purpleponyart | AHIS - Manet (Reply)

We had a substitute on Thursday, Bozena, who told us all about Manet. I have ofen heard it said that many French artists were inspired by Japanese prints, particularly Ukiyo-e, but I didn't know the why of it. Apparently flatness was very appealing to Manet, and he used much black and sharp contrasts to achieve this. We looked at most of the paintings that are in the Wikipedia link above. The painting I found the most intriguing was A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Even though it was up there on the screen larger than life, I didn't notice the trapeze in the upper left hand corner, nor the reflection of the bar maid and a man on right. I'm particularly surprised that the reflection escaped me!

I have to start cracking on my research paper, which is due August 1. I was expecting to hear more about it from Andrew, but, heh, I guess he's not as hands on as last year's AHIS teacher. I took out four or five books on Mannerism and I plan on doing El Greco's View of Toledo, but I may have to pick another painting if I can't find out enough about it.