Comparing Manet's Olympia And Le Grande Odalisque

A nude woman reclining is a piece of art that has been apart of many art movements throughout history. Édouard Manet's Olympia, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' Le Grande Odalisque, are two pieces that are apart of this history.

The paintings are very similar, they both make use of the same medium, have the women nude in reclining positions, and incorporate them both staring at the audience, however they differ in art movements, tone, and artistic technique, the similarities and differences in both these paintings emphasize the vision of the world both Manet and Ingres lived in. Although both Manet and Ingres painted Olympia and Le Grande Odalisque nearly half a century apart, both pieces have the same medium, oil on canvas. Oil

Ingres piece was apart of the early Romantic art movement, because of this his art is depicted as softer, with a cooler color scheme. Manet was apart of the realist movement, and although he drew inspiration from Titian's Venus of Urbino this woman is not meant to mimic the goddess of love, she is meant to be very real, a prostitute who has done well for herself and is staring down all judgments. Aside from the symbolic meaning of the paintings, the both also have very different techniques. Ingres painting has smoother softer lines, and he purposely made the woman's back extra long and out of proportion because he found a woman's back to be a beautiful part of her. Manet however has a very blocky painting technique, which looks patchy instead of smooth. This also goes back to the art movement they were apart of, for Manet, depicting realistic life settings, wouldn't have wanted anything to be too smooth and polished because that's not life. Ingres' and Manet both painted very similar pieces in terms of medium, position of the women, and the fact that the women stare at their audience. However their varying styles, art periods, and the tones of the pieces set them apart from each other and from other similar pieces in