A Summary Of Olympia By Edouard Manet

This painting is a portrait of an old woman who is sitting on a chair while facing to the left. She is wearing a yellow flower dress with a beige jacket while sitting in an empty room. Her beauty is illustrated by her curly, gray hair and also her wrinkled face, neck, and hands. These details is what makes her look real and pure. I like how detailed it is because it reminds me of my grandmothers.

And it is for that reason the painting received so much criticism. It was too real. The nude woman in the painting was not an idealized mystical subject like the woman in Titian’s Venus of Urbino anymore, but it was based on a real woman, Victorine Meurent. The reality of the piece brought all the harsh criticism onto itself, because it raised a lot of issues regarding prostitution and women’s place and roles in the French society. Another reason the painting shocked the crowd other than the realness of it is its style, how it was painted. Olympia was painted roughly with clear brushstrokes, poor details (everything was also very flat), and stark value

The painting depicts a young woman in a pink dress sitting down. The background is very dark but three things can be made out by the viewer. Starting with the ground plane of the painting, an orange carpet can be seen covering the entire floor. It is patterned and contains yellows, greens and blues. The cool toned colours are darker in hue than the warm toned. Secondly, there appears to be a cabinet or a desk lining the wall behind her. The wood of the cabinetry is carved with detailed designs and is made of a dark stained wood. Despite the dark background a single red rose can be seen on top of the cabinetry. The rose looks freshly picked and shows no signs of withering in its petals. It is painted in a muted red colour that allows it to stand out on

One of the aspects I believe unifies this painting is, as I talked about above, the continuation of the blue of the woman’s clothing continuing up into her hair, which gives the piece a sense of wholeness and relativity. There is also balance in this piece, for while the woman’s head is offset, this is balanced out by the elongation of her shoulder and arm in the right side of the image. Variety is also achieved in this piece through the use of a variation of hues and a lot of tonal difference. Emphasis is placed upon the hair with the use of an unnatural hair colour, as well as the face where light colours are used to highlight and pull the attention. Space is not so much of an active principle in this piece, but is still present nonetheless. Beryl is placed in the middle of the painting, with her taking up roughly 50% of the space, and the rest taken up by background.

You also notice that her clothing and hair are of light color, and she is very detailed. After studying the complex painting closely, you find that the focus of the painting is the Princess.

The woman is displayed from waist up in the central position on the canvas. She appears to be nude, her left breast exposed. Her face is upturned, gazing at something above the top of the composition. Her eyes are large and glassy; reflective pools. Her skin is clear and pale, a sign of youth and beauty. Her lips are slightly parted, and they are full and soft red in colour. The kitten looks up, at the same object as the woman. It has grey fur, red/pink rimmed eyes, ears and claws. The kitten digs it’s claws into the hand of the woman, which she holds beside her chest, cupping her hand, palm up. The kitten rests against her chest and grasps her hand, suggesting a bond or relationship between the two.

Reclining nude female is a common subject matter in art history since the Venetian Renaissance, Titian’s Venus of Urbino painted in 1538 is one of the earliest reclining nude female in painting history. It described a beautiful young female laying on her bed with her sleeping dog, on the back ground is her maids looking for cloth or her in the cassone. Manet’s Olympia that painted in 1865 is a painting with a similar composition, A nude young female who was suggested a prostitute, behind her is her black female maid holding a big bouquet of flower which is possibly from her customer. On the same part of the composition, there is an animal as well, but this time it is a cat. Titian and Manet’s reclining nude female have a same composition and subject matter, however They are very different in art history, both stylistically and culturally.

All the figures in the painting were real individuals in Manet’s life. The man towards the left is Ferdinand Leenhof who is his soon to be brother in law, the man on the right is his younger brother Eugene Manet and most importantly the nude woman who left everyone stunned was a female model, Victorine Meurent, who makes another appearance in Manet’s other painting “Olympia” where once again she is the topic of debate. As all the figures were recognizable and were portrayed in an explicit narrative made it even more difficult to be displayed alongside traditional paintings.

