Manet and Emile Durkheim- The Suicide

“the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them.”

(Charles Bukowski, Cause and effect)

Edouard Manet, The Suicide, 1877-81

Painting “The Suicide” is an unusual one in Manet’s oeuvre. Scenes of murder and violence do appear here and there in his paintings, for example in the paintings “The Dead Toreador” (1864), “Bullfight – The Death of the Bull” (1865-66), and “The Execution of Emperor Maximilian” (1868). What makes the painting “The Suicide”, just like Degas’ painting “Interior” (1868-69), stand out is its lack of context which makes it intriguing. We don’t know who the man in the painting is, and we don’t know why he decided to kill himself, nor what led up to that moment. We are brought to this tragic scene without knowing what had happened before. We are confused, bewildered, shocked, and saddened. The closely-cropped scene shows an interior with a bed, a painting (or half the painting) hanging over the bed and some furniture. The man’s lifeless body is lying on the bed; a gun in his hand, a bloody stain on his white shirt, and the puddle of blood on the floor are visual hints at what has happened. “Different colours, different shades/ Over each mistakes were made/ I took the blame/ Directionless so plain to see/ A loaded gun won’t set you free… so you say”, the lyrics (and the music) from Joy Division’s song “New Dawn Fades” instantly comes to mind.

Some art critics thought the painting represents Manet’s assistent who had killed himself some years before the painting was painted, and others, not knowing how to interpret the painting, simply concluded that it has no meaning, that it is merely an exercise in colour and light. I am of an opinion that even if we can’t decipher the painting, interpret it and pinpoint its symbolism or meaning, it doesn’t mean the painting has no meaning. I definitely don’t think this is just a painterly exercise. When Impressionists wanted to play with colours, and with the effect of light and shadow, or simply use the left-over paint from their palettes, they painted gardens and flowers, just like Klimt did, not suicide scenes. There are many reasons why someone might commit a suicide, but this painting made me think of the sociologist Emile Durkheim’s book “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, published in 1897, just twenty years after this painting was painted.

In the book Durkheim explains his theory that all suicides fall under four categories: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Looking at the time when the painting was painted, the French society at the time, and thinking of the books which I’ve read from that time period, I would say that the motif of the man’s sucide was either egoistic or anomic. The reason for egoistic suicides is that the person is overly individualised and is not connected to any social group, not tied to it by well-established social values, traditions and norms. The lack of integration leads to a state of apathy, pointlesness and melancholy, and this type of suicide, according to Durkheim, is most common in umarried men. Anomic suicide comes in times when society is in disorder and hence a lack of social direction, a lack of moral regulation is present. This leaves the person feeling unsure of where they belong or how they should act, they are carried by the wind of life in all directions, scattered, confused and lost. This type of suicide also occurs when a great change happens, whether in society or in the person’s personal life, and the person just cannot adapt to the new situation.

Now, just to mention the other two types of suicides: altruistic suicides happen in societies which are too integrated and the collective openly demands from the individual to sacrifice its individualism, its rights and freedoms, even to die for the collective (something we are sort of experiencing nowadays, this raging collectivism). And fatalistic suicide, according to Durkheim, exists only in theory, only as a concept. It is a type of suicide that happens when the society is so oppresive and has such control over the individual that the person feels as if his passions and his future are destroyed and he would rather die than live on. Durkheim may have thought this type of suicide exists only in theory, but later on dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s “1984”, or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, have shown that the types of societies that oppressive actually exist and our own times are revealing to us the same thing. Our world is indeed becoming more and more a place from which the only escape is death because all joys and freedoms are being crushed to dust. Now, I don’t know what the man in the painting was feeling or what was going on in his life, but I thought it was interesting to connect the painting’s theme with the sociological perspective on it.

Miroslav Kraljević – Olympia (Homage to Manet)

A few months ago I wrote a post about the Croatian painter Miroslav Kraljević’s Parisian phase (1911-12) and today let us take a look at one particular painting from that phase called “Olympia” (1912). It is a direct homage to Edouard Manet’s controversial female nude “Olympia” (1863). Decades later, a painter from a provincial Austro-Hungary (now modern Croatia) had been so inspired by Manet’s painting that he had to paint his rendition of it. This just goes to show the immense influence of Manet on modern art.

