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Balcony

Edouard Manet • Painting, 1869, 169×123 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Genre scene
Style of art: Realism
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1869
Size: 169×123 cm
Artwork in selections: 70 selections

Description of the artwork «Balcony»

With Edouard Manet was something unimaginable. Cost Bertha to be close, he grabbed the brush and was passionately caught her gestures, eyes, the indescribable fire in the dark eyes, which seemed to be burning only for him. She breathed life into his canvas.

When the mother Berthe Morisot saw depicted in the painting "Balcony" brunette with dark eyes, she asked in astonishment mane: "Are you sure my daughter?" Yes, it was she, one of the most prominent women artists of the XIX century, the most daring and impressionistic of all the French Impressionists. But he saw in this young, silent, concentrated, a brilliant artist, which is not seen by others. Love.

Everything was confusing and difficult in that relationship. Manet was married, and Morisot was not one of those women that give birth short, light affair. When Burt introduced me to scandalous, disgraced and the most discussed artist in Paris, she is under constant care of her mother made copies of old masterpieces in the Louvre. But like all young, hot, advanced, admired Manet.

Platonic, painful, unspoken the affair lasted for 6 years.

In 1869 the "Balcony" will be accepted at the Salon. After previous controversial appearances mane at the official exhibitions, this time criticism must be, in unison a sigh of relief: the picture at least all dressed up. But this does not mean that art Manet to accept and understand. Cursed rich, "unnatural" colors green fence of the balcony and shutters, bright blue tie, were perplexed over the dramatic experiments, in which again hit the artist. Here Manet realized one of the innovative and unusual for academic art ideas: it creates volume in the composition is not due to the location of the figures in the future, and with the help of artistic techniques. As for the photographic picture, it brings focus to only one figure, and the other blurs and deep in shade as the distance from the foreground. This one piece, the focus is of course Bertha.

Edouard Manet considered the plot secondary thing, he sought feelings and impressions to pass exclusively the language of painting, so often the basis for his new paintings is without a doubt took the motives, invented by the great artists of the past. In "the Balcony", he rather freely reinterpreted the canvas Goya "Mahi on the balcony" but if gajewska embodiment, both of the female figure are equal, then the mane gives the feeling that his picture is only one main character.

Edouard wrote 11 of the paintings to Bertha Morisot (1, 2, 3), all these years she has been a frequent visitor in his workshop. The artist became obsessed with the model eagerly drank his admiration – these sessions gave both the feeling of absolute closeness and possession. The last of the 11 paintings of Manet gave sweetheart on the eve of her wedding. 33-year-old Berthe married Manet's brother eugène.

Author: Anna Sidelnikova
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