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Manet Dejeuner Sur L'herbe
Manet Dejeuner Sur L'herbe
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"Itis a rebus of exaggerated dimensions, and it will never it seems, in these early break-through years. Possibly, the
be understood";"Isearch in vain for the meaning of this hard- enigmatic structures of these paintings and of others as
ly decent riddle",and "Icannot imagine what can have made regards their meaning or intelligibility were motivated by
an intelligent and distinguished artist choose so absurd a wish to engage their viewers more prolongedly in what was
a composition".1 there to be seen and thought about-in any case, this has cer-
Views like these were typical of the critical reception of tainly been their effect.
Edouard Manet'sLe Dejeuner sur I'herbe [Fig. 1] when it was What most baffled contemporarycommentators about Le
first exhibited (as Le Bain) at the Salon des Refuses in 1863. Dejeuner sur I'herbe was, as it is well known, the "absurdity"
And ever since, the paintinghas continued to haunt and baffle as in Thore's remark,of the nude in the company of dressed
its commentators, so that an expansive literaturehas accumu- males in an outdoor setting, a highly improperevent even if, in
lated as to its possible meanings or to the meanings of its pos- the realmof painting,Titian's(then believed to be Giorgione's)
sible lack of meaning. Concert Champetrein the Louvre,was soon recognized to be
It is possible that the painting, as Pelloquet stated, "will an importantsource and precedent for this.
never be understood",and that its enigma is partof its intend- But there were other "absurdities"in Manet's painting,
ed nature. To be sure, such slightly earlier paintings as and, among these, one which I believe should be taken more
Manet's Le Vieux Musicien [Fig. 10], La Peche [Fig. 9], and seriously than before. Thus, in his review of Le Dejeuner sur
even the seemingly forthrightNympheSurprise[Fig. 24] are all I'herbe at the Salon des Refuses, Thore made the significant
"strange"in one way or another,as is, of course, Olympia[Fig. remarkthat the man to the right,the pointingman, "didn'teven
20], painted roughly at the same time or slightly after Le have the idea of removing, while out of doors, his horrible
Dejeuner sur I'herbe. I needn't go into the oddities of these padded hat".2This has been quoted often before, but com-
works here, but merely mention them to signal that Manet mentators have not so far stopped to think furtherabout the
seems, almost from the outset, to have clothed or veiled the implications of this remark. Obviously, however, Thore here,
meanings of his compositions in a way that no other artist of as a man of his time, pointed to the fact that a hat like that was
the time is known to have done; enigma was partof his game, not used in open air, but was of a type designed for use at
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home or at any rate indoors as, in fact, we see in many con- need only look to Henri Fantin-Latour'sPortraitof Edouard
temporaneous portraitssuch as Alphonse Legros' Portraitof Manet, 1867 [Fig. 3], in order to see that Manet was highly
the Artist's Father, 1856, or in Manet's own Portrait of the conscious of decorum-e.g., of which kind of hat to wear in
Artist'sParents, 1860, and in his Self-Portraitwith a Scull-Cap, public, as he is seen here, ready for the street, or anywhere
1878-79 [Fig. 2].3 There can be no doubt that Manet, belong- out doors. In this connection, we may also read Antonin
ing to the bourgeousie as he did, was aware of this, and we Proust's account of Manet'sdress code, here incidentallycon-
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3) Henri Fantin-Latour,<<Portrait
of Edouard Manet,, 1867,
The Art Institute of Chicago.
with a Scull-Cap,,,
2) Edouard Manet, <Self-Portrait
1878-1879, Bridgestone Museum of Art,Tokyo.
nected to the very day on which Manet (according to Proust's that painting.The ground has come through. I want to re-
probablysomewhat fictive recollection) first spoke of painting do it and to do it with a transparentatmosphere with peo-
Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe. Manet and Proust were lying on the ple like those we see over there. I know it's going to be
banks of the Seine at Argenteuiland spotted a woman bathing attacked, but they can say what they like. [...] Upon these
in the river.This, Proust says, led Manetto state, reflexions, Manetgot to his feet after having brushed and
remittedhis high hat. Because, whether in the country or
When we were in [Thomas Couture's] studio, I copied in the city, he was invariablydressed in a jacket or a coat
Giorgione's women, the women with musicians. It's black tied around the waist, trousers of a light colour, and wear-
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ing a very high hat with a flat brim.Wearinggood shoes the difference of facture between the two women in Le
and armed with a light walking stick [...]4. Dejeuner sur I'herbe, but others, before her, had commented
on this as well. Thus, the following is a passage from Emile
In other words, that "horriblepadded hat"must be under- Zola's novel, L'Oeuvre,1886, an indirect and only slightly
stood as a sign that questions the whole ambience of Le veiled description of Manet's painting as it appears to the fic-
Dejeuner sur I'herbe as an ostensibly outdoor "luncheon on tive painter Claude Lantierin his confrontationat the Salon
the grass", and a sign which, partlyat least, tends to locate the des Refuses with his own work, Plein air, obviously modelled
scene indoors. But then again, only partly,since, for instance, on Manet'spaintingbut with slight variations:
the same pointing man's light walking stick, held in his left
hand, seems to contradict such an understanding, and, of Certainly,the gentleman with the velveteen jacket did not
course, the scene as a whole, with grass, trees, bushes, work well, too fat, and badly seated; only the hand was
a stream and so on, at face value obviously represents a glade beautiful. In the background, the two small wrestling
in some forest. women, the blonde and the brunette,not developed suffi-
Nevertheless, a numberof scholars have sensed a certain ciently from a sketchy stage [a I'etat d'ebauche], lacked
indoor or even studio quality to the scene; Niels Gosta solidity, and were amusing only to the eyes of the artist.
Sandblad, for one, intuitedthat "Itcannot be denied that in Le But he was satisfied withthe trees, withthe sunlitclearing,
Dejeuner sur I'Herbesomething can be traced of the conflict and the nude woman, the woman lying on the grass
between the two realities which lay at [Manet's]disposal. He seemed to him superior to his own talent, as if someone
does not make it quite clear to us whether it is a partof Saint- else had painted her, and as if he had never seen her
Ouen or a part of the studio in Paris which he wishes to pre- before, in such resplendence of life.8
sent".5 And, somewhat along the same lines as Sandblad,
Carol Armstrong more recently speculated on the contrast Zola, in other words, clearly saw that certain parts of
between the facture of the two women in the painting, Manet'spaintingwere rendered with a differentfacture (thatof
the ebauche or sketch) fromthe comparativelyhigh degree of
-one hard, frontal,outward,and still life associated, the finish especially in "the trees" and in "the nude woman".
other soft, recessive, and inward, and associated more Indeed, if one looks at the painting, it becomes clear that the
with the process of painting than with its products. The differences of facture not only pertainto the two women in it
Luncheon on the Grass is, I believe, a not-very-veiledevo- (the seated nude and the bather), as Carol Armstrong
cation of the painter'sworld of the studio, replete with the described it, but that the whole area of the painting,which the
model and her discarded clothes, a still life arrangement, bather occupies, is different from the foreground and the
accoutrements and sets, and familyvisitors, together with glade to the left. It is more loosely painted-painterly as
a demonstrationof painterlyquotations and manners, and opposed to linear-more "sketchy"as Zola saw, than the rest.9
of the workings of illusionism.6 But it is also differentin other respects: the horizon is consid-
erably higher up than in the forest to the left, the bathing
But Armstrong'sobservation, like Sandblad's, is made in woman is much too large (as it has often been noted) in view
passing, and neither of them makes much of it. Neither does of her distance behind the foreground group of three, and the
Anne McCauley who observes that "[...] Manet in the Dejeuner stream in which she is wading does not seem to continue to
leaves only two interpretations for his nude: that she is the left of the tree or bush behind and above the seated nude.
a shameless harlotor that she is an artist'smodel posing in an Allthis, together withthe differentfacture of that whole area in
environment in which sexual desire is presumably left at the which the bather is seen, suggests, to put it cautiously, that
studio door".7Butthe demeanour of the seated nude, unsolic- this area is to be understood as a kind of painting-within-the-
iting, totally at ease, and with a level gaze, is hardly that of painting.
a "shameless harlot",so that, withinthis duality,we are almost It is instructive to compare this painterly area in Le
forced to thinkof her more as an artist's model in the desexu- Dejeuner sur I'herbe with the painting-within-the-paintingin
alized environment of a studio, which, again, tallies with the Manet'sWomanwith a Jug. Portraitof MadameManetHolding
notion of an indoor scene, hinted at by the pointing man's a Ewer, 1858-1860 [Fig. 4]. Foreven though this work is unfin-
indoor hat. ished in part, it is clear that the foreground image of Suzanne
There is a further element of the painting that speaks Leenhoffis already tightlyfinished, and contrasts sharplywith
about this quality.As quoted above, Carol Armstrongnoted the framed landscape paintingto the right,on the wall behind
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6) Marcantonio Raimondi, <(TheJudgment of Paris, early 1h century, engraving after a lost drawing by Raphael,
The MetropolitanMuseum of Art, New York.
