Édouard manet – luncheon on the grass

Édouard Manet – Luncheon on the Grass (Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe)

Édouard Manet is indubitably one of the most intriguing and fascinating artists in History. His will to shock went beyond his time and his 1863 ‘Luncheon on the Grass’ (or ‘Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe), like most of his creations of the same period, marked a breakout with previous Art.
The artist painted this marvellous 82 X 104” canvas in Paris, where he was based, with the original intention of exhibiting it under the title of ‘Le bain’ at the ‘Salon de Paris’, an annual juried art show presented by the French ‘Académie des Beaux-Arts’ where the displayed pieces of work won prizes and good reputation.
Even though Manet’s works had previously won honourable mention in earlier Salons (as stated in Sandra Orienti’s ‘Manet’, 1968), that year the jury was so rigorous that dozens of paintings were rejected, including his. However, considering the numerous protests of fans of the artists, the Emperor Napoleon III, after seeing himself the rejects, decided that the public needed to judge for themselves and commanded that an exhibition would be held outside the official Salon to display the rejected paintings. It would be called ‘Le Salon des Refusés’ and even if many of the visitors would just laugh and deride the pieces of work shown there, it soon became as famous as the original Salon.
According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art curators in their book Manet, from 1983, the Luncheon on the Grass offended the contemporary public by the manner of its painting as well as by its subject. In fact, the composition presents a naked woman casually lunching in a wood with two fully dressed men who are engaged in conversation and seem to ignore the woman. Her clothes are on the floor on her side with a basket of fruit. In the background another woman, in a camisole, is getting out of a pool. This juxtaposition of two such recognizable gentlemen with such immodest ladies was seen as a clear affront to modern