Miroslav Kraljević, (Great Female Nude) Olympia, 1912

In 1911, after having spent awhile studying abroad in Munich where he had encountered the newest trends in art, the Croatian painter Miroslav Kraljević was back home in a town called Požega. In the peaceful and idylic small-town environment, Kraljević painted many self-portraits and landscapes, but still he was restless, perhaps slightly claustrophobic as well, and there was something his heart desired, a shiny red apple of sin he wanted to grab from the branch and sink his teeth into; Paris, with its vivacity, art, and the bright lights. He turned his fantasies into a reality in September 1911 when he travelled to Paris; the it place for an artist. He had been looking forward to seeing the works of the finest French painters, especially those of Edouard Manet. Apart from museums and galleries, Kraljević visited parks, cafes, bistroes and infamous places such as Moulin Rouge. As appropriate for the city he found himself in, his favourite motif in his Parisian phase was – the woman, more often than not nude or wearing very little clothes. And of course, as a hommage to his idol, Kraljević painted his own “Olympia” in 1912.

Female nude has been a popular motif in art for a long time, but when Edouard Manet painted his nude Olympia, it was seen as brash and shocking to the audience and critics. Why? Well, firstly because Manet didn’t bother to dress his painting up in mythology and allegory, and secondly because of the manner in which he painted her; realistic rather than idealised and highly eroticised. Inspired by Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” (1532-34), Manet’s Olympia is visibly less sensuous and inviting. She looks like a dull, flat, paper doll. In fact, she looks uninterested, as if she’s saying “oh, it’s you again, ah well…” Olympia isn’t a Roman goddess that every man would desire, she is a realistic looking courtesan that was well-known to Parisian men of the upper classes. Manet stirred the waters of Parisian society by directly pointing out the hypocrisy and serving some hot realism on a platter.

Kraljević’s Olympia is equally pale and uninterested, looking directly in the viewer, without a trace of shame or shyness. She doesn’t have a waterfall of long, golden hair to sensually cover her nudity like a Baroque martyr would. Nope, she is flaunting her body, but, just like Manet’s Olympia, she is wearing dainty slippers; God forbid some madman with a foot fetish gets a thrill from looking at her feet, oh no. Kraljević painted her pale flesh in the same way he had approached his earlier portraits, with more visible brushstrokes and a sense of volume than Manet had done it. Around her are a few vibrant coloured cushions and we can see a bouquet of purple flowers on the right, echoing the flowers that the servant is presenting to Olympia, most likely a gift from a client. Colours in Kraljević’s painting are more warm and muted, which makes it seem more like a budoir scene whereas Manet’s painting shows Olympia as a doll in the shop-window. I wonder what Manet would have thought of this homage?…

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863

Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Art

These are some paintings that come to my mind when I read Baudelaire and Rimbaud’s poetry. Mostly the works of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, and other artists as well.

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863

The Jewels by Baudelaire

”My darling was naked, and knowing my heart well,
She was wearing only her sonorous jewels,
Whose opulent display made her look triumphant
Like Moorish concubines on their fortunate days.

(…)

She had lain down; and let herself be loved
From the top of the couch she smiled contentedly
Upon my love, deep and gentle as the sea,
Which rose toward her as toward a cliff.

Her eyes fixed upon me, like a tamed tigress,
With a vague, dreamy air she was trying poses,
And by blending candor with lechery,
Her metamorphoses took on a novel charm…”

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Jeanne Duval, in a painting by Édouard Manet, 1862

To a Colonial Lady by Baudelaire

”In scented countries by the sun caressed
I’ve known, beneath a tent of purple boughs,
And palmtrees shedding slumber as they drowse,
A creole lady with a charm unguessed.

She’s pale, and warm, and duskily beguiling;
Nobility is moulded in her neck;
Slender and tall she holds herself in check,
An huntress born, sure-eyed, and quiet-smiling.

Should you go, Madam, to the land of glory
Along the Seine or Loire, where you would merit
To ornament some mansion famed in story,

Your eyes would bum in those deep-shaded parts,
And breed a thousand rhymes in poets’ hearts,
Tamed like the negro slaves that you inherit.” (Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire, New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

_____________________________________________________________

Degas, Woman in the Bath, 1887

Venus Anadyomene by Rimbaud

”Out of what seems a coffin made of tin
A head protrudes; a woman’s, dark with grease –
Out of a bathtub! – slowly; then a fat face
With ill-concealed defects upon the skin.

Then streaked and grey, a neck; a shoulder-blade,
A back – irregular, with indentations –
Then round loins emerge, and slowly rise;
The fat beneath the skin seems made of lead;

The spine is somewhat reddish; then, a smell,
Strangely horrible; we notice above all
Some microscopic blemishes in front…

Horribly beautiful! A title: Clara Venus;
Then the huge bulk heaves, and with a grunt
She bends and shows the ulcer on her anus.”*

_____________________________________________________________

Paul Gauguin, Day of the Gods (Mahana no atua)1894

Exotic Perfume by Baudelaire

‘When, with closed eyes in autumn’s eves of gold,
I breathe the burning odour of your breasts,
Before my eyes the hills of happy rest
Bathed in the sun’s monotonous fires, unfold.