to area a. In other words, he bridges the two "realities"of the to be, in some oblique way, a modernizedversion of Raphael's
painting as a whole, and therefore vastly complicates the subject.12I don't thinkthat Manet's paintingfunctions allegor-
whole issue. ically in this synecdochic sense in relationto the whole of The
The seeming existence of two differentfields of "reality"in Judgment of Paris, neither as it appears in the printed image
Le Ddjeuner sur I'herbe (areas a and b) may stem from the nor in the mythological narrative. There are, however, still
most importantformal source for the painting, Marcantonio some further references, beside the often mentioned formal
Raimondi's engraving after Raphael's lost drawing The analogies of the foreground trio in Manet's painting to the
Judgment of Paris [Fig. 6], showing two river gods and gods and nymph in the Raphael/Raimondiprintto be consid-
a nymph seated in the same poses to the lower right of that ered. Thus, the printalso contains two registers of representa-
print. This citation is well known and has been much dis- tion: all the figures in the foreground, including the group
cussed, even as to whether Manet's painting may be thought which Manetquoted, are juxtaposed with the cloud-like shape
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is clear, I think, if we compare this figure with photographs of possibility arises here, too, that Cezanne's gesture of pointing
the paintersuch as Fig. 7. In at least two ways, then-by fami- is a kind of cipher for the act of painting,since what he points
ly name and physical likeness-it may be thought that Manet to is a white cloth with two apples or oranges, a cezannesque
here inscribed himself into that figure, which bridges areas still life, that is, on an only partiallyfilled in "canvas".
a and b of Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe.13 Lookingto Manet'sown paintings,again,there are a number
A piece of circumstantialevidence for this sense of identi- of examples in which a pointinggesture may be partlyunder-
ty provided by Paul Cezanne's strange and dreamlikepara-
is stood along similaror at least relatedlines. InLa Peche [Fig.9],
phrase of Manet's painting, Cezanne's own Le Dejeuner sur for instance, based upon two paintingsby Rubens, Manetcasts
I'herbe of about 1870 [Fig. 8]. Here, Cezanne himself appears himselfas a Rubens-characterto the lowerrightof the composi-
as the seated pointerin the composition, i.e. as a figure for the tion (a "Manet/Rubens"painterin a "Manet/Rubens" painting),
painterof the painting as if he may have intuitedthat this was and points leftwardto the rest of the scene while above, still to
also the real identity of the corresponding figure in Manet's the right,a distantglade seems to contain a nude similarto the
canvas: the painter himself, inscribed into his painting.14The one in Le Dejeunersur I'herbe.15Likethe recliningpointer(my
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4- I
203
indoor hats figured in an ostensibly outdoor setting as Thore I'herbe.20As already noted, there is the position of a Manet-
complained. Indeed, this wronghattedness in the laterpainting like figure to the right,wearing a hat and "pointing".Tothe left
might be seen as a conscious quip on Manet's part against of Le Dejeuner dans I'atelieris a still life of swords and other
Thore's complaint, but it must also be more than that in view of weaponry as a martialand male counterpartto the feminine
the clearly ambitious if nonetheless ambiguous nature of Le still life of discarded clothes, basket of fruit,a bonnet etc. to
Dejeuner dans I'atelier.As in the earlier painting,the effect of the lower left of the earlier painting.Above the still life of arms
these "wrongsigns" is to cast doubt on what we are seeing, in Le Dejeuner dans I'atelieris a plant which corresponds to
and to create a sort of imploding of meaning, pointing back at the foliage of the trees to the left of Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe;at
and into the painting itself, including notions of its production centre stage two figures, one male and one female, are orient-
along the lines of Cezanne's paraphrase. And, as noted ed frontallyin both paintings, the young man in Le Dejeuner
above, the seated painter,who resembles Manet,is an "agent" dans I'atelierprojectingalmost as if in relieftowards the view-
in that he gestures with his left hand towards the rest of the er, thus bodily reiteratingthe engaging frontalityof the seated
scene, holding a cigar in that hand and blowing smoke in the nude's face (whose gaze is now given to the servant woman to
same direction as his "pointing".In other words, he performs the left). Finally,to the right of Le Dejeuner dans I'atelier,we
a similaraction as does Manet in La Peche and "Manet"in Le see a painting (or perhaps a framed map, but in either case an
Dejeuner sur I'herbe. Might we be so bold, therefore, as to "image")hanging on the wall behind the smoking man, i.e. in
understand this man as, once again, a figure for the painter, roughly the same position in the overall composition as that
his pointing as a cipher for the act of painting,and his blowing "area b" which I describe as a painting-within-the-painting of
smoke as a figure, a metaphor,for the "breathof life"and for Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe. It is also noteworthythat the knife on
paintingas such-Manet inscribed in his work, while perform- the table to the right of the later painting (a traditionalstill life
ing that work!? A master of puppets, discretely directing his device, often used by Manet) performs a similar intruding
marionettes. diagonal into the picture's space as does the walking stick
In other respects as well, Le Dejeuner dans I'atelierhas held by "Manet"in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe. In this view, the
compositional and structural affinites with Le Dejeuner sur later painting reads more or less as a comment on the earlier
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overturnedbasket of which has the effect of almost spilling its whose sleeve projects into real space in a similarway as does
contents out into the space in frontof the canvas.33This reiter- the boy's sleeve and his dropped cherries in Manet's pic-
ates the effect that Manetachieved in his Boy with Cherriesof ture.34The cornucopious still life in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe is
1858 [Fig. 16] in which the boy drops a few of the cherries a major focal point in the painting (equivalent to the marvel-
down in frontof the stone wall or ledge on which he is leaning, lous bouquet of flowers in Olympia),only second to the nude,
and which in itself is made congruent with the painting's sur- but certainlyconnected with her, almost as a kind of attribute
face, both compositionally and as a consequence of Manet's to her (again similarto the role of the flowers vis a vis the nude
signature which is painted as if carefully chiselled into that in Olympia).35
wall/surface.This is probably an allusion to Titian'sPortraitof Compositionally, I think that we can identify a great
a Man, 1508-10 [Fig. 17], in which the signature "T V" (for sweeping movement in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe, beginning
TizianoVecelli) is similarlychiselled into the stone ledge, and with the waterfallin the "painting-within-the-painting" (area b)
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208
a^A
N C"
b^ c
&A X 1 B
19) This diagram is spatially organized. A-B corresponds here to the surface of the picture plane, seen from above.
a ^ is roughly the position of the waterfall, c ^ is the pointing hand, b^ is the still life, and the arrow below it roughly
demarcates the spilling out of the still life, into real space, in front of the painting. a ^ to b ", then, corresponds
to the sinewy surface line a* to b* in 18) V roughly indicates the position of the viewer whose station in front of the canvas
is determined mainly by the gaze of the nude, N, somewhat to the left of the central vertical axis of the painting.
The line c to d represents the surface, as far as there is such a surface, of the "painting-within-the-painting".
Finally, the line V to P represents a sensation on the part of the viewer (V), who is "me", that I am swirled into the figure
of the "pointer-painter" (P).
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20) Edouard Manet, <<Olympia,,1863, Musee d'Orsay, Paris. 21) Edouard Manet, <(ABar at the Folies-Bergere,,,
1881-1882, Courtauld Collection, London.
too, as is On the Beach, 1873, Argenteuil, 1874, Nana, 1877, since she is the one he's pointingat. To a degree, this reverses
Dans la Serre, 1879 [Fig. 13], and, most famously of all, A Bar the implicationsof the scene, since the role of a painted figure
at the Folies-Bergere, 1881-82 [Fig. 21]. withinthe paintingwas earlier mainly ascribed to the bathing
The line V-P (fromthe viewer to the pointer)in Fig. 19 rep- woman in "the-painting-within-the-painting". But although the
resents a strong sensation I have had while lecturingin frontof nude is the most strikingfocal point of the entire scene, and
the actual painting, the size and scale of which, of course, may strike us, as it did Zola, as having "such resplendency of
contributestrongly to its over all effect, much of which is virtu- life",there is also a kindof artificialqualityto this figure.39Fried
ally lost in reproduction. It is as if the swirling motion per- makes a passing comment on one of the reasons for this qual-
formed by the sinewy line a* to c* in Fig. 18, and which con- ity when he writes, "Look,in parting,at the folds of flesh at the
tinues out into "realspace", creates a dynamic force, a kind of back of Victorine'sneck: is there even today a pointof view that
suction into the right hand partof the canvas, into the body of can reconcile those with the demands of painterly'effective-
the reclining pointer,and possibly further,into the space with ness'?"40And they are indeed strange, even disturbinglyso,
the waterfall. once they are seen. The effect makes one thinkof RobertRey's
But of course, the main force of the pictureis the beautiful response to Olympia,as when he wrote, "Iremember my own
nude woman, whose clear and friendlyeyes engage the viewer firstmeeting-more than sixteen years ago-with Olympia,and
in a tantalizingexchange of mirroredlooking with powerfully the oddly painfulshock which the picturegave me. I was afraid
erotic yet not quite sexual charges. Withinthe kind of explana- when I saw this pallid form, this face where the skin seemed
tion of the painting that I am attempting here, she is the stretched over a piece of wood. Olympiafrightened me like
artist's-the pointer's, "Manet's"-model, as was, in real life, a corpse-yet I felt weighing upon me the malificence of that
Victorine Meurent, who modelled for the nude, just as she terriblyhuman regard".41A similar,if less uncanny, note was
would model for the nude Olympia.As it has already been dis- struck be the critic Ernest Chesneau, reviewingthe Salon des
cussed earlier,the way this nude is represented in Le Dejeuner Refuses in 1863: "Manet'sfigures make one thinkinvoluntarily
sur I'herbe,unabashed, totallyat ease with herself and her sur- of the marionettes on the Champs-Elysees: a solid head and
roundings, invests her withthe air of a model in a studio. But if slack clothing".42
the pointer's gesture is a metaphorfor the act of painting,then But it is noteworthythat such criticismwas also frequently
the nude is "logically"the one he paints, i.e., what he paints, directed at the paintings of Ingres, whose masterly Portraitof
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of Mme
22) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, <(Portrait 23) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, (<Baigneuse),,1807,
Leblanc>,,1823, The MetropolitanMuseum of Art, New York. Musee Bonnat, Bayonne.
