Hang around me and
you'll get your picture taken
if we go somewhere fun.
Monday, December 18, 2023
Frenemies
My primary takeaway from the Manet/Degas blockbuster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is their prodigious output. These rivalrous 19th century pals--born just two years apart in Paris--painted a lot, so much in fact that the curators could organize their work by subject matter for the purpose of more illuminating comparison.
At first glance, I would have described Manet as the better painter, or at least one with a more classic style.
Portrait of a Young Man by Édouard Manet (ca. 1856)
He scandalized Paris with this realistic painting of an unapologetic courtesan's "morning after," when a (free black) maid delivers a bouquet, possibly from a satisfied client. The work rarely has left its home at the Louvre.
"Olympia" by Édouard Manet (1863-65)
Critics took Manet to task for "Episode from a Bullfight" which, in its original form, included a disproportionally sized bull and other background figures. Manet then truncated the top half of his painting and changed the title.
"The Dead Toreador" by Édouard Manet (1864)
Degas, already aboard the Impressionism train, didn't get the memo before depicting a similarly dramatic incident at the race track.
"Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey" by Edgar Degas (1866)
Degas appears to have abandoned realism long before Manet.
"Young Woman with Ibis" by Edgar Degas (1857-58)
Modern viewers might not realize Degas depicted a rehearsal, not a performance, on this fantastical back stage if not for the actual ballerina's pink slippers just behind the horse's right front hoof. The painting also introduces his obsession with dancers.
Mademoiselle Fiocre in the Ballet "La Source" by Edgar Degas (ca 1867-68)
America's Civil War fascinated both painters, although they split their support. One naval battle between the Union and Confederacy took place just off the coast of France (who knew?). Manet had captured the smokey maritime scene in oils within a month.
The Battle of the USS "Kearsarge* and the OSS "Alabama" by Édouard Manet (1864)
Degas, who spent time in New Orleans, had family in the cotton business, enabling him to paint it from life.
"A Cotton Office in New Orleans" by Edgar Degas (1873)
French politics interested Manet just as much. Here he depicts the escape of a journalist who had been sympathetic to the Paris Communards from a prison in New Caledonia.
More 19th century European politics in this small print, an event Manet depicted in four other works, including one owned by Degas.
"The Execution of Maximilian" by Édouard Manet (1868)
Napoleon III had installed Maximilian, an Austrian duke, as the puppet Emperor of Mexico before abruptly withdrawing the French forces that might have shielded him from the revolutionary firing squad. Note the smoke and flames coming out of the rifle barrel.
"The Execution of Maximilian" by Edouard Manet (partial, 1867-68)
Although Degas lived three decades longer than Manet, who died in 1883, his chronically poor eyesight worsened after 1890, making it more difficult for him to paint, if not sculpt.
"Beach Scene" by Edgar Degas (1869-70)
Millinery shops appear in twenty works.
"The Millinery Shop" by Edgar Degas (1879-86)
Manet knew the bassoonist and other musicians in this portrait. All heads and legs, it seems almost photographic in its cropped composition.
"The Orchestra of the Opera" by Edgar Degas (ca 1870)
Smoking and drinking were characteristic of the "liberated" women that Manet and Degas encountered. Both artists captured the occasional glassy-eyed pathos of these activities.
"In a Café (The Absinthe Drinker)" by Edgar Degas (1875-76)
"Plum Brandy" by Edouard Manet (ca 1877)
Manet upped his Impressionist game with pastels. Syphilis and rheumatism would kill him a few years after he completed this masterwork.
"Woman with a Tub" by Edouard Manet (ca 1878-79)
Degas loved brothels even more than millinery shops. Utterly unromanticized, they're depicted in more than 50 of his paintings.
"Nude Woman Combing Her Hair" by Edgar Degas (1877-80)
Nor did Degas shy away from the dangers of sex work. He initially titled this menacing scene "Le viol," or the rape.
"Interior" by Edgar Degas (1868-69)
A rainy Monday morning encouraged further exploration of the Met. I started with the refreshed galleries of European painting which included the Wisteria room with Art Nouveau furnishings from Paris.
Truth be told, I liked this pointillist painting by an unfamiliar artist almost as much as anything I saw in the Manet/Degas exhibit.
This exhibit of family-related photos proved to be as avant garde as sentimental. DJ equipment and random photos shot in the 1990s at San Francisco's Eagle Creek Saloon--a gay bar and safe space established by the photographer's father, who also founded the Compton chapter of the Black Panthers--comprise this joyful installation.
Here's a family tree that begins with Adolph Hitler's legal adviser. Prior to his conviction at the Nuremberg trials for war crimes and subsequent hanging, he used his position to collect art looted from Jews. Taryn Simon traced his descendants and photographed those who gave their consent on the left, with blank spaces marking those who refused. Art looted from Poland and never recovered is pictured at the right, with identifications (of the heirs?) in the middle.
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