in opposite directions. The scene of a café-concert, supposedly casual, is hinted by Manet to be one of separation. The waitress enjoys a beer, while the woman at the table smokes a cigarette and appears subdued and the man appears to be at ease as he watches the performance (the singer known as “La Belle Polonaise” is reflected in the mirror in the background of the painting). It is noted that the man evokes confidence, because men unlike women could frequent cafés without insecurity.[3] The painting was posed and completed in a studio but gives the appearance of being freshly observed.[3]
Analysis
In this painting, concepts of conventional composition are rejected. The figures of the individuals represented are not clearly defined but modeled with brushstrokes. The colors are placed directly on the canvas with loose, repetitive strokes instead of applying layers of pigments and glazes over a dark background.[2]
Off the Wall
A reproduction of The Café-Concert was featured in Off the Wall, an open-air exhibition on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland. A reproduction of the painting, the original is part of The Walters Art Museum collection, was on display at the CFG Community Bank (Fell's Point).[5] The National Gallery in London began the concept of bringing art out of doors in 2007 and the Detroit Institute of Art introduced the concept in the U.S.. The Off the Wall reproductions of the Walters' paintings are done on weather-resistant vinyl and include a description of the painting and a QR code for smart phones.[6]
See also
- List of paintings by Édouard Manet
- 1879 in art
Exhibition history
- From Ingres to Gauguin: French Nineteenth Century Paintings Owned in Maryland. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1951.
- From El Greco to Pollock: Early and Late Works by European and American Artists. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1968.
- Manet and Modern Paris. National Gallery of Art, Washington. 1982–1983.
- Manet, 1832–1883. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 1983.
- The Taste of Maryland: Art Collecting in Maryland 1800–1934. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1984.
- Manet's Working Methods. The Courtauld Gallery, London. 1986.
- Impressionism, the City and Modern Life. Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund. 1996.
- Before Monet: Landscape Painting in France and Impressionist Masters: Highlights from The Walters Collection. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1998.
- Vive la France! French Treasures from the Middle Ages to Monet. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1999–2000.
- Highlights from the Collection. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1998–2001.
- Triumph of French Painting: Masterpieces from Ingres to Matisse. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton. 2000–2002.
- A Magnificent Age: Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2002–2004.
- 19th Century Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin. 2010–2011.[7]
References
- ^ ArtBabble
- ^ a b Johnston, W., Nineteenth Century Art: From Romanticism to Art Nouveau, The Walters Art Gallery, 2000, p. 136, ISBN 1857592263
- ^ a b c Herbert, R.L., Impressionists:Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 2, ISBN 0300050836
- ^ Dolan, T., Perspectives on Manet, Ashgate, 2012, p. 23, ISBN 1409420744
- ^ Walters Art Museum - Off the Wall Archived 2012-11-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Smith, T., Walters Art Museum goes of the wall, The Baltimore Sun, September 11, 2012
- ^ Walters Art Museum - At the Cafe
External links
- Google Art
- v
- t
- e
- List of paintings
- The Barque of Dante (1854–1858)
- Christ the Gardener (1856–1859)
- The Absinthe Drinker (1859)
- Spanish Cavaliers (1859)
- Portrait of Madame Brunet (1860)
- Portrait of Monsieur and Madame Manet (1860)
- The Spanish Singer (1860)
- Boy Carrying a Sword (1861)
- La Nymphe surprise (1861)
- The Street Singer (1862)
- Music in the Tuileries (1862)
- The Old Musician (1862)
- Portrait of Victorine Meurent (1862)
- Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada (1862)
- Little Lange (1862)
- The Luncheon on the Grass (1863)
- La Négresse (1863)
- Olympia (1863)
- Young Man Dressed as a Majo (1863)
- The Dead Man (1864))
- The Bullfight (1864–65)
- The Dead Christ with Angels (1864)
- The Kearsarge at Boulogne (1864)
- The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama (1864)
- The Races at Longchamp (1865)
- Jesus Insulted by the Soldiers (1865)
- Bullfight (1865–66)
- Bullfight – Death of the Bull (1865)
- The Matador Saluting (1866)
- The Fifer (1866)
- A Young Lady in 1866 (1866)
- The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867)
- Portrait of Emile Zola (1868)
- Boy Blowing Bubbles (1868)
- Madame Manet at the Piano (1867–68)
- The Balcony (1868)
- Luncheon in the Studio (1868)
- The Reading (1868)
- The Port of Boulogne by Moonlight (1868)
- Departure of the Folkestone Steamer (1869)
- The Brioche (1870)
- Repose (1870)
- The Funeral (1870)
- Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge (1870)
- Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872)
- Tarring a Boat (1873)
- The Railway (1873)
- The Croquet Game (1873)
- Masked Ball at the Opera House (1873)
- Argenteuil (1874)
- Berthe Morisot with a Fan (1874)
- Claude Monet Painting in his Studio (1874)
- Boating (1874)
- Portrait of Marguerite de Conflans (c. 1876)
- Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé (1876)
- Le Suicidé (1877–1881)
- Nana (1877)
- Plum Brandy (c. 1877)
- The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags (1878)
- Blonde Woman with Bare Breasts (c. 1878)
- Chez Tortoni (c. 1878–1880)
- Georges Clemenceau (Fort Worth) (1879)
- Georges Clemenceau (Paris) (1879)
- Chez le Père Lathuille (1879)
- Portrait of Marguerite Gauthier-Lathuille (1879)
- In the Conservatory (1879)
- Madame Manet in the Conservatory (1879)
- The Waitress (1879)
- Corner of a Café-Concert (1879)
- The Café-Concert (1879)
- Self-Portrait with Palette (1879)
- A Bundle of Asparagus (1880)
- A Sprig of Asparagus (1880)
- Portrait of Countess Albazzi (1880)
- Portrait of Monsieur Pertuiset the Lion-Hunter (1881)
- Dead Eagle Owl (1881)
- The Rabbit (1881)
- Rochefort's Escape (1881)
- Spring (1881)
- Autumn (1882)
- A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)
- The House at Rueil (1882)
- Flowers in a Crystal Vase (1882)
- White Lilacs in a Glass Vase (1882)
- A Studio at Les Batignolles (1870 painting)
- Bazille's Studio (1870 painting)
- The Impressionists (2006 series)