Madame Leblanc, 1823 [Fig. 22], for instance, was comment- Ingres had been the master of masters",45and one might say
ed on as follows by a critic in 1833, "Icannot believe that this that by quoting Raphael (via Raimondi's print) Manet almost
monster, lacking the upper part of her head, with orbicular automaticallypositioned himself close to Ingres, probablythe
eyes and sausage-like fingers, is not the distorted perspective most Raphaelesque painter of the 19th century, at least in
of a doll, seen too close and reflected on the canvas by sever- France. Here, it is noteworthythat there is a figure in a painting
al curved mirrors,with no sense of the whole in each of its by Ingres with similarunnaturalfolds of flesh around her neck
details".43In their paintings of the human figure Manet and as those of the nude in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe. This is the
Ingres shared a quality,which is not the same in each of them, Baigneuse, 1807 [Fig. 23], a nymphe surprise, which perhaps
but nonetheless similar,of something simultaneously artificial anticipates Manet'sown paintingfrom 1861 of that theme [Fig.
and object-likeon the one hand, and uncannilyand powerfully 24], which latterpainting,finally,has much to do withthe seat-
real on the other hand.44 ed nude in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe.46
According to Antonin Proust, Manet greatly admired The object-like quality of the seated nude is marked not
Ingres, and had said words to the effect that "in our century only by those folds of flesh around her neck but also by the
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25) Georges Seurat, (<Poseuses),, 1886-1888, Barnes 26) Compositional diagram of Georges Seurat's
Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania. <<Poseuses?,mirroringManet's <<Le D6jeuner sur l'herbe>>as
to the difference between (and coexistence of) area b as
a painting-within-the-paintingand area a as "the studio
space" or primaryscene (cf. Fig. 5).
scene, except for the landscape on the easel. In other words, January 1884, and probably made a reference to it in the
The Studio contains a comparable dualityof painterlystyles to group of three seated people to the lower left of his Sunday at
those seen in Le Dejeunersur I'herbeand its clash between the la Grande Jatte, 1884-86, which he began later that year.52
densely paintedforegroundand the area whichthe batheroccu- Now, La Grande Jatte later reappeared as a painting-within-
pies. One might also put it this way: in Manet'spainting,espe- the-painting in the Poseuses, in which it occupies the studio
cially the seated nude, and the equally tightlyfinished still life, wall to the left, and is seen in perspective as defining half the
could not be placed in the same space as the bather. backgroundof the room in which the models are placed.
Though more could be said, I shall leave it at this but In other words, the representation of part of La Grande
must, finally,draw attention to a third paintingthat relates to, Jatte in Poseuses corresponds almost exactly in its size and
and in a sense frames Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe at the level I angle to that "painting-within-the-painting" (area b), which I
speak of here. Manet's canvas, as we have seen, relates to claim to be subtly incorporated into the right hand side of Le
Courbet's Studio, which I think is an importantsource for it; Dejeuner sur I'herbe,but is, in Seurat's painting, placed at the
Cezanne's paraphrase of Manet's painting also helps to sug- left side of the composition [Fig. 26].
gest its implicationsat this level, as we have seen. But it is also To be sure, there are other visual rhymes as well between
important, I think, to consider Georges Seurat's large Manet's paintingand Seurat's Poseuses; they share the exact
Poseuses, 1886-88 [Fig. 25], as a comment on Manet's Le same height (208 cm), whereas Seurat's canvas is somewhat
Dejeuner sur I'herbe, especially withinthe context of my dis- broader (308 cm) than Manet's (265 cm); the two seated
cussion of that painting.51 nudes in Poseuses may both be seen as echoes of the nude in
Seurat undoubtedly studied Manet's Le Dejeuner sur Manet's canvas; the parasol to the lower left of Seurat's pic-
I'herbe at Manet's memorial, retrospective exhibition in ture recalls the walking stick of the man in Manet's; and the
213
basket below La Grande Jatte in Poseuses rhymes with the It appears, then, that Seurat, not unlike Cezanne before
overturned cornucopious basket to the lower left of Le him, saw that Manet'sLe Dejeuner sur I'herbe,was a painting
Dejeunersur I'herbe. about painting, a painting, that is, which thematizes its own
Further,the basket in Poseuses has no counterpartin La production and ontology. But Manet's canvas does this in
GrandeJatte, neitheras this is represented in Poseuses nor in a way which is so subtle that it makes it understandablethat
the La GrandeJatte per se, while other items in the studio are this has gone largely unnoticed. It is a kind of "rebus",as I
clearly echoes of objects withinthe latter,such as the bonnet quoted Pelloquet at the beginning of this essay, and despite
at lower right which "belongs" to the young seated girl with what I have argued here, he may still have been rightin saying
a small bouquet of flowers near the foreground in La Grande that "it will never be understood", if by "understanding"we
Jatte. On these and other visual rhymes between objects rep- mean an absolute certaintyof its "ultimatemeaning"which it
resented in the studio of the Poseuses and in the paintingrep- may not even possess. Rather,Manet'sfamous paintingoscil-
resented in that painting, Frangoise Cachin notes that "Every lates between levels of reality,and these levels, themselves,
item of dress in the studio finds an echo among those in the oscillate in a never ending circuit between-for short-"areas
picture, as if to give the impression that these women had a and b" in the composition; art, artefact, and realityin a still
descended from the canvas and undressed".53And she fur- baffling tableau vivant from which, wonderfully, a bird (a
ther observes, that "the formal analogies are more striking bullfinch)flies this way, reciprocatingour entry into the paint-
than the divergences between the draped and the nude fig- ing's spaces that are anythingbut flat.55
ures [in areas a and b of Poseuses, respectively]; it is as if the It'san engulfing painting.Le Dejeunersur I'herbeis a pro-
central model, no less erect than the woman walking, has grammatic painting, and paradigmatic of the ways in which
stepped down from her picture, disrobed, and turned toward Manet engaged the viewer in his works through gazes,
us, coolly sizing us up".54 spillings, reliefs, enigmas and so on. Here, it isn't only the
In other words, Poseuses, which is obviously and overtly gaze of the seated nude that engages the viewer, and impli-
a paintingabout painting,is also a more subtle evocation of the cates him in the scene. The very fact that the three main pro-
existentiallinks between levels of reality,i.e., between the phys- tagonists exude an air,and differentsigns of, indoor and stu-
ical paintingitself, in the Barnes collection, its representationof dio "behaviour"(such as a hat and unabashed nudity) puts
nude models in a studio interior,and the relationshipof these to them on a par with the painting's beholder, who-naturally-
the painting-within-the-painting (whichalso, to a degree, reads also finds him-or herself in an interior,and an artisticinterior
or functions as a "window"or opening onto an exterior,a land- at that (a museum, as it is, or a privatecollection, as it might
scape withfigures as in area b of Le Dejeunersur I'herbe). have been), echoing the studio atmosphere of the group of
As Cachin sees it, beautifully,the relationshipof the fig- three. Inthis way, we enter the painting,and become partof it
ures in the-painting-in-the-painting to the models in the fore- ourselves. Inside the painting, the "painter-pointer"bridges
ground is one in which the figures the former"step out"and
in the spaces of the "painting-within-the-painting" and the prima-
virtually into our space, most powerfully incarnated in the ry scene; this in
latter, turn, provides bridges between its own
standing, frontal nude at centre who is "coolly sizing us up", space and that of the beholder, most famously, course, in
of
as an erect version, I will add, of the seated nude in Manet's the direct gaze of the nude, but almost just as poignantlyin the
Dejeunersur I'herbe,and comparativelyclose to the viewer. cornucopious still life with delicious fruit,ready for the taking.
