Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (English: The Luncheon on the

The Luncheon on the Grass
Grass) – originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) – is a large oil
French: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and
1863. It depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female
bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural
setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the
opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the
1863 Salon des Refusés,[1] where the painting sparked public
notoriety and controversy.[2] The piece is now in the Musée
d'Orsay in Paris.[3] A smaller, earlier version can be seen at
the Courtauld Gallery, London.[4]

Contents
Description and context
Figures in the painting Artist Édouard Manet
Interactions of the figures Year 1863
Inspirations Medium Oil on canvas
Critique and controversy Dimensions 208 cm × 264.5 cm (81.9 in × 104.1 in)
Critiques of the subject matter
Location Musée d'Orsay, Paris
General response
Commentary of Émile Zola
Inspired works
References
External links

Description and context

The painting features a nude woman casually lunching with two fully dressed men. Her body is starkly lit and she stares directly at
the viewer. The two men, dressed as young dandies, seem to be engaged in conversation, ignoring the woman. In front of them, the
woman's clothes, a basket of fruit, and a round loaf of bread are displayed, as in a still life. In the background, a lightly clad woman
bathes in a stream. Too large in comparison with the figures in the foreground, she seems to float above them. The roughly painted
background lacks depth, giving the viewer the impression that the scene is not taking place outdoors, but in a studio. This impression
is reinforced by the use of broad "studio" light, which casts almost no shadows. The man on the right wears a flat hat with a tassel, a
kind normally worn indoors.

Despite the mundane subject, Manet deliberately chose a large canvas size, measuring 81.9 x 104.1 in (208 by 264.5 cm), normally
reserved for historical, religious, and mythological subjects.[5] The style of the painting breaks with the academic traditions of the
time. He did not try to hide the brush strokes; the painting even looks unfinished in some parts of the scene. The nude is also starkly
different from the smooth, flawless figures ofCabanel or Ingres.
A nude woman casually lunching with fully dressed men was an affront to audiences' sense of propriety, though Émile Zola, a
contemporary of Manet's, argued that this was not uncommon in paintings found in the Louvre. Zola also felt that such a reaction
came from viewing art differently than "analytic"painters like Manet, who use a painting's subject as a pretext to paint.

There is much still not known about the painting, such as when Manet actually began painting it, exactly how he got the idea, and
how and what sort of preparation works he did.[5] Though Manet had claimed this piece was once valued at 25,000 Francs in 1871, it
actually remained in his possession until 1878 when Jean-Baptiste Faure, opera-singer and collector, bought it for just 2,600
Francs.[5]

Figures in the painting

The figures of this painting are a testament to how deeply connected Manet was to Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Some assume that the
landscape of the painting is meant to be l’île Saint-Ouen, which was just up the Seine from his family property in Gennevilliers.
Manet often used real models and people he knew as reference during his creation process.[6] The female nude is thought to be
Victorine Meurent, the woman who became his favorite and frequently portrayed model, who later was the subject of Olympia. The
male figure on the right was based on a combination of his two brothers, Eugène and Gustave Manet. The other man is based on his
s family portrait.[5]
brother-in-law, Dutch sculptor Ferdinand Leenhoff. Nancy Locke referred to this scene as Manet’

Interactions of the figures

What many critics find shocking about this painting is the interaction, or lack thereof, between the three main subjects in the
foreground and the woman bathing in the background. There are many contrasting qualities to the painting that juxtapose and
distance the female nude from the other two male subjects. For example, the feminine versus the masculine, the naked versus the
clothed, and the white color palette versus the dark color palette creates a clear social difference between the men and the woman.[6]
Additionally, some viewers are intrigued by the questions raised by the gaze of the nude woman. It is indeterminable whether she is
challenging or accepting the viewer, looking past the viewer, engaging the viewer, or even looking at the viewer at all. This encounter
s gaze.[6]
identifies the gaze as a figure of the painting itself, as well as the figure object of the woman’

Inspirations
As with the later Olympia (1863) and other works, Manet's composition reveals his study of the old masters, as the disposition of the
main figures is derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving The Judgment of Paris (c. 1515) after a drawing by Raphael.[7]
Raphael was an artist revered by the conservative members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and his paintings were part of the
teaching programme at the École des Beaux-Arts, where copies of fifty-two images from his most celebrated frescoes were
permanently on display. Le Bain (an early title for Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe) was therefore, in many ways, a defiant painting. Manet
was cheekily reworking Raphael, turning a mythological scene from one of the most celebrated engravings of the Renaissance into a
[8]
tableau of somewhat vulgar Parisian holidaymakers.
 Judgement of Paris Engraving (ca. The Pastoral Concert (ca. 1510) by Giorgione, The Tempest (c. 1508),
1515) by Marcantonio Raimondi to Giorgione or Titian, Louvre, Paris, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice,
a design by Raphael cited as an inspiration for Manet's Italy
painting