A langorous island, where Nature abounds
With exotic trees and luscious fruit;
And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,
And with women whose frankness delights and astounds.*

Led by that perfume to these lands of ease,

I see a port where many ships have flown

With sails out wearied of the wandering seas; 

While the faint odours from green tamarisks blown,

Float to my soul and in my senses throng,

And mingle vaguely with the sailor’s song.’

_____________________________________________________________

Claude Monet, Autumn on the Seine, Argenteuil, 1873

Autumn Song by Paul Verlaine

‘When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and longPale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours toll deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over,
And I weep.And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.‘ *

_____________________________________________________________

Odilon Redon, Ophelia, 1900-1905

Ophelia by Rimbaud

‘I

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily ;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
– In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters ;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her ;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings ;
– A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia ! beautiful as snow !
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river !
– It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind ;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights ;

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child’s heart, too human and too soft ;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees !

Heaven ! Love ! Freedom ! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl !
You melted to him as snow does to a fire ;
Your great visions strangled your words
– And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye !

III

– And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.‘*

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Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897

The Seven Old Men by Baudelaire

To Victor Hugo

‘City swarming with people, how full you are of dreams!
Here in broad daylight, surely, the passerby may meet
A specter, — be accosted by him! Mystery seems
To move like a thick sap through every narrow street.

I thought (daybreak, it was, in a sad part of town)
“These houses look much higher in the fog!” — they stood
Like two gray quays between which a muddy stream flows down;
The setting of the play matched well the actor’s mood.

All space became a dirty yellow fog; I tried
To fight it off; I railed at my poor soul, whose feet,
Weary already, dragged and stumbled at my side.
Big wagons, bound for market, began to shake the street….‘ *

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Édouard Manet, The Absinthe Drinker ( Le Buveur d’absinthe), 1859

Le Vin du solitaire by Baudelaire

‘The wildering glances of a harlot fair
seen gliding toward us like the silver wake
of undulant moonlight on the quivering lake
when Phoebe bathes her languorous beauty there;

the last gold coins a gambler’s fingers hold;
the wanton kiss of love-worn Adeline,
the wheedling songs that leave the will supine
— like far-off cries of sorrow unconsoled —

all these, o bottle deep, were never worth
the pungent balsams in thy fertile girth
stored for the pious poet’s thirsty heart;

thou pourest hope and youth and strength anew,
— and pride, this treasure of the beggar-crew,
that lifts us like triumphant gods, apart!‘ *

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Jean-Louis Forain, Au Foyer du Théâtre, 1883

Pagan Prayer by Baudelaire

‘Don’t stint the fires with which you flare.
Warm up my dull heart to delight,
O Pleasure, torture of the sprite,
O Goddess, hear my fervent prayer!

Goddess, who through the ether pass,
Flame in this subterranean hole!
Raise up a chilled and stricken soul
Who lifts to you his peal of brass.

O Pleasure, always be my queen!
In flesh and velvet to be seen,
Mask your beauty like a siren:

Or else my soul with sleep environ
Drained from the formless mystic wine,
Elastic phantom! which is thine.’ *

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

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Egon Schiele, Girl with black hair, 1910

The First Evening by Rimbaud

‘She was very much half-dressed
And big indiscreet trees
Threw out their leaves against the pane
Cunningly, and close, quite close.

Sitting half naked in my big chair,
She clasped her hands.
Her small and so delicate feet
Trembled with pleasure on the floor.

– The colour of wax, I watched
A little wild ray of light
Flutter on her smiling lips
And on her breast, – an insect on the rose-bush.

– I kissed her delicate ankles.
She laughed softly and suddenly
A string of clear trills,
A lovely laugh of crystal.

The small feet fled beneath
Her petticoat: “Stop it, do!”
– The first act of daring permitted,
Her laugh pretended to punish me!