214
1 Theodore Journal du Salon de 1863, connection with his discussion of how the costuming of figures in
Pelloquet, L'Exposition:
no. 22 (July 23, 1863): "c'est un rebus d'une dimension exageree et other paintings by Manetrelates to Le Dejeunersur I'herbe.
qu'on ne devinera jamais";Louis Etienne, Le Jury et les exposants: 6 Carol Armstrong, "Counter, Mirror,Maid: Some Infra-thin
Salon des Refuses, Paris, 1863, p. 30: "jecherche en vain ce que peut Notes on A Bar at the Folies-Bergere",in BradfordR. Collins, ed., 12
signifierce logogriphe peu seant";WilliamBurger(TheophileThore), Views of Manet's Bar, Princeton, 1996, p. 34. See also Carol
Salon de 1863, in Salons de W Burger:'Je ne devine pas ce qui a pu Armstrong, "To paint, to point, to pose. Manet's Le Dejeuner sur
faire choisir a un artiste intelligent et distingue une composition si I'Herbe",in Paul Hayes Tucker,ed., Manet's Le Dejeuner sur I'Herbe,
absurde [...]"; Thore quoted from Michael Fried,Manet's Modernism Cambridge, 1998, pp. 90-118, especially pp. 108-109 for a similar
or, The Face of Paintingin the 1860s, Chicago and London, 1996, pp. view. Armstrong'snotion of "familyvisitors"is based on the identities
297 and 570, n. 83. For Pelloquet's and Etienne's statements see of the models. I will returnto this laterin my essay.
7 Anne McCauley, Sex and the Salon.
Fried,ibidem, p. 560, n. 20, and p. 570, n. 82, respectively.Mytransla- Defining Art and
tion of Pelloquet's statement differs slightly from Fried's. For many Immoralityin 1863, in Paul Hayes Tucker,ed., Manet'sLe Dejeunersur
other similar examples of contemporarycriticismof Manet's picture, l'Herbe,op. cit., p. 61. Cf. Cachin's entryon Le dejeuner sur I'herbein
see EricDarragon,Manet, Paris, 1991, especially pp. 115-129. Manet 1832-1883, op. cit., p. 167, bluntlystating, "Thelandscape [...]
2 See, e.g. George Heard Hamilton,Manet and his Critics, New is treated in a very casual way, sketched withthe brush like a stage set
Haven, 1954, p. 50, and Fried,Manet'sModernism,op. cit., p. 297 and behind the models, who quite obviously are posing in the studio".But
570, n. 87: "quin'a pas meme eu I'ideed'6ter,en plein air,son horrible this is too bluntlyput:it is not, and never has been, that obvious to the
chapeau au bourrelet". painting's commentators and critics that this is what we are seeing,
3 For Legros' Portraitof the Artist's Father see Fried, Manet's and Cachin herself goes on (p. 169) to describe the scene as "a picnic
Modernism, op. cit., fig. 88. Francoise Cachin, in her entry on Le outing".However,with the amendment of the word "obviously",I do
Dejeuner sur I'herbe in Cachin, Charles S. Moffettet al., Manet 1832- agree withthe notion, but in a less specific and obvious way. A further
1883, exh. cat. MetropolitanMuseum of Art,New York,1983, p. 169, small objectionto Cachin's entryas quoted above, is that not all of the
identifies the hat of the recliningpointer as "thefaluche worn by stu- landscape setting in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe is "treatedin a casual
dents". Whileit is true that a tasselled cap called a faluche is worn by way, sketched withthe brush...",as I will go on to discuss.
many French students, and is often decorated with various symbolic 8 EmileZola, L'Oeuvre, Paris, 1974 (1886), p. 183: "Decidement,
emblems, signifying the owner's line of study, personal interests and le monsieur au veston de velours ne valais rien, empate, mal assis; la
so on, the traditionof this faluche was instigated only in June 1888 mainseule etait belle. Au fond, les deux petites lutteuses, la blonde, la
(and celebrated annually ever since), according to numerous web brune, restees trop a I'etatd'ebauche, manquaientde solidite, amu-
pages on the internet (searchword:faluche). Cf. also Nan Stalnaker, santes uniquement pour des yeux d'artiste. Mais il etait content des
"Manet'srealism in Dejeunersur I'herbe",Word&Image, vol. 15, no. 3 arbres, de la clairiereensoleillee, et la femme nue, la femme couche
(July-September1999), pp. 243-261, who also (p. 260) refers to this sur I'herbe,lui apparaissaitsuperieure a son talent meme, comme si
hat as a "faluche, the hat of a bohemian student". Finally, Hubert un autre I'avaitpeinte et qu'il ne I'eut pas connue encore, dans ce
Damisch, in his chapter on Manet'spaintingin TheJudgment of Paris, resplendissement de vie". Of course, there are no small lutteuses
transl. by John Goodman, Chicago and London, 1996, p. 66, also (wrestlingwomen) in Manet'spainting.The notionof lutte, or wrestling
makes a mentionof this hat as a "studentfaluche or tasseled cap", but match, in Zola's novel, connects to Claude Lantier's"mad"ambition
points out that "thepresence of [this cap] can't be justifiedby this fig- with his paintingas in the followingpassage (p. 303): "Ah!cet effortde
ure's being a student-he is too old". (It should be noted here that creation dans I'oeuvred'art, cet effort de sang et de larmes dont il
although it contains a chapter on Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe, Damisch's agonisait, pour creer de la chair,soufflerde la vie! Toujoursen bataille
book is entirelysomething else than just a study of Manet. Basically, avec le reel, et toujours vaincu, la lutte contre I'Ange".In fact, Zola
his rich book is a philosophical and psychoanalyticalinvestigationof considered that the title of his novel might have been La lutte contre
the natureof beauty. Nevertheless, it also holds insights that are rele- I'ange. Cf. ibidem, pp. 425-426 with the full list of titles in Zola's
vant to the present study's differentline of thinking.)I thinkthat Thore Ebauche de LOeuvre[recherche du titrede roman].
got it right:it's an indoor hat, and not a faluche. In any case, the sec- 9 Differences of facture are also notable withinother important
ond man also wears a cap which has no similaritywith a faluche, and early paintings by Manet such as The Absinthe Drinker, 1859, the
is clearly an indoor head garment as the one seen in, e.g., Manet's Nymphe Surprise, 1861, and the Portraitof Madame Brunet, 1862.
Self-Portraitwith a Scull-Cap. Especiallyin the latter,the figure may be read as standing not as much
4 My translation after Antonin Proust, Edouard Manet. before a landscape as in frontof a landscape painting.Yethardlyso in
Souvenirs, Paris, 1913, pp. 43-44: "Quandnous etiont a I'atelier,j'ai a quite literalsense. Butthe impression's enigma in this sense is what
copie les femmes de Giorgione, les femmes avec les musiciens. IIest counts as the poetics of the image, and hence of Manet's probable
noir,ce tableau. Les fonds ont repousse. Je veux refairecela et le faire intention. On this aspect of the Nymphe Surprise, see Rosalind
dans la transparence de I'atmosphere,avec des personnes comme Krauss, "Manet's Nymph Surprised", Burlington Magazine, 109
celles que nous voyons la-bas. On m'ereinter. On dira ce qu'on (November1967), pp. 622-627, especially p. 623 with the observation
voudra. [...] Sur ces reflexions, Manetse leva, apres avoir brosse et that the nymph's "flat,unmodelled body undermines illusionisticcon-
remis sur sa tete son chapeau haut-de-forme. Car, a la campagne viction and emphasizes the artificialnatureof the work of art. Further,
comme a la ville, il etait invariablementvetu d'un veston ou d'une Manet's nude seems to sit in front of a studio back-drop that is dis-
jaquette serree a la taille, d'un pantalonde couleur claire, et il se coif- continuous from her [...]" (my italics). This also holds true for the
fait d'un chapeau tres eleve a bords plats. Bien chausse, arme d'une Portraitof Madame Brunet,for aspects of Le VieuxMusicien and oth-
canne legere [...]". This is also very much how Manet represented ers. Le Dejeunersur I'herbe,however,is differentand more complicat-
himself to the far left of his La Musiqueaux Tuileries,1862. ed in this respect, as it will be seen.