Antoine Watteau, La Partie Carrée,

(c. 1713)

Scholars also cite two works as important precedents for Manet's painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe: The Pastoral Concert by
Giorgione or possibly Titian (in the Louvre) and Giorgione's The Tempest, both of which are famous Renaissance paintings.[5] The
Tempest, which also features a fully dressed man and a nude woman in a rural setting, offers an important precedent for Manet's
painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe.[9] Pastoral Concert even more closely resemblesLe Déjeuner sur l'herbe,as it features two dressed
men seated in a rural setting, with two undressed women. Pastoral Concert is in the collection of the Louvre in Paris and is likely,
therefore, to have been studied by Manet.

According to Proust, he and Manet had been lounging by the Seine as they spotted a woman bathing in the river. This prompted
Manet to say, "I copied Giorgione’s women, the women with musicians. It’s black that painting. The ground has come through. I want
[10]
to redo it and do it with a transparent atmosphere with people like those we see over there."

There may be a connection between Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and the work of Jean Antoine Watteau.[11] Manet’s original title, Le
Bain, initially drew the main attention to the woman near the water. This bathing figure alone is quite similar to the figure in
Watteau’s Le Villageoise, as both women crouch or lean over near water, simultaneously holding up their skirts. It’s possible that
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe.[11]
Manet adapted this pose, which is more clearly seen in a sketch of his years before his creation of

Critique and controversy

There were many mixed reviews and responses to Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe when it was first displayed[12] and it continues to yield a
variety of responses. The initial response was characterized by its blunt rejection from the Paris Salon and subsequent display in the
[13]
Salon des Refusés. Though many critiques were rooted in confusion about the piece, they were not always completely negative.
 Odilon Redon, for example, did not like it. There is a discussion of it, from this point of view
, in Proust's
Remembrance of Things Past.
Le Capitaine Pompilius, a contributor for Le Petit Journal, thought the characteristically "male" colors of the piece
brought the countryside into the salon, but thought the painting was underdeveloped. [13]

Castagnary, appreciator of realist works, identified it as a nice sketch but said it lacked sincerity and lost the
definition of the anatomy of the subjects. He also described Manet’ s painting technique as "flabby".[13]
Arthur Stevens, contributor forLe Figaro, praised Manet as a talented colorist but felt that he neglected form and
modeling in this piece.[13]
[13]
Thoré, Paul, and Louvet loved the energy of the colors but found the brush strokes to be uneven.
One interpretation of the work is that it depicts the rampant prostitution present at that time in the Bois de Boulogne, a large park on
the western outskirts of Paris. This prostitution was common knowledge in Paris, but was considered a taboo subject unsuitable for a
painting.[14] Indeed, the Bois de Boulogne is to this day known as a pick-up place for prostitutes and illicit sexual activity after dark,
just as it had been in the 19th century.

Critiques of the subject matter

Louis Étienne characterized the painting as a puzzle, while describing the nude female as "a Bréda of some sort, as
nude as possible, lolling boldly between two swells dressed to the teeth. These two persons look like high school
students on holiday, committing a great sin toprove their manhood."[15][13]
[13]
Arthur Stevens could not understand what the painting was saying.
Didier de Montchaux found the subject to be "fairly scabrous". [13]

Thoré described the nude as an ugly and risqué subject matter , while describing the male on the right as one "who
doesn’t even think of taking off his horrible padded hat outdoors…It’s the contrast between such an antipathetic
animal to the character of a pastoral scene, and this undraped bather , that is shocking."[13]
Philip Hamerton, an English painter and contributor at theFine Arts Quarterly, had an affinity for the characteristic
photographic detail of thePre-Raphaelite paintings. Though he did recognize the inspiration from Giorgione, he
found Manet’s modern realism to be offensive in this situation. His disapproval of Manet a nd similar artists was
related to the idea of indecency behind "vulgar men" painting nude women. [13]

General response
Though the peculiarity of the combination of one female nude with three clothed figures sparked mixed responses, the lack of
interaction of the figures in addition to the lack of engagement by the nude woman provoked laughter instead of offense. Laughter as
[13]
a response represses the sexual tension and makes the scene rather unthreatening to the viewer in the end.

