Figure 11.5 Olympia, 1863, by Édouard Manet, oil on canvas, 131 × 190 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Manet considered Olympia to be his masterpiece and kept it until his death. Afterwards, Claude Monet organised a fund to purchase it and offered it to the French state. It is considered one of the finest works of 19th-century French painting.
Style and Symbolism
This very real and modern young woman raises her head with confidence. The neck ribbon, the bracelet, ribbon in her hair and satin slipper are symbols of wealth and sensuality, but they emphasise her nakedness. The dog (a symbol of fidelity in marriage) has been replaced with a black cat, which suggests immorality.
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Like so much of his work, the meaning of A Bar at the Folies Bergère (Fig. 11.6) is somewhere between reality and illusion. A young woman in a neat blue dress stands alone at the bar with her hands placed firmly on the marble countertop. She has a detached, melancholy look and a locket around her neck.
CHAPTER 11 MODERNITY
Figure 11.6 A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1881–2, by Édouard Manet, oil on canvas, 96 × 130 cm, Courtauld Gallery, London. Manet persuaded a barmaid he knew from the nightclub to pose in his studio for the picture. It captures all the coolness, glamour and cruelty of modern life.