5 Niels Gosta Sandblad, Manet. Three Studies in Artistic 10 For a technical examination and discussion of this
painting,
Conception, Lund, 1954, p. 97. Sandblad makes this observation in see Juliet Wilson Bareau and Henrik Bjerre, Transformationsof an
215
early Manetpainting. The Ordrupggard'Womanwith a Jug' examined, the Painter'sThemes, UniversityParkand London,1975, p. 78: "Inthe
in MikaelWivel et al., Manet, exh. cat., Copenhagen, 1989, pp. 168- Dejeunersur I'herbethe figure of the dandy as philosopher [Mauner's
171. Wilson Bareauand Bjerresee the figure of Suzanne Leenhoffas general theme which despite its detailed and interestingelaborationis
"Set against a plain,green backgroundon the left,with a distant land- unconvincing]was posed by Manet's brother [Gustave] and may, of
scape view through a window (or perhaps into a paintingwithinthe course, be interpretedas symbolizingthe artist,since it is his gesture
painting) [...]". So, what I just called a painting-within-the-painting in that indicates the [philosophical]theme to the viewer".Nan Stalnaker,
Womanwitha Jug, may also seem, to them, to be "awindow",at least "Manet'srealism in Dejeunersur I'herbe",op. cit., p. 260, also seems
as theirfirstoption. Myfirstoption is still the painting-within-the-paint- to intuit such an understanding of the reclining pointer, albeit in
ing, partly because its frame doesn't look much like a window sill, a rather banal sense: "Itwas Edouard Manet who, extrovertedand
partlybecause of its differentfacture from the foregroundscene. On opinionated, would generate, wherever he went, talk about art, and
the other hand, the curious vertical green band which borders the who had, in the words of Proust,fixed convictions that would not even
landscape to its left (but not at its bottom) could be seen in perspec- admit of 'contradiction or even discussion'. Perhaps Manet was
tive, which would signal a window opening. In the end, these uncer- explaining why he rejects sculpture as a model for painting; but
tainties stem fromManet'spainting,and are germane to the uncertain- Manet's sculptor brother-in-lawRudolph [sic] Leenhoff, who has
ty in Le Dejeunersur I'herbeas well as in other majorpaintings such heard it all before, scarcely bothers to listen". Stalnakergoes on to
as the Portraitof Zacharie Astruc, 1866, in which the light painterly say (p. 260) that "Thisaccount of the banal meaning of the image
area to the left has been construed by various commentatorsas either leaves out, however,what makes this paintingunforgettable-the vivid
a view into another room, a mirror,or a painting on the wall (cf. psychological realityof Victorine'slook".Itis this "look"of "Victorine",
Francoise Cachin on this painting in Manet 1832-1883, op. cit., p. the seated nude in Manet'spainting,that Stalnakermainlyaddresses,
251). Cachin opts for the latterreading, and goes on (ibidem)to com- and to which I shall also return.
pare the paintingto Le Dejeunersur I'herbe:"Foras in Le dejeunersur 14 As also noted by HubertDamisch, TheJudgment of Paris, op.
I'herbe,there is a great diference between the treatmentof the center cit., p. 290, some of Picasso's many variations on Manet's Le
of interest-there, the threesome with still life; here, Astruc's face- Dejeunersur I'herbe,dating fromthe years around 1960, also cast the
and that of the rest of the painting". pointerin Manet'scanvas as Picasso himself.
11 Joanna Szczepinska-Tramer, "Manet et Le Dejeuner sur 15 Mauner,Manet. Peintre-Philosophe, op. cit., pp. 24-25. Cf.
I'herbe",Artibuset Historiae,38 (1998), pp. 179-190,discusses, among Joanna Szczepinska-Tramer,"Manetet Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe",op.
otherthings, a vignette made by Aimede Lemud,Ma Nacelle, ca. 1847, cit., pp. 179-190, who discusses furthersimilaritiesbetween La Peche
as a possible source for Le Dejeunersur I'herbe.I thinkthat she exag- and Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe, viewing them essentially as pendants
gerates the similaritiessomewhat, but it is interestingnonetheless to ("une paire", p. 186), and as related, although in differentways, to
see the double image in de Lemud'svignetteas suggestive to the rela- Manet's personal life at the time, mainly his imminent marriage.
tionship between the two fields or spaces of Manet's painting,areas Szczepinska-Tramer,however, concedes that Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe
a and b in my Fig. 5. Inboth cases the image withinthe image is framed is "infinitelymore complex"than La Peche, and is also a kindof "alle-
by foliage, and in both of them, a figure in the foregroundprojects into gorie de I'Art"(ibidem),but in a differentway fromwhat I am tryingto
the space of the image in the "background"(cf. Szczepinska-Tramer, p. show.
188, n. 21). But however seductive the similaritiesmay be-clothed 16 Alainde Leiris,"Manet,Gueraultand Chrysippus",ArtBulletin,
males and nude females, a still life in the immediateforeground,a boat 46 (1964), pp. 401-404.
in the backgroundimage, framedby foliage-I thinkthatthese similari- 17
Mauner,Manet.Peintre-Philosophe,op. cit., p. 51.
ties may well be fortuitousor at best unconscious, a possibilityalso 18
Ibidem, p. 78, n. 171.
19 Arthur
mentioned by Szczepinska-Tramer (p. 182): "[...] peut-etre meme sans Baignieres, La Revue Contemporaine, 104 (31 May
le savoir, Manet aurait en quelque sorte suivi les inventions de 1869). Quoted from Nancy Locke, Manet and the FamilyRomance,
[Lemud]".(Inwhich lattercase, Manetmay have seen at one time the Princetonand Oxford,2001, p. 133.
vignette, have been intriguedby it, and stored it in his unconscious 20 Cf. the following passage from Nancy Locke, ibidem, p. 130,
memory bank of images. We might,then, thinkof Manet'sprocess of "Theposes of the threefigures in Le Dejeunerdans I'atelierare reminis-
quotingand citingfromvarioussources in relationto T.S. Eliot'sdefini- cent of the foregroundtrio in Le Dejeunersur I'herbe:the bearded man
tion of the poet's mindas "areceptaclefor seizing and storingup num- at rightlooks leftbutat no particularperson, the woman looks out at the
berless feelings, phrases and images, which remainthere untilall the viewer,and the Leenhoffin the center looks blanklyout of the picture
particleswhich can uniteto forma new compound are there together." space. The trianglehere is reversed, with Leon Leenhoffin frontof the
QuotedfromEliot,Tradition and the IndividualTalentin Selected Essays others, whereas in the earlierpicture,FerdinandLeenhoffhad posed
1917-1932, New York,1932, p. 8). Butfinally,despite the noted similari- behindVictorineand Eugene. The parallelsbetween the two Dejeuners,
ties, the two images, de Lemud'sand Manet's,are vastly differentin and their implications,are not to be ignored. Just as the viewer of Le
every otherrespect, such as theirsize, technique, level of ambition,and Dejeunersur I'herberemains baffled by what is going on and what is
sheer power,the latterlinked(not only but certainlyalso) to the gaze of being shared by the figures,especially the status of the vividlydepicted
the nude which in Manet's painting pierces or ratherannihilatesthe nude and the bathing woman in the background, the viewer of Le
"screen"of the surface. Dejeunerdans I'atelieris kept guessing as to the relationshipsof the
12 Wayne Anderson, "Manetand the Judgment of Paris",Art persons depicted".Locke,interestingly,goes on to referto a lectureby
News, 72 (February1973), pp. 63-69. Cf. Francoise Cachin in Manet TimothyJ. Clarkin which "Clarkproposes thatthe studied indifference
1832-1883, op. cit., p. 168 in opposition to Anderson. HubertDamisch, of the artist[i.e. the man to the rightof Le Dejeunerdans I'atelier]could
The Judgment of Paris, op. cit., pp. 71-72. Joanna Szczepinska- be seen as partof a narrativein whichthe painterwaitsto hearthe reac-
Tramer,"Manetet Le Dejeunersur I'herbe",op. cit., p. 188, n. 14. tion of Leon to a picturehe has just unveiled.Partof Clark'sargument
13 On the possible metaphorical identity of the pointing figure involvesa complextracingof the allegoryof paintingas it mightoccur in
and Manetcf. George Mauner,Manet. Peintre-Philosophe.A Study of Le Dejeuner [dans I'atelier],and he reads the look of Leon as reminis-
216
cent of the confrontation with the self that self-portraitureentails". 23 Emile Zola in a statement to A. Rette, Le
Symbolisme:
Unfortunately, Clark'slecture,deliveredat the MetropolitanMuseumof Anecdotes et souvenirs, 1903. Quoted from Theodore Reff, Manet:
Art,New York,in 1983, has not been published. Olympia,London, 1976, pp. 24-25 and 120, n. 30.