Commentary of Émile Zola

The Luncheon on the Grassis the greatest work of Édouard Manet, one in which he realizes the dream of all painters:
to place figures of natural grandeur in a landscape. We know the power with which he vanquished this difficulty.
There are some leaves, some tree trunks, and, in the background, a river in which a chemise-wearing woman bathes;
in the foreground, two young men are seated across from a second woman who has just exited the water and who
dries her naked skin in the open air. This nude woman has scandalized the public, who see only her in the canvas. My
God! What indecency: a woman without the slightest covering between two clothed men! That has never been seen.
And this belief is a gross error, for in the Louvre there are more than fifty paintings in which are found mixes of
persons clothed and nude. But no one goes to the Louvre to be scandalized. The crowd has kept itself moreover from
judging The Luncheon on the Grasslike a veritable work of art should be judged; they see in it only some people who
are having a picnic, finishing bathing, and they believed that the artist had placed an obscene intent in the disposition
of the subject, while the artist had simply sought to obtain vibrant oppositions and a straightforward audience.
Painters, especially Édouard Manet, who is an analytic painter, do not have this preoccupation with the subject which
torments the crowd above all; the subject, for them, is merely a pretext to paint, while for the crowd, the subject alone
exists. Thus, assuredly, the nude woman of The Luncheon on the Grass is only there to furnish the artist the occasion
to paint a bit of flesh. That which must be seen in the painting is not a luncheon on the grass; it is the entire landscape,
 with its vigors and its finesses, with its foregrounds so large, so solid, and its backgrounds of a light delicateness; it is
this firm modeled flesh under great spots of light, these tissues supple and strong, and particularly this delicious
silhouette of a woman wearing a chemise who makes, in the background, an adorable dapple of white in the milieu of
green leaves. It is, in short, this vast ensemble, full of atmosphere, this corner of nature rendered with a simplicity so
just, all of this admirable page in which an artist has placed all the particular and rare elements which are in
him.[16][17]

Zola presents a fictionalised version of the painting and the controversy surrounding it in his novel
L'Œuvre (The Masterpiece).

Inspired works
In L'Oeuvre, Émile Zola's novel
about a painter, a work by his
main character, Claude Lantier,
exhibited in a fictional salon des
refusés, resembles Manet's
painting.
Claude Monet's own version of
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbefrom
1865–1866, was inspired by
Manet's masterpiece.
French painter James Tissot,
painted La Partie Carrée, in
James Tissot, La Partie Carrée, 1870 1870; arguably a tamer version
without the nudity of Le
Déjeuner sur l'herbe.
Paul Cézanne painted the same theme in hisLe Déjeuner sur l'herbe
(1876–1877), Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris. It is not certain, however,
that Cézanne was responsible for the title of the work, but it does Claude Monet, Le Déjeuner sur
incorporate many of the same elements of subject in the piece. For l'herbe, 1865–1866, Musée d'Orsay,
example, Cézanne’s clothed female subject poses similarly to the model Paris.
of Manet in which her chin rests in her hand. The male figure, meant to
resemble the painter himself, mimics the hand gesture of the man
furthest right in Manet’s piece.[18] The composition of Cézanne's
painting also bears resemblance toBacchanal (between 1627 and 1628), byNicolas Poussin, whose works in the
Louvre were periodically copied by Cézanne. It is possible that Cézanne's Déjeuner represents nothing more than
the joyful memories of outings in the countryside around Aix-en-Provence, known especially from the testimony of a
childhood friend of the painter, Émile Zola.[19]
Manet’s painting inspired Picasso as he completed the largest concentration of art prompted by a single work during
the 20th century, consisting of 27 paintings, 140 drawings, 3 linogravures and cardboard marquettes for sculpture
carried out between 1949 and 1962.[20] Picasso also adopted some of Manet’s techniques involving exploitation of
the nude in the foreground as evident in his workLes Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907.[5]
Paul Gauguin may have been inspired by this piece in creating his 1896 workWhere do we come from? Who are
we? Where are we going?, as there is a similarity of Manet’s depiction of the nude woman and Gauguin’s Tahitian
woman.[5]
Max Ernst painted a parody version of this piece namedLe Déjeuner sur l'Herbrein 1944. He inverts the painting,
ef [21]
replaces the nude woman with a fish, and adds an 'r' to the title for comedic fect.
The painting inspired the 1959film of the same name by Jean Renoir.
It was copied in the cover photo of theBow Wow Wow LP See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City
All Over! Go Ape Crazy!, and the EP The Last of the Mohicans. Controversy arose because the naked girl (lead
singer Annabella Lwin) was only 14 at the time.
Alain Jacquet copied in 1964 the composition of Manet in hisDéjeuner sur l'herbe:, a serie of 95 serigraphies
portraying the art criticPierre Restany and the painter Mario Schifano, one of which was left in the lobby of thehotel
Chelsea in New York City for payment of his room.
Paul Cézanne, Le Déjeuner sur Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles
l'herbe, 1876-1877, Musée de From? What Are We? Where Are d'Avignon, 1907, MoMA
l'Orangerie We Going?, 1897. (detail).

