Manet's Atlantia

Although examining art requires a huge knowledge, my intention in this essay is to analyze a piece of art, besides lyrics and the context, I’m going to examine it by following the steps presented by Alain de Botton.

Nude figures have been featured in art works since around 30 to 25,000 B.C. And throughout the history of art, we can see a lot of artists being inspired and influenced by great talents before them, in one way or another they would carry the style or ideas of those previous artists into their own art and create new masterpieces. One particular example is Édouard Manet’s Olympia from the Realism period, and Yasumasa Morimura’s Futago. The two paintings share great similarities in their composition, but the content and purpose of the paintings, and style wise the two pieces are very different.

In the contemplation of art, or rather the conceptually intangible definition it currently possess, it is imperative to be mindful that “art” has been utilized as a promotional device, ceremonial item, aesthetically purposed article or perhaps none of these or all. It is because of this vague term that Carolyn Dean, in her text, “The Trouble with (The Term) Art”, makes a case for the consequences of applying the term “art” in societies that lacked such a notion which also accounts for the Western-centric lens the field intrinsically utilizes when viewing non-Western art. The claim is deftly supported by the utilization of expert accounts in the subject, alternative perspectives for what is considered the current norm, and self-examining questions,

In representing female subjects, both Pablo Picasso’s oil painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) manipulate the formal techniques of composition and perspective to create new ways of seeing their subject, emulating their contemporary society’s shifting views of women and the individual. Les Demoiselles depicts five naked prostitutes, flaunting their bodies, and some wearing tribal masks. In comparison, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère represents a female, who may also be a prostitute, tending a bar. The depiction of previously ‘hidden’ female subjects alone was an innovation of the perception of the artist, however, the formal treatment in representing these subjects was an important break from tradition.

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.

Even though some artists, as Berger claims, tried to resist this tradition, they couldn’t overcome the cultural tradition of female objectification that has continued to the present. These artists failed to create a different view in culture because of the media and how the perception wouldn’t change in the eyes of men. One famous artist who tried to resist this awful trend was an artist name Rubens. In his portrait of his second wife, the painting named Helene Fourment in a Fur Coat, he tried to portray the same message with a different image.The image is of a women with no other clothing other than a fur coat looking shameful. The middle-aged looking women in the painting was wearing a big brown fur coat. The difference between a regular “nude”

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

The painting “A Bar at the Folies-Bergere” a first modern painting that portrays young woman resting on the marble counter, the girl looks below the blond bangs with distant eyes and serene. Has the neckline adorned with a bouquet of flowers in front of it are bottles of champagne, beer and peppermint schnapps. She is the symbol of his time and the reality of his time reflected on his face. The tones of the picture, cold and creamy, remember rain and inspire melancholy. Through a game of perspective and optics, Manet gets the strange impression that we are also confronted the waitress the picture, as if we were at the Folies-Bergère and we saw that dandy reflecting itself. the result of the distorted logic of the work - is perceived tension.

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.

In contrast, the painting Olympia is negatively attacked by critics, publics, newspapers, and other people. After this Olympia was hung on the wall at the Salon, it met with some laughter, criticisms, and disdain from people. One of these people thought that “if the canvas of the [Olympia] was not destroyed, it is only because of the precautions that were taken by the administration” (Williams 2002). This statement shows that people dislike this painting very much or maybe hate it somehow and deeply want it to be destroyed. Furthermore, the reason why people and many critics have negative reactions or perspectives to Olympia is because no one wants to recall some shadier sites of life. According to the fact that Manet represented the real

The light ironically comes from the intense glare of the viewer; the male gaze. This then turns the female figure into an ‘object of eroticized looking, or scopophilia, a term lifted from Sigmund Freud’s theory of the fetish’ ‘ Olympia gets the viewer very involved with the scene of the painting, as if they were part of her daily routine. The servant standing right beside her is faced towards her, however the flowers are directed towards the viewer (audience) asking for the approval of the flowers.

Arthur C. Danto in “The Artworld” provides us with the argument that, “To see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry-an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.” Danto shows us the importance of the artworld in order to know that a work of art is more than just what we can plainly see. Danto provides two theories he calls the “IT” (Imitation theory) and the “RT” (Reality theory). With these two theories, Danto explains how we can define art and why “The Artworld” is needed to help understand art, because after all, “these days one might not be aware he was on artistic terrain without an artistic theory to tell him so.”

As literary critics, Plato and Aristotle disagree profoundly about the value of art in human society. Plato attempts to strip artists of the power and prominence they enjoy in his society, while Aristotle tries to develop a method of inquiry to determine the merits of an individual work of art. It is interesting to note that these two disparate notions of art are based upon the same fundamental assumption: that art is a form of mimesis, imitation. Both philosophers are concerned with the artist's ability to have significant impact on others. It is the imitative function of art which promotes disdain in Plato and curiosity in Aristotle. Examining the reality that art

The Large Bathers, 1898-1905 is the largest of Paul Cezanne's pictures and has been cited as an example of his ideal of composition and his restoration of classic monumentality after its lapse during the nineteenth century. Cézanne’s great achievement forced the young Picasso, Matisse, and many other artists to contend with the implications of Cézanne’s art. This essay will discuss how both Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life) and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon are considered as inspired by and breaking free of The Large Bathers.

Throughout the vast history of art, historians can find connections throughout the centuries. Artists from the beginning of humankind have been inspired by the world around them. From the Apollo 11 stones to present day, history and culture have provided inspiration and have been the focus of various pieces. Examining artwork from the 15th-18th century, viewers can be shown a whole world that would be unknown to us without these artist’s contributions. History, religion, and cultural events have sculpted the art world, and we can observe this through many pieces during the 15th-18th centuries.