The background of the painting is very dark and a reflective of the dark times some women were in during this time. The dark background and the subject’s serious persona give the painting a mysterious sensation. Mrs. Richard Skinner’s clothing pieces are very light colors which give a light-hearted ambiance to the painting but the dark background, dim lighting, and the dark table that lay before her completely alter the mood of the painting. The lighting of the painting, therefore, emphasizes Mrs. Richard Skinner even more due to her dark surroundings, which is another example of Copley’s attempt at accentuating her womanhood. Some of the props in this painting elaborate and stress her sexuality even further. The subject is holding a flower in the painting; flowers are symbolic of purity and femininity. The way the subject is holding the flowers is to be noted as well. She is holding

To describe the artwork “Woman in a Purple Coat” by Henri Matisse, the viewer has to be open to expression. In the artwork there is a woman, wearing purple pointy shoes, green pants with white faded stripes, a V-shape white shirt with grey lines, a long purple coat with white stripes and four black strips at the front to button the coat, a pearl necklace and another yellow long necklace. She is sitting with confidence with open arms on a vibrant two tone one side yellow and other side green couch. Sitting on the couch in a corner with a yellow flower arrangement on a pink and white vase with some fruit on a table next to her on the right. There is a magazine laying on the floor on top of a gray rug with black stripes above a black square marble floor. It looks as if she was reading intensely before being interrupted. She has her right foot behind her left, confidently waiting to be interviewed. The walls contrast with each other giving light and darkness to the portrait. On one side the wall is black with gray flowers outlined in red. On the other side the wall is green with black curvy streaks with white outline joined together by a grey corner behind the women wearing dark lipstick confidently sitting on the couch.

The reading claims that nudes throughout artistic history have been an important source of beauty and controversy. Nudes began to spike during the Baroque period as they were used for the more expressive and emotional arts of the time. In the nineteenth century, nudes became more common, yet became more sensitive. Artists would train by drawing nudes of ancient Greek statues and figures from myth. However, many artists would then move on to create works depicting prostitutes or peasant naked women. This would not please patrons as they were extremely societally taboo. However, this did not start artists from making them, as they moved into the twentieth and twenty-first century. This shows the importance of artistic nudes and their impact

Concerning color, there is a stark contrast between the figure on the painting and the background. More specifically, the figure of the woman is predominantly delineated in white color, especially pale, ashen white, as far her apparel and facial complexion are concerned, while there are also various hues of grey, with respect to her hair and accessory feather. These white and grey shades are vividly contrasted with the prevailing red and crimson hues of the background (viz. the drape, armchair, and table). Moreover, one can detect colors of dark green (jewelry), some beige on the left (pillar), and darker or lighter shades of blue on the right side of the canvas (sky), which all in concert and in addition to the subtle purple hue forming the sun or moon exude a certain dramatic sentiment. Also, there is brown, which often easily segues into gold (viz. books and attire details respectively). The main contrast of colors between white and red would be interpreted as serving the purpose of rendering the figure of the woman, and especially her face, the focal point of the work, despite, paradoxically enough, the lush red shades at the background. Bearing that in mind, the significance of the woman’s face will be enlarged upon later, when discussing aspects of her identity.

It is believed Manet's technique further inflamed the controversy surrounding Olympia. Rejecting his traditional art training, Manet chose instead to paint with bold brush strokes, implied shapes, and vigorous, simplified forms. "The paint sat there on the surface of the canvas...It wasn't just the fact that she's a nude and she's a lower class nude, but also the fact that she was painted in...what many people read as almost childish or unskilled fashion," explains art historian Anne McCauley in the film. "Olympia shocked in every possible way. That is to say formally, morally, in terms of its subject matter. It had the whole range of outrage," adds art historian Linda Nochlin.

The art and beauty in this painting is exemplified through the eyes of Boucher. It starts with a beautiful couple taking a rest after picking up some followers. Their clothing looks very elegant and colorful which shows that they are aristocrats. The man’s eyes are gazing at a shepherdess who gathered her own flowers. Their eyes are locked despite the man having his own woman right in front of him. The light brushstrokes of the dresses, flowers, and trees

The portrait is displayed horizontally with a gold trimmed frame. The subject is a female that looks to be in her early 20’s sitting upright on a large brown chair. If the viewer travels up the painting the first indication of the woman’s class is her satin, blue dress. The saturated blue shines and falls in the light like water. Paired with the dress are her exceptionally detailed endings to her sleeves. The lace is even painted as though it is translucent, allowing a little of the blue dress to show through the sleeve. Flowers throughout history have symbolized innocence of a woman and her virginity. The repeating theme of flowers, in the sleeve cuffs and ribbon) in the woman’s attired suggests her purity or innocent nature. Another very details section of the painting includes the corset/torso details. The sewing suggests texture in the torso with small beading in between. Towards the top of the chest in the center, the female seems to bear an extravagant, ribbon piece with a tear drop bead in the center. The light pink