Is there a deeper meaning to this painting by Edouard Manet?

L

Leah

New member
It is called 'Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe'. Here is the link:
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/paintings-by-edouard-manet-1.jpg

If any of you know it well, please could you provide an analysis/explanation for the painting? Is there a meaning to it or is it just portraying a group of people enjoying a picnic?
 
LOL. Just enjoying a picnic? How many people do that in the nude while everyone else is dressed?

I have seen this painting in France. It's funny. First of all it was not proper for a woman at the time to sit naked among two dandy's (excessively fashionable men). Moreover that they are deep in conversation paying her little regard is just a hoot. It's been a bit since I studied this piece but an artist combining a nude with a landscape is sort of a dream. To make a social statement about freedom, which I believe it does (if we were really free we could do this but we don't so we have some obstacles) on top of the combination of the two usually seperated subjects is also cool. Not to mention he painted this super huge. Most of the time such a subject would be a smaller canvas. I always think of Manet as an impressionist, but this piece seems to have more of an old master look. Maybe there is something to that.

To gaze upon this picture is fun. You can imagine that the men are imagining her in such a way as they speak or that she is some goddess and they have entered an enchanted forest. I think Manet wants the watcher to use the art of their imagination to understand it. I bet it was a joy to paint.
 
When this painting was first shown it caused a scandal by the quite blatant sexual connotations. Although the nude was common in art at the time it was rarely shown in a sexual way, and never with fully clothed members of the opposite sex, who where clearly modern men of the time wearing up to date fashion of the period. It implyed that both men and women were sexual beings and that men were voyeurs. And as we know men are, however in Victorian times as you can imagine that was scandalous.

Manet actually did two versions of this painting and Claude Monet also copyed it.
 
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