– Softly I kissed her eyes,
Trembling beneath my lips, poor things:
– She threw back her fragile head
“Oh! come now that’s going too far!…

Listen, Sir, I have something to say to you…”
– I transferred the rest to her breast
In a kiss which made her laugh
With a kind laugh that was willing…

– She was very much half-dressed
And big indiscreet trees threw
Out their leaves against the pane
Cunningly, and close, quite close.‘*

The Railway by Edouard Manet

Edouard Manet, The Railway, 1873

This painting perfectly embodies Charles Baudelaire’s idea of ‘modernity’. (his quote: ‘Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable.‘) Baudelaire argued that art should capture the modern life, both its glamour and bleakness, with a constant awareness of its transience. Baudelaire’s ideas came to life through the brushstrokes of Impressionists. Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted parties and dance scenes, Claude Monet painted bridges, trains and seasides, Pissaro painted boulevards, Gustave Caillebotte the streets of Paris, but it was the radical young artist called Edouard Manet who beautifully captured Baudelaire’s ideas. In return, Baudelaire praised Manet in times when art critics were still enraged by his paintings Olympia and The Luncheon on the Grass.

The first thing you’ll notice about this painting is the straightforward gaze on the face of this rosy-cheeked and red haired woman, modeled by Manet’s favourite model, Victorine Meurent. She appeared in many of his paintings, most notably the two already mentioned above: Olympia and The Luncheon on the Grass. In this painting she posed as a nanny and her piercing gaze is evident as well, though she seems a bit distant, her eyes sad and tired. She is dressed in a navy gown with wide pagoda sleeves; typical fashion of the time. There’s a sleeping puppy in her lap, a closed fan and a book. She seems to have been reading that book, but something distracted her.

Next to her stands a little girl in white dress with large blue bow. Model for the little girl was a daughter of Manet’s friend Alphonse Hirsch. Her black hair ribbon matches the one her nanny is wearing around her neck. The little girl turned her back on us. We can’t see her face, thought she appears to be amused by the train passing by, clutching the iron grating like a restless captive bars of its cage. Large brushstrokes of solid black are spread across the canvas, dominating the background.

The setting includes the train station in Paris called Gare Saint-Lazare. It was a spot painted by fellow Impressionists such as Gustave Caillebotte and Claude Monet, but Manet approached the subject quite differently. There is no visible train; only the white cloud of steam indicates its presence.

Motif of trains is much more than just an Impressionistic fancy. Train station is a busy but vivid place, a place of tears or joy, depending on whether somebody is traveling far away, or returning after a long trip. Trains could take you anywhere out of Paris, from a grey cityscape to the beautiful gardens in the suburbs, which Monet used to visit. Here the setting symbolises bustle, changes, movement and adventures but both the nanny and the little girl are on the other side, on the wrong side of the fence. They’re not in the centre of activities, they’re just passively watching, that is, the nanny is gazing at us, but the little girl is still full of hope, her eyes riveted at Gare Saint-Lazare.

Edouard Manet’s anniversary of birth was yesterday, so I think it’s always nice to remember artists on their birthdays.

Manet’s ‘Olympia’ – A Modern Venus

Paintings of Venuses pop up everywhere in the history of art, but my favourite representation of Venus, the ideal of beauty and a symbol of eroticism, is Manet’s version.

Olympia, Edouard Manet, Musee d’Orsay, Paris

Olympia is a painting by Manet, painted in 1863 and first exhibited two years later. It shows a nude woman, Olympia, lying on a bed with a rumpled linen, completely uninterested in a bouquet of flowers that her black servant is presenting. Olympia is modeled by Victorine Meurent; Manet’s favourite model who posed for many of his famous works such as The Luncheon on the Grass, Woman with parrot, Street Singer and The Railway. Victorine, a model and an artist herself, was only nineteen years old when she set for this Manet’s masterpiece in 1863.

Manet’s unique depiction of a self-assured courtesan shocked both the critics and the audience. The painting was controversial not because it showed a nude woman, nudes were nothing new in art, but because of Olympia’s straight forward gaze and details that suggest that she is a courtesan. Orchid in her hair, her bracelet, worn out mule slippers, ribbon tied around her neck, pearl earrings and the oriental shawl on which she lies all accentuate her sexuality, nakedness and courtesan lifestyle. In addition, swept hair, the orchid, black cat and the bouquet of flowers were all recognised as symbols of sexuality at the time. Even the name ‘Olympia’ was associated with the ‘ladies of the night‘ in Paris at the time.

Olympia’s confrontational, blunt and uninterested gaze absolutely disgusted the critics. Olympia disdainfully ignores the bouquet of flowers presented to her by her servant, probably a gift from her client.  Some even suggested that she is looking in the floor indifferently because one of her client had just barged in unannounced. Her gaze is puzzling even today; at first it seems dull and lifeless, yet it possesses a whole set of emotions and thoughts. Her large dark eyes convey a mood of melancholy and contempt at once.

