At the Folies-Bergère

Along the Strand and pass the main archway entrance of Somerset House, into the furbished, elegant Courtauld Gallery on the right, up a couple of staircases, through the halls dedicated to Renaissance and the subsequent flow into Impressionist period, and lo, there’s the painting, reclining majestically against the wall as one of the most well-known masterpieces of Edouard Manet: A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

Las Meninas
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A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is primarily an Impressionist painting, and it is this technique which brings the viewer onto a level of real experience. First and foremost this painting has been described as a modern rendition of Velasquez’s Las Meninas. The latter’s masterpiece was executed in such a way as if it was actually capturing a filmic scene and as a result the viewer gets the feeling that he/she is indeed stepping into an intimate family setting. The same effect is achieved with A Bar at the Folies Bergère, though this time instead of making us feel that we are misplaced, Manet draws us to it and creates an invisible connection between portraiture and the audience.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère 
impressionist-art-gallery.com

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe
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As for the very technique of impressionism, the dry thick strokes of colour create texture and induce an intense sensory experience. As such the visual becomes enough to evoke a feel of ‘synaesthesia’; we want to touch it, we feel the atmosphere, we experience it. The blurred figures in the ‘mirror’ background are enough to impart the shimmer, the frolic and the intoxicated bliss of Paris nightlife at the Folies-Bergère. Yet, it is the foreground which is of main concern. The display at the bar is equally intensely sensual, and thus Manet seems to be showing how the visual in our consumerism society lures us to indulge. It’s all about what we see and, in the words of Marshall McLuhan, ‘it is never the content that counts’. Then, we may question, what about the bar maid? Her depiction is also very visually arresting, decorative and sensual. Is she on display too? Is she also an object of desire? Since portraiture is very much to do with emotion and identity, this is what we might think. She is melancholic, obviously not happy with her situation. In this way the idea of prostitution is subtly raised and maybe even condemned. This reminds us of Manet’s other work which was controversial during his own time, the Dejeuner sur l’herbe. In that painting Manet flouted the traditional idealized version of female nudes and showed a crude reality that could be said to be hinting at prostitution.

Manet intentionally avoids fixed point perspective to create a two-way traffic with the viewer. The bar maid is improperly reflected into the mirror as in the mirror she seems to be addressing a man. This could however hint at a past situation which led to that melancholic expression in the frontal portrait. From another perspective, given the blurry man is a reflection of what is in front of the bar maid, and what is in front of her is us, Manet seems to make that figure a portrait of us, the viewer. What is that man asking from the bar maid? Could it be some sensual favours? In other words, Manet makes us part of his artwork and exposes us as the ones who are lured by modern society’s visual culture.

At the end of the day, we cannot but awe at the ingenuity of the presention of ideas through this unconventional use of perspective.

And as we move onto the next painting in the hall, we do feel that, yes, we’ve just left the Folies Bergère.