It takes one person with a radical, innovative idea, who is willing to pursue it despite ridicule, to change the world. When it comes to the concept of modernism in the 19th century art world, Edouard Manet did just that. The concept of modernity, or seeing the conditions of the physical world as they are, along with the rejection of traditional ideas, was the term that led to the exploration of modernism art in the 19th century. Up until this point, traditional, idealistic, Academic art was the epitome of true, talented artwork.
Edouard Manet challenged this notion with the way he painted, despite the ridicule he received by ociety and other artists of the time. In regards to his highly controversial painting, Olympia, Manet used unconventional techniques when it came to his brushwork, the composition of the piece, his treatment of space and figures, as well as his innovative use of light and color to create an utterly rebellious and modernistic painting.
By using visual analysis to understand Manet’s process behind painting this piece, we can also compare what we analyze to the traditional work of Nicolas Poussin with his painting titled Death of Germanicus to see exactly how these two differ. Before analyzing Olympia by Edouard Manet it is important to first understand the historical and cultural characteristics of art before the 19th century and how Manet’s style went against these and helped evolve traditional art to modernistic art. Traditional art was characterized by highly idealized historical paintings, portraiture paintings, or genre paintings.
In centuries right before Manet’s time, some regions even rebelled against the idea of only these three types of art being the only correct types of art and even started producing still life and landscape paintings during the 17th century Baroque period. This of course was a huge disgrace to places such as France where in previous years, The Academy in Paris, had spent so much time and effort perfecting the image of what “correct” art was and how to create it. Manet, being a French painter in the 19th century, was still expected to go in accordance with the classical way of creating art if he wanted to be considered successful as an artist.
Techniques that went along with classical art were the ideals of having hidden brushwork, a certain type of figure in your paintings, tonal modeling within those figures, guidance by using linear erspective to create correct proportion, a reclusive gradient scale, and an overall idealistic feel when it comes to the attitude of the painting and the composition. Manet explicitly chose to disregard all of what was to be considered traditional art and began to use his own techniques, subjects, and style to forever change art from idealistic to realistic in his eyes. This was the beginning of Modernism.
To begin by visually analyzing the subject matter of this piece, Manett’s Olympia has a negative connation by simply reading the title in Europe during the 19th entury; Olympia was a term often used to describe a prostitute. Keeping this in mind, as well as having knowledge of the painting by Titian titled Venus of Orbino, one can easily begin to see that Manet seems to be imitating this traditional Titian painting, but with a twist. Manet doesn’t paint this woman with the same sense of submissiveness as Titian’s painting. Her face has a directness about it, an assertive poise.
Society found this disturbing, rebellious, and simply offensive. Along with this, paintings at this time were to be of historical, religious, or ythological figures. Every day, random people in the public eye were not considered to be a sufficient or accepted model to use in a painting. This was just the beginning of reasons this painting was rejected by the people of its time. Continuing with the argument of Edouard Manet’s unique style giving life to new modernistic painting of the 19th century, one cannot look past the way his brushstrokes were so different than those of traditional paintings.
Manet’s style of painting far surpassed the term of “painterliness” and entered more into the context of the term “sketchiness”. His paintings seemed to have an unfinished look to them, the look of a sketch. Manet used his own type of value scale and dismissed the idea of having a flush and smooth looking painting. One can see the distinct outline painted around the woman instead of a subtle gradient of color to blend the shades used on her body. This gives, once again, the feeling of boldness, assertiveness, and directness- feelings viewers were disturbed and turned off by.
Comparing this to the classical, 17th century work of Poussin, one can easily see how blended the paint is on the surface of Death of Germanicus. There are no visible brushstrokes, no bold and blatant lines, and the painting has an undoubtedly finished look. With both of these being French paintings, is quite obvious the transformation of art from the 17th to the 19th century in France. Next, we address the composition of Olympia by Edouard Manet as well as his treatment of space and figures in this piece.
A point of emphasis first being the hand of Olympia that is resting on her thigh. The extreme foreshortening and tension fastened in the painting of the hand was extremely disturbing to viewers. Along with this, we see how upright the oman is sitting, the assertiveness coming from the look on her face, and the total opposite of submissiveness that traditional paintings of this nature would typically uphold. Also, on the right of the composition, we see a black cat standing in a way in which it looks alarmed, on edge, or even surprised.
The woman carrying the flowers also has a hesitate look painted on her face while staring at the nude woman. The essence of this painting in general has a sense of uneasiness to it. Manet even exaggerates the size of the pillow behind the woman’s head and body to elp show her being lifted higher and in a dignified manner. Just as the strong contour around the subjects of the painting give off a statement of sureness, how Manet chose to compose each element and place the subjects in the arrangement that he did continues to support the notion of assertiveness.
Another arguable aspect of Olympia is the innovative choices Edouard Manet uses in regard to light and color. When comparing this piece to Poussin’s Death of Germanicus painting, it is quite obvious how the figures look quite different from one another. Poussin continues with the traditional tendency to use tonal modeling while painting figures, while Manet disregards that completely and leaves his figures with a stark and marble looking skin tone. In Poussin’s work, every muscle and bone is detailed and shown; every shadow that touches their skin is accurately portrayed.
In Manet’s Olympia, the flesh seems almost hard like stone. Viewers of this piece at the time it was created felt that this was not only “bad” art, but they also considered it to be revolting because of how stern her body was painted and positioned. It was quite the opposite of appealing. Just as Manet rejected the idea of tonal modeling with his figures, he also rejected the idea of having a realistic light source in his work. In Olympia, the woman’s whole bed and body are illuminated, while everything behind them are in the high contrasted, dark.
All of these aspects of nontraditional painting were presumed to be wrong and were not tolerated well by the public. Some would even say, the public was offended by seeing something that so accurately displayed everyday life in Paris at the time. In conclusion, after first determining the differences etween traditional art and the development into modern art, then accurately analyzing those differences by comparing Olympia to Death of Germanicus, it is clearly evident the differences present from one century to the next.
Edouard Manet was a French painter who was not amazed by the tradition of art from the past centuries and wanted to see the world with a sense of modernity, a sense of realism. This new and innovative style was not easily accepted and Manet knew that speaking the truth of what he saw as being realistic in modern day France at the time, would not go over well with the ublic, nor would it with fellow artists. After being ridiculed, mocked, and hated for his work, Manet never retreated back to the ideals of previous artists in France.
He continued to develop his techniques, his style, and his ability to paint the world as he saw it until eventually influencing many other artists around the world. Modernism took the 19th century world by storm, but it wasn’t quickly acknowledged, nor was it quickly accepted. Without Edouard Manet being rebellious and taking on the challenge of developing a new style of art, we would never know Modernism like we do today.
