Luncheon On The Grass Essay

Why was Luncheon on the Grass a disturbing painting? To what degree was it a novel (new work) painting? To modern-day viewers, Luncheon on the Grass ("Dejeuner sur l'Herbe"), 1863 by Edouard Manet would not be considered a disturbing painting, but at the time Parisian’s Society found the painting very disturbing. Both because of the style of the painting, and it’s subject matter.

The style of the painting is very different from what was acceptable by the Salon standards of the day. The painting is done in rough brush strokes, allowing the viewer to see the artist’s hand work. The modeling of the forms is very flat, disregarding the chiaroscuro and Tenebrism that has been standard in art since the Renaissance and the Baroque, respectively.

The scene is of a nude woman reclining on a bed. The title of the work Olympia tells us that she is a prostitute, as Olympia was often a name used by working women of the day. Another woman, a black maid, brings her a bouquet of flowers from a client. The nude woman stares directly at the viewer with a bold, but not quite as mischievous look as in Luncheon on the Grass. While there was outrage and disgust about the painting when it was included in the Salon of 1865, much of that outrage had to do with Manet’s style instead of the subject matter. After all, prostitutes as subjects were not uncommon. Black women we're also not uncommon. And Manet had based the painting off a work by Titian that, except for the maid being black, was the same in subject matter. What scandalized and shocked Parisian’s Society about this painting was not that subject matter, but that it was accepted into the Salon. Accepted despite being and what they considered ‘unfinished’ and in style that was not in keeping with the Tradition. Olympia is not Manet’s