21 Jules Castagnary in Le Siecle, June 28, 1879, quoted from 24 Emile Zola, L'Oeuvre,op. cit., pp. 425-426 with the full list of
George HeardHamilton,Manetand his Critics,op. cit., p. 215. Cf. also titles in Zola's Ebauche de L'Oeuvre[recherche du titrede roman].On
RichardWollheim,Paintingas an Art,London,1987, p. 156 on Dans la Zola's L'Oeuvre in relation to the Pygmalion myth, see David
Serre, "Manethas chosen as the model for the male figure someone Freedberg,The Power of Images. Studies in the Historyand Theoryof
whose features, as was noted at the time, remarkablyresembled his Response, Chicago and London, 1989, p. 342. On Pygmalion as
own: he has stepped intohis father'sshoes." (Thenotionof "hisfather's a metaphor for artistic creation in a "magical" sense, see E. H.
shoes" has to do withWollheim'sdiscussion of Dans la Serre in relation Gombrich,"Pygmalion'sPower"in Gombrich,Artand Illusion.A Study
to Manet'sPortraitof the Artist'sParents, 1860). Regardingmy discus- in the Psychology of PictorialRepresentation,Oxford,1986, pp. 80-98.
sion of stand-ins for Manetin the paintingsjust mentioned, beginning For a beautifullypersonal as well as scholarly discussion of Zola's
with Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe, see also James H. Rubin's interesting L'Oeuvrein relationto Manet'sA Bar at les Folies-Bergeresee Kermit
thought about Manet'sA Bar at the Folies-Bergere(1881-82) that "the Swiler Champa, 'Masterpiece' Studies. Manet, Zola, Van Gogh, &
client reflectedin the mirrorof the bar is a self-portraitof sorts: though Monet, UniversityPark,1994, especially pp. 48-49. Champahere sees
not resembling Manet, or anyone else in particular,the question (or A Bar... as a kind of secular altarpiece, and the bar maid as "Perhaps
uncertainty)of this customer's identityis crucialto the painting'seffect". [...] a Magdalen ratherthan the prostitutemost scholars would have
Quoted from James H. Rubin, Manet's Silence and the Poetics of her be". Cf. also Michael Paul Driskel, "On Manet's Binarism;Virgin
Bouquets, London,1994, p. 86. Obviously,this is in line with my argu- and/or Whore at the Folies Bergere", in BradfordR. Collins, ed., 12
ment that Manetis metaphoricallypresent in the paintingsdiscussed. Views of Manet's Bar, Princeton, 1996, especially p. 149, where
22 Rolf Laessoe, Billedets Liv.Syv kapitlerom det modere ikon. Driskelcompares Manet'sA Bar... to Ingres's tondo Virginwith with
Fra Ingres til Bacon, Copenhagen, 2000. In English, the title of this the Host, 1854.
book would be (roughly)"TheLifeof the Image. Seven Chapterson the 25 In French:L'Atelier du peintre,Allegoriereelle determinantune
ModernIcon. FromIngresto Bacon".The reference is to my ChapterII, phase de sept annees de ma vie artistique.
"Manet",pp. 51-82. A similaridea regardingone of Picasso's "sleep- 26 Mauner,Manet. Peintre-Philosophe,op. cit., p. 78, interesting-
watcher"drawings, YoungMan and Sleeping Girl,1931, is expressed ly in this connection, speculates that "Thephilosopher [i.e. the old vio-
by Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth- linist]in Le VieuxMusicien,who makes a similarsilent observation [as
CenturyArt, London, Oxford,and New York,1972, p. 72, noting that the pointerin Le Dejeunersur I'herbe],represents Manethimself with
"[...] the conjunctionof their right hands signals an imminentcritical even greater certainty,in view of the fact that he occupies a position
contact, recallinga more famous creationof man".Also, MichaelFried, analogous to that of Courbet's self-portraitin L'Atelier". Mauner,pp.
Courbet's Realism, Chicago and London:The Universityof Chicago 70-76, makes further observations on the analogies between
Press, 1990, p. 195-196, comments on Courbet'sYoungWomenon the Courbet'sStudio and Manet'sLe VieuxMusicien,to my mindoverstat-
Bank of The Seine, in which a small branch brushes the sleeping ing their similarities,while he doesn't connect Courbet's paintingwith
woman's hand as "[...] implying that the branch is in the process of Le Dejeunersur I'herbe,which to me seems much more plausible.
animatingthe woman through near-contactwith her hands.[...] An art- 27 Theodore Reff, "Courbet and Manet", Arts Magazine, 54
historicalanalog for such a feat of animationis the Creationof Adamin (March1980), pp. 98-103. The identificationis made on p. 100, and
the Sistine ceiling [...]". See also WilliamRubin'scomments on a sheet Reff provideda furtherpiece of possible evidence for this connection
of studies by Picasso, dating from 1907 containingseveral depictions by pointing to and reproducing (p. 102, Fig. 11) the painting
of Picasso's own left hand:"[...] the presence of Picasso's hand, which Judgement of Paris (c. 1660) attributedto Jan Miel,which is obviously
rises from the bottom of the sheet as if magically commanding the a close paraphrase of the Raphael-Marcantonioimage but which
activities of the figures, is an importantlinkto the Primitivetradition. introducestwo cows correspondingvery closely to those in Courbet's
Picasso had alreadydeveloped a sense of the artist'shand as a kindof YoungLadies of the Village.Reffalso (pp. 99-100) identifiesthe still life
thaumaturgicwand. InBoy Leadinga Horse of 1906, the unbridledani- with guitar and hat in Courbet's Studio as a source for a similar
mal seems to followthe boy as if mesmerized by the power of his ges- arrangement in Manet's somehow programmaticfirst Frontispiece
ture. [...] the notion of art-makingand of religionbecame fused in the etching, 1862. In other words, Courbet's Studio had already been
consciousness of the force of the artist-shaman'shand. [...] the ema- quarriedby Manetbefore he set to workon Le Dejeunersur I'herbe.
nating lines of force suggest that the hand magically'commands' the 28 Paul Hayes Tucker, "Makingsense of Edouard Manet's Le
movement of the figures, thus parallelingmetaphoricallythe realityof Dejeunersur I'herbe",in Tucker,ed., Manet'sLe Dejeunersur I'Herbe,
Picasso's hand as the agent of theircreation.The representationof the op. cit., p. 34, n. 27.
artist'shand in isolation-found from the cave paintersto Pollock-is 29 Fried,Courbet'sRealism, op. cit., p. 159.
always an allusionto the notion of image-makingas a supernatural,rit- 30 Ibidem, p. 161.
ual power [...]". W. Rubin, "Picasso", in W. Rubin, ed., 'Primitivism'in 31
Fried,Manet'sModernism,op. cit.
20thCenturyArt,New York,1984, p. 268. Of course, these quotes don't 32
Ibidem, p. 68-69. Manet
Cachin, 1832-1883, op. cit., p. 168-
prove anything,but I bringthem as a foil, merely,to my own argument. 169, considers Courbet'sYoungWomenon the Bankof the Seine to be
The pointing gesture may well be understood as signifying speach, Manet'sprimarysource as far as Courbetis concerned, and does not
which is also an act of creation,and also has biblicalovertones: "Inthe take The Studio into account.
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God" (John 1:1). 33 In Manet's Woman with a Jug. Portrait of Madame Manet
However,the most likely word to be uttered by the seated pointer's Holdinga Ewer,1858-1860, mentioned earlier(Fig.4, cf. above, n. 10),
gesture in Manet'spaintingwould be regardez! ("Look"!).The unspo- a stream also tricklesthroughthe landscape in the painting-within-the-
ken word,that is, of any painterand his painting.Whichbrings us back painting,downward,as it were, in the direction of the jug with which
into Manet'scanvas as a self-reflexiveallegory of the artof painting. Suzanne Leenhoffpours water intothe basin she holds, like a modern
217
Hebe. Here too, then, there is an overflowfrom the secondary scene on the partof the viewer (but is generated by the mode of the image,
(the landscape paintingon the wall) into the primaryscene. Perhaps, or parts of the image), it is "cultural"and "alwayscoded, which punc-
even, the unfinishedstate of the basin and of the sitter's righthand is tum is not". (Barthes, Chapter22). Extrapolatingfromthis, one could
a sign of Manet's difficulty, his undecidedness with this closure, say thatthe gaze of the nude in Le Dejeunersur I'herbeis the punctum
which, if broughtto completion,would effectivelyblock a sense of fur- that pierces and halts the studiumof the rest of the scene with its "cul-
ther movementof the water in the stream throughthe jug, and out into tural"references to Raphael and Titian,which only "study"and "cul-
real space, as it were. In Le Dejeunersur I'herbe,the latteris effected tured interest"will reveal. It is relevantto see Nan Stalnaker'sarticle
mainlyby the cornucopious still life, but also, in differentregister,by "Manet'srealism in Dejeuner sur I'herbe",op. cit., in this light, since
the gaze of the nude, and, in yet anotherdifferentregister,by the small she focuses so exclusively on the "causal realism" of the nude.
birdwhich flies out of the canvas, in the viewer's direction,at the top Barthes's binary opposition of studium versus punctum does seem
center of the painting. relevantto the coexistence of two pictorialmodes in Manet'spainting,
34 Possibly, Manet alluded also, both in the Boy with Cherries and in modern painting in a larger field. Studiumversus punctum is
and in the still lifeof Le Dejeunersur I'herbe,which also contains cher- thus related to the concepts narrativeversus iconic in the sense of
ries, to Titian'sMadonnaof the Cherries, 1516-18, in the Art History William Rubin, "From Narrativeto 'Iconic' in Picasso: The Buried
Museumof Vienna.Othersources for this still lifewill be considered in Allegory in Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table and the Role of Les
note 35, below. Demoiselles d'Avignon",ArtBulletin,65, no 4 (December 1983), pp.
