Four Paintings
I
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
I The Picture
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
A Visit to Manet's Studio
A contemporary account of Manet's work on
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
The sketch for 'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère'
Even in his preparatory sketch, Manet was thinking about distorting reality.
John Rewald on Manet's 'Bar'
Scholar and connoisseur John Rewald was the first great historian of Impressionism.
Duret on Manet
"There in the Salon of 1882 he found himself among the elect"
Favourable criticism
"It is one of the best, the most original, most novel, and most harmonious paintings..."
Unfavourable criticism
"Manet is not a master - far from it."
Friends
Manet enjoyed peopling his paintings with his friends.
Suzon
The model for the barmaid was a woman called 'Suzon'. Very little is known about her.
Mery Laurent
The woman in the yellow gloves is Mery Laurent, a model, friend and lover.
Emmanuel Chabrier
Manet died in the company of his friend the composer Emanuel Chabrier, the first owner of the painting.
The Last Resort
It is interesting to compare Manet’s painting with this photograph by British photographer Martin Parr.
What is the barmaid looking at?
In real life, the Folies-Bergère did not have bars with mirrors that reflected the audience.
Mirrors: Illogical Geometry
"An alternative view is that the scene to the right is a kind of materialization of the barmaid's 'reflections'..."
Looking forward and seeing backwards
Manet's Bar is controversially celebrated as one of the most spectacular representations...
Mirrors: The Place of Realism
"Realism has its fascination and its justification: it would be presumptuous to exclude it from art."
Mirrors: Las Meninas
Velázquez's Las meninas has an extremely complicated, highly unusual composition...
Fact or Fiction
Does the picture tell a story or reflect reality?
The eye of the painter and the eye of the policeman
It is not only students and lovers of art who have been fascinated by Manet's painting.
Whiteness
"The paint surface itself is mostly dry, with almost a scraped quality, a bit harsh, a bit brittle..."
Electric light
Manet's Bar is one of the first paintings to feature electric light.
The red triangle
The Department of Registration of Trademarks opened in London on January 1, 1876.