References
1. Catalogue des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, gravure, lithographie et architecture : refusés par le Jury de 1863 et
exposés, par décision de S.M. l'Empereur au salon annexe, palais des Champs-Elysées, le 15 mai 1863, Édouard
Manet, Le Bain, no. 363 (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k114147v)
, Bibliothèque nationale de France
2. Boime, Albert (2007). Art in an Age of Civil Struggle. Los Angeles: The University of Chicago Press. p. 676.
ISBN 978-0-226-06328-7.
3. Musée d'Orsay, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) (http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-
focus/search/commentaire_id/le-dejeuner-sur-lherbe-7123.html?no_cache=1&cHash=48427e6bdb)
4. The Courtauld Gallery version(http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/gallery/2454912b.html)
5. Tucker, Paul Hayes (1998). Manet's Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. pp. 5–14.
6. Armstrong, Carol (1998)."To Paint, To Point, To Pose" Manet's Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP. pp. 93–111.
7. Ross King. The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism
. New York:
Waller & Company, 2006 ISBN 0-8027-1466-8.
8. Ross King, p. 41.
9. John Rewald,The History of Impressionism, The Museum of Modern Art, 4th revised edition 1973, (1st 1946, 2nd
1955, 3rd 1961), p. 85.ISBN 0-87070-369-2.
10. Laessøe, Rolf (2005). "Édouard Manet's "Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe" as a eiled
V Allegory of Painting".Artibus et
Historiae. 26 (51): 197.
11. Fried, Michael (1996).Manet's Modernism or, The Face of Paintingin the 1860s. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press. pp. 56–57.
12. Fernand Desnoyers, La peinture en 1863 : Salon des refusés, A. Dutil (Paris) 1863 (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bp
t6k108159t), Bibliothèque nationale de France (in French)
13. McCauley, Anne (1998). "Sex and the Salon" Manet's Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe
. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. pp. 41–
44.
14. Peter J. Gartner, Art and Architecture: Musée d'Orsay, 2001, p. 180. ISBN 0-7607-2889-5.
15. Louis Étienne, Le jury et les exposants: salon des refusés, Paris, 1863, p. 30. (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k11
41487), Bibliothèque nationale de France
16. Émile Zola, Édouard Manet, 1867, et lps 91
17. Émile Zola, Édouard Manet, 1867, link to English translation(https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=h
ttp://www.cahiers-naturalistes.com/Salons/01-01-67.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dzola%2Bon%2Bmanet%26start%3
D10%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3Dpu9%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:of ficial%26channel%3Dsb%2
6biw%3D1799%26bih%3D840)
18. Locke, Nancy (1998). "Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe as a Family Romance" Manet's Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe
.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP. p. 121.
19. Paul Cézanne, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe(1876–1877), Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris(http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/pa
ges/page_id19113_u1l2.htm)Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20141029032121/http://www .musee-orangerie.f
r/pages/page_id19113_u1l2.htm)2014-10-29 at the Wayback Machine.
20. Picasso: Challenging the pastNational Gallery exhibition book, p. 116.
21. "Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre | Cleveland Museum of Art"(http://www.clevelandart.org/art/2002.55?collection_search_qu
ery=fish&op=search&form_build_id=form-LSCVdx4K6pNGdu3UeD8aED5T32uXqJtj4kV67Am_FPk&form_id=clevela
ndart_collection_search_form&f%5B0%5D=object_on_view:1&c=1) . www.clevelandart.org. Retrieved 2018-01-13.

External links
Media related to Le Déjeuner sur l'herbeby Manet at Wikimedia External video
Commons
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) , Musée d'Orsay, Full
Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
entry at Smarthistory.
Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, an exhibition catalog from The
Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which
contains material on this painting (pp. 131–134)

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