35 A source for the effect and orientationof the still life in Manet's 615-649. The non- or anti-narrativequalities of Manet's works have
Le Dejeunersur I'herbeis probablyto be found in Thomas Couture's been incisively addressed with many importantinsights by Rubin,
(Manet's teacher in the 1850s) Romans of the Decadence, 1847 Manet's Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets, op. cit., e.g., p. 49, and
(Musee d'Orsay,Paris), in which a similarlyoriented still life features passim. Otherarticles that address the issue of anti-narrativity in the
prominentlyin the middle foreground,creating a bridge between our art of modernityare WernerHofmann,"Reflectionssur I'lconisationa
space and that of the figures in the picture.Couture'sstill life with an propos des 'Demoiselles d'Avignon"',Revue de l'art, no. 71 (1986),
amphora, overturnedin our direction, also contains a piece of white pp. 33-42, Werner Hofmann, "Bildmachtund Bilderzahlung",IDEA.
cloth with fruit-apples and grapes, corresponding to the figs and Jahrbuch der HamburgerKunsthalle,X (1991), pp. 15-64, and James
cherries in Manet'scanvas. Butthen, the languishing,indolent,reclin- Elkins,"Onthe impossibilityof stories: the anti-narrativeand non-nar-
ing woman at the center of Couture'svast composition, with her gaze rative impulse in modern painting", Word& Image, vol. 7, no. 4
at the viewer,should also be considered as a source for Olympia,the (October-December1991), pp. 348-364. My own work, Billedets Liv,
latter'swell knownrelationto Titian'sVenusof Urbinonotwithstanding. op. cit., is a book on this subject as well.
Cf. Cachin in Manet 1832-1883, op. cit., p. 178 for the Olympia- 38 On the Mannheimversion of The Executionof Maximillian as
Romans of the Decadence comparison. However,it should also be a kindof allegory of Manet'senterpriseas a paintersee Fried,Manet's
noted that Manet's still life in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe as well as Modernism,op. cit., pp. 356-360. Friedhere, p. 358, sees the figure of
Couture'sin The Romans of the Decadence, are affiliatedwith a motif the soldier to the far rightof the composition (preparingfor the coup
seen in several versions of the theme of The Judgment of Paris.Thus, de grace), as possibly associated with Manet, since this soldier is
for example, Rubens' version of 1600 (National Gallery, London) a figure "who by virtue of his stance and action might almost be an
shows the river-god Kebren to the right, leaning on an overturned image of a painter standing back and partlyturned away from his
amphora which issues, "spills", its contents of water forward, and painting while he mixes colours on his palette". Cf. my discussion,
a similar motif is seen in Michel Corneille's version of the subject, earlier in the present essay, of stand-ins for Manet in the right hand
c. 1685, (overtlybased on the Raphael-Marcantonio print,in which sides of La Peche, Le Dejeunersur I'herbe,Le Dejeunerdans I'atelier,
latter, however, the amphora held by Oenone is standing upright). and Dans La Serre as well as James H. Rubin'sintuitionthat the man
Rubens' and Corneille's versions are published in Damisch, The in the mirrorto the rightof Un Bar aux Folies-Bergeremetaphorically
Judgmentof Paris,op. cit., Figs 90 and 85, respectively.Damischalso, represents Manet(as quoted above, n. 21).
among many other examples of the motif, illustrates, Fig. 116, 39 Joanna Szczepinska-Tramer, "Manet et Le Dejeuner sur
Anthonie Blocklandt's grisaille, The Judgment of Paris, 1570-80 l'herbe", op. cit., p. 187, also touches upon this quality in saying
(Louvre),showing the overturnedamphoraspilling its contents out of that "Des trois intrus, elle est la plus genante, parce que totalement
the picturespace, so to speak, to the left, i.e. in the same position as artificielle: moitie encore Deesse et moitie deja Modele dans ce
Manet'scornucopious still life in Le Dejeunersur I'herbe. groupe artificiel [...]". I cannot, however, think of the nude here as
36 On the concept of "painter-beholder"see Michael Fried, a "Goddess".
Courbet's Realism, op. cit., passim, and idem, Manet's Modernism, 40 Fried,Manet'sModernism,op. cit., p. 401.
41 Robert Rey, Manet, Milan,n.d. (originallypublished in 1938),
op. cit., passim. On Olympia'srelationto the viewer see also Kathleen
Adler,Manet, Oxford,1986, p. 61: "Today,still, the direct gaze of the p. 63. Rey's response invites a note about the frontalgaze in Olympia
figureand the arched-backaggressive kittenat the end of the bed pro- as well as in Le Dejeunersur I'herbe(and in other Manetpaintingstoo)
duce an immediacy in the relationship between the figure and the in relationto the face of Medusa, the ancient GreekGorgo's petrifying
spectator that retains its power to disconcert. The implicationof the stare, which has been much discussed in recent decades of art theo-
kitten's response is that the viewer,who becomes at once Olympia's ry, e.g. (and almost foundingly) in Louis Marin,Detruirela peinture,
male visitor and separate from the fictional spectator, is in the room Paris, 1977 (ToDestroy Painting,transl. by Mette Hjort,Chicago and
with her". London, 1995). Marin'sthoughts on Medusa are summarized in the
37 Roland Barthes, La Chambre Claire. Note sur la Photographie, following passage by Yves-Alain Bois, regarding Picasso's Les
Paris, 1980. Barthes uses the word punctum in opposition to the word Demoiselles d'Avignon,which has a bearing on Manet'sLe Dejeuner
studium. Punctum is that often unforeseen element in a photograph sur l'herbe as well: Yves-Alain Bois, "Paintingas Trauma",Art in
that pierces, wounds or even tortures the viewer, and which disturbs America,36, no. 6 (1988), pp. 130-140, 172-173; p. 138: "TheMedusa
and interrupts studium. Studium, on the other hand, denotes "interest" (castration)metaphor is, in fact, the one that, in the evolution of the
218
Demoiselles, best accounts forthe suppression of allegory,on the one (pp. 266-267) to E. T. A. Hoffmann'sfamous story "Der Sandman"
hand, and, on the other,the apotropaicbrutalityof the finished picture. (laterto be analyzed by Sigmund Freud in "Das Unheimliche",1919,
As already established by Louis Marin,in his remarkableanalysis of transl. as "The Uncanny", The Standard Edition of the Complete
Caravaggio'sMedusa in the Uffizi,the Medusa is the prime represen- Psychological Worksof Sigmund Freud. Translatedfrom the German
tationof anti-history.Accordingto Marin,Poussin, whose pictures par- under the General Editorshipof James Stracheyin Collaborationwith
ticipate in the repression of the act of enunciating properto any his- Anna Freud, London, vol. XVII, pp. 218-256). Hoffmann's story
toric discourse, 'could not abide Caravaggio and said that he had revolves around the female automaton called Olympia,possibly pro-
been born to destroy painting' (Felibien). Caravaggio's inabilityto viding an intriguingsource for Manet'spaintingas also pointed out by
compose 'a real story' (Baglione), along with his rejectionof perspec- Theodore Reff,Manet:Olympia,op. cit., p. 113: "[Manet]was certain-
tive, led him to realism (understood as an attempt to address the ly familiar,like Dumasfils before him,withthe Olympiawho plays such
spectator 'directly'; to go from the 'once-upon-a-time' aspect of a remarkable role in Hoffmann's story 'Der Sandman"'. Baudelaire
Poussin's pictures to 'See, I'm watching you'). The same reproach was much interested in Hoffmannand may have relayed this interest
(realismas a consequence of the incapacityto narrate)would laterbe to his friendManet,the painter(on Baudelaireand Hoffmannsee, e.g.,
used by contemporary critics of Courbet and, to a lesser extent, Rosemary Lloyd, Baudelaire et Hoffmann. Affinites et Influences,
Manet. This passage from 'historical'enonce (the impersonal state- London etc., 1979). Fried,Manet's Modernism,op. cit., pp. 339-340,
ment of fact) to 'realist'enonciation (the act of stating, which presup- also notes Olympia's "perverse allure, its uncanny and disturbing
poses a subject) is the same shift that [Leo] Steinberg is describing power, above all in its complex relationto the viewer."Withregard to
when he speaks of a 90-degree rotationof the plane of action and the nude in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe, Stalnaker,"Manet'srealism in
what [William]Rubinmeans when he analyzes the structuraltransfor- Dejeuner sur I'herbe",op. cit., p. 259, writes of "Victorine'suncannily
mationfrom 'narrative'to 'iconic'.Thus, the Medusa myth (as set forth convincing look", discussing it extensively as a product of "causal
in Caravaggio's painting in the Uffizi)functions as a 'returnof the realism"in the following sense (p. 247): "[...] merely from inspecting
repressed'. It thematizes the spectator's petrification(the theoretical the image of Victorine'sface, we are inclined to assign it a certain
basis of Renaissance monocular perspective), and it makes the causal history,one which originates with Manet's physical encounter
female sex organ (the Medusa's head) the essential interrupterof nar- with an actual model".