Manet’s representation of Venus was something completely new, and it was, as such, rejected by critics. Every tiny detail of the painting repelled them, from the model’s face to overt symbols of sexuality. According to Antonin Proust, French journalist and politician, ‘only the precautions taken by the administration prevented the painting being punctured and torn‘ by offended viewers.

Shocking the audience was nothing new for Manet; he did it before with his painting The Luncheon on the Grass. At the time, it seemed that there was nothing more he could do to infuriate the critics, but with ‘Olympia‘ he succeeded even in that. Namely, it was a challenge for Manet to paint a nude which would be shown in Salon at display. The painting’s modernity was defended by a small group of like-minded contemporaries with Emile Zola at their head. The painting’s ‘avant-garde‘ appeal was also appreciated by artists such as Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Gustave Courbet and Paul Gauguin.

Even Olympia’s hand position is a mockery of the old masters; in previous depictions Venus gently and modestly hides her pubic area with her hand, but here the hand looks almost ‘shamelessly flexed‘, according to a contemporary critic, showing Manet’s profound sense of wit and mockery of the relaxed and modestly shielding hand of Tizian’s Venus. In composition, Manet deliberately placed a black cat at the foot of the bed instead of the sleeping dog in Tizian’s portrayal of Venus of Urbino; black cat symbolising sexuality instead of the dog that was considered a symbol of fidelity.

Manet’s paintings may seem serious today, but deviations from the norms were a constant in Manet’s artistic career. The flatness of the painting is inspired by Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints which influenced many artists later on too, most notably van Gogh. These served to make the nude appear more humane and less voluptuous which was the norm in all the previous representations of Venus. Here, Olympia’s body is rather thin according to the artistic standards of the day, and looks underdeveloped, more girlish than womanly. Also, the skin tone looks yellowy and sickly, not fresh and rosy as you’d expect from a goddess. The bracelet we see Olympia wearing on her right hand belonged to Manet’s wife, which again adds a natural tones to his art.

Manet’s version of Venus is all together an ironic take on the works of old masters and the representation of Venus in art in general. Prior to seeing Manet’s ‘Olympia’, the audience most likely had an image of a plump, healthy and womanly looking Venus, with long golden hair, representing the timeless ideal of beauty, but the obvious absence of idealism in Manet’s painting appalled the audience.

With this painting, Manet presented a modern Venus; a real woman with all her flaws and imperfection, in real and natural surroundings, far from the previous mythological settings. Double standards of morality of the Victorian society are evident here as well; a nude woman is appropriate only if it is the case of a mythological scene, but a nude prostitute is not acceptable, even if it mirrored the reality.

The modern Venus is a high-class courtesan waiting for a client. Victorine Meurent perfectly fitted in the role of Olympia for she is the modern Venus, the woman from the streets, not possessing the kind of artificial beauty painters have aspired to paint in the form of Venus ever since the Renaissance. This difference between traditional Venus and Manet’s modern one is particularly apparent if you compare ‘Olympia‘ with Alexander Cabanel’s ‘The Birth of Venus‘ painted the same year.

As it is the case with ‘The Luncheon on the Grass’, Manet was inspired by the works of old masters regarding the composition. In part, Olympia was inspired by Titian’s Venus of Urbino (c.1538), or, painted even earlier, Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (c.1510), which was painted by Giorgione and finished by Titian after Giorgione had died.

There are however many other female nudes that could have served as inspiration such as Goya’s La Maja Desnuda (1800), Paris Bordone’s Sleeping Venus with Cupid (1540), Reni’s Venus and Amor (1639), and many others. Again, in all these versions the atmosphere is sensuous, warm and opulent, whereas Manet depicted a drab everyday reality of a Parisian courtesan.

Olympia, a modern Venus, is nor erotic nor the ideal of beauty, she is a woman full of melancholy, disgust and contempt for the hypocritical high society.

1538. The Venus of Urbino is an oil painting by the Italian master Titian, Uffizi, Florence

1508-10. Giorgine’s ‘Sleeping Venus’, Old Masters Gallery, Dresden

1800. The Nude Maja, Goya, Museo del Prado, Madrid

Manet repeated the tested recipe for shocking the audience and the critics, as with his previous masterpice ‘The Luncheon on the Grass‘, Manet used the composition from the respected artists and painted something completely modern, daring and scandalous, at the same time mocking the past and revealing the true face of society and its problems, its hypocrisy and insincerity. With a little wit, Manet turned a masterpiece into a scandal.