rative,the icon that challenges the (male) spectator by signifying to 43 Quoted from Portraitsby Ingres. Image of an Epoch, ed. by
him that his comfortable position, outside the narrativescene, is not GaryTinterowand PhilipConisbee, New York,1999, p. 504. Cf. also
as secure as he might think". If transplanted into a discussion of Baudelaire's remarkon Ingres's portraitsin 1855 as, "a populationof
Manet'sLe Dejeuner sur i'herbe, the friendlygaze of the seated nude automatons that disturbs our senses by its all too visible and palpa-
here takes on the role of Medusa's petrifying'See, I'mwatching you'. ble strangeness" (ibidem, p. 512). Interestingly,in this connection,
At the same time this nude, although not displaying her sex to us, the TimothyJ. Clarkquotes this passage from Baudelaireon Ingres, and
viewers (whichwould be outrageous, of course) does so to the point- uses it to say that this is "the best description of Manet's illusionism
er, "Manet",in the picture (how does he see her?), which is, in fact, that I know"(T.J. Clark,ThePaintingof ModernLife.Parisin the Artof
a "scandalous"element inherentin the picture,and one that Picasso, Manet and his Followers, London, 1985, p. 100). In Billedets Liv,op.
true to temperament, stressed in some of his variations on Manet's cit, I have discussed at length the zone of Freudian uncanniness
painting (cf. Damisch, The Judgement of Paris, op. cit., pp. 288-289, engendered by the doll- or marionette-like objecthood of both
with relevant illustrations).Cf. also J. H. Rubin,Manet's Silence, op. Manet'sand Ingres's figures, and also in much laterworks by, among
cit., p. 50, who speaks of the nude in Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe as others, Seurat, Picasso, Matisse, De Chirico,Klee, Bellmer,and Tony
"'Victorine-Medusa'-inthe sense that her gaze deprives its object of Oursler.
independent life and immobilizes it as a fixed image [...]". 44 On the object-likeappearance of many of Manet'sfigures, cf.
42 Quoted from Fried,Manet's Modernism,op. cit., pp. 282-284. Fried, Manet's Modernism, op. cit., p. 340: "Manet's models have
This, in turn, is also the gist of AdrienPaul's commentaryat the same been represented not simply as posing before the painter but as
time to the effect that "Manettreated living beings and inanimate somehow frozen or immobilized-we mightsay petrified,if it were not
things exactly the same". (quoted from ibidem, p. 284). Fried's book that the suggestion of stoniness seems out of place". Later(p. 405),
has much more to say about the connections between Manet'spaint- Friedalludes in passing to what he calls Manets"distancingand freez-
ings in the early 1860s and a growing interestin the marionettetheatre ing, one mightalmost say medusizing, devices." Cf. my note 41 above
at the same time. In my book Billedets Liv,op. cit., I discuss this at for more on Medusa, as well as Jean Clair,Meduse. Contributiona
length, with reference to, inter al., Charles Magnin, Histoire des une Anthropologiedes Arts du Visuel, Paris, 1989, p. 11: "Embleme
Marionettes en Europe depuis I'Antiquitejusqu'a nos jours, Paris, des puissances de la vue, elle pourraitetre, dans une autre religion
1852, and MauriceSand, Masques et Buffons, I-ll,Paris, 1860, 2 vols que la n6tre, la sainte patronnedes artistes. Car I'artiste,le peintre,le
withan introductionby George Sand with maintext and coloured illus- sculpteur,est celui qui, comme Meduse, a le pouvoirsingulierde jeter
trationsby her son Maurice;the Sands' book relates to theirown pup- son regardsur le monde, d'en immobiliserles aspects et d'en detach-
pet theatre at their country estate at Nohant (on this and many other er un fragment".
insights relating to this topic, see also HaroldB. Segel, Pinocchio's 45 Antonin Proust, "LArtd'Edouard Manet",1901, quoted from
Progeny.Puppets, Marionettes,Automatons,and Robots in Modernist Fried,Manet'sModernism,op. cit., p. 432.
and Avant-Garde Drama, Baltimore, 1995). See also Charles 46 The primary source for Manet's
Nymphe Surprise is an
Baudelaire's essay from 1853, "Moralede Jou-jou" (transl. as "The engraving by Johannes Vosterman after Rubens' lost painting
Philosophy of Toys"in Charles Baudelaire,The Painterof ModernLife Susannah and the Elders (as first pointed out by Charles Sterling,
and OtherEssays, transl. and ed. by Jonathan Mayne, London, 1995, "Manetet Rubens",L'A)nour de I'Art(Sept-Oct. 1932) 13, p. 290); cf.,
pp. 198-204) in which Baudelaire defines children's toys, and espe- e.g., Rosalind Krauss, "Manet'sNymph Surprised",op. cit., p. 623).
cially marionette theatres, as a child's ideal introduction to art. But this doesn't necessarily rule out a simultaneous reference to
Charles Magnin's book makes an explicit and extended reference Ingres's Bathing Woman-cf. Nancy Locke, Manet and the Family
219
Romance, op. cit., p. 83, who compares Manet'sNymphe Surpriseto Dejeuner sur I'herbe, except for the complete lack of anxiety in
Ingres's ValpingonBather even if, as Locke observes, "Manethas Manet'snude, and her frontalratherthan dorsal orientation.
painted his model to appear ample in figure, with a more Rubensian 47 On the apparent incongruity between
subject and size in
fleshiness". Ina differentessay fromthe one at hand, one mightwork Manet's Le Dejeuner, cf. Paul Hayes Tucker, "Making sense of
on the coexistence of "rubeniste"and "poussiniste"traitsin paintings EdouardManet'sLe Dejeunersur I'herbe",op. cit., p. 11.
by Manet, which would obviously have to be linked to the topic of 48 Cf. Niels Gosta Sandblad, Manet. Three Studies in Artistic
"ingriste"academic finish and linearity on one hand versus the Conception, op. cit., p. 93 for a related observation: "The bathing
painterliness of Delacroix on the other hand; thus areas a and b, woman in Le Dejeunersur I'herbeoccupies, with her sweeping move-
respectively, in Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe,might be said to be, respec- ment, a volume, a 'cube' of space, in much the same way that she
tively, "Poussin/lngres"(area a) versus "Rubens/Delacroix"(area b). would have done in a paintingin the old style of perspectives and gra-
A similardichotomy is observable in Manet'sPortraitof Mme Brunet dations. Inthe famous naturemorte of the foregroundwith its clothes
as well as in the NympheSurprise(cf. n. 9, above), and it is interesting and dining implements,the artistis still displayingan academic skill in
to speculate on this as a possible, reconciliatorymove on Manet's the reproductionof textures".
partbetween conservative academism and utopian painterliness, not 49 Journal de Eugene Delacroix, Paris, 1932, vol. II, p. 364: "La
least since Manetbelonged to both fractions,socially as well as in his seule faute est que le tableau qu'il peint fait amphibiologie: il a I'air
art. George Mauner,Manet. Peintre-Philosophe, op. cit., pp. 43-44, d'un vraiciel au milieudu tableau".Entryfor August 3, 1855. See also
touches upon this when he says, "Thereis a final dual aspect [apart Fried,Courbet'sRealism,op. cit., p. 163.
from Mauner's"spirit-matter" dichotomy] to the Dejeuner sur I'herbe, 50 Jack Lindsay,Gustave Courbet,his life and art, London, 1977,
and that is Manet's double inspiration for the work, Raphael and p.131.
Giorgione. In his attempt to fuse the soft, painterly,and mysterious 51 Cf. Robert L. Herbert,Francoise Cachin, Anne Distel, Susan
qualities of the Venetianschool with the crisper, linear,and more dis- Alyson Stein, and Gary Tinterow,Georges Seurat 1859-1891, New
cursively clear expression of the Florentine,does he not referto the York,1991. Inher entryto Poseuses, Cachin (pp. 276-277) here makes
age-old dichotomy of 'colore-disegno' revived in the seventeenth a similarcomparison between Seurat's paintingand those of Courbet
century in the dispute between Rubenistes and Poussinistes, and in and Manet,"Thedepicting of nude models together withtheirclothing
his own time in the Ingres-Delacroixcontroversy, as a fundamental had, of course, been anticipated in Courbet's L'Atelierand Manet's
problem of opposing but complementarytemperaments?" Dejeunersur I'herbe".
On Ingres's Bathing Womanand her relationto the viewer-which I 52
Ibidem, p. 178.
claim to anticipate the nudes in Manet'sNymphe Surpriseand in Le 53 Ibidem, p. 278.
Dejeuner sur I'herbe, see Robert Rosenblum, Jean-Auguste-Domini- 54 Ibidem.
que Ingres, London:Thames and Hudson, 1967, p. 70: "Here,rather 55 Flatness has become a cliche in arthistoricalwritingon Manet.
than enjoyingan overt display of the female nude, the spectator is put Witness, for example, his watercolourof the Races at Longchamps,
into the disquieting position of a voyeur. Seen from behind [...], the 1864, painted only a year after Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe:to the right,
bather looks anxiously over her shoulder and conceals her body with horses and riders thunderingtoward us; to the left, a carriage with
crossed arms, as if suddenly aware of an intruder".Obviously,this is passengers virtuallydelving into the picturespace. Any one may add
parallelup to a pointwiththe situationof the nude and spectator in Le furtherexamples, but surely Le Dejeunersur I'herbeis one.
220