Scene Report 002: Manet's Olympia
Scene Report 002: Manet's Olympia
In Paris for the Olympics, I revisit Manet’s Olympia.
This is the scene report, reporting on the Musée D’Orsay.
The Musee D’Orsay in Paris, France houses seminal works of modern art, including Olympia (1893) by Édouard Manet (1832-1883). This painting is a transgressive rendition of the academic painting trope of the reclining odalisque, which began with Italian renaissance painter, Titian, in the painting Venus of Urbunio (1534), a portrait of the wealthiest courtesan in Italy.
Manet’s paintings shook L’Académie des Beaux-Arts and changed the course of painting. Without Manet, who knows when painters would start to feel entitled to go against academic convention? He was the first to freak it.
Musée D’Orsay is crowded with tourists visiting Paris for the 2024 Olympics. Viewing Monet’s large scale impressionistic landscapes up close is challenging. Blocked by tourists, viewing from a distance is impossible. “Monet,” A strong French accent talks over the crowd. “Wherever there is monnaie, you can always find Americans.”1
Monet also parodied Manet. Their names are one accent away from eachother. Monet’s 1865-66 Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe was retitled as a reference to Manet’s 1865 painting of the same title. Monet’s version is unfinished, but at the Musée D’Orsay they are exhibited in the same gallery, on opposite walls.
Academic painting depicts tropes, and Manet subverted those tropes via style and subject matter. He was not welcomed at the painting salons of The Academy: his submissions were typically rejected. His social commentary was received as shocking and his cartoonish style, lazy and ugly.
An American family stops before Manet’s Olympia. A woman with her infant son strapped to her back, appears to be giving a tour. She explains the composition of the painting, “Olympia is a prostitute.”
A young boy standing in the crowd before the painting, half their height, asks his young mother, “What is a prostitute?” She is silent.
“This painting caused a stir at The Academy in 1866?” The tour guide maneuvers through the crowd to the wall label, to factcheck. “No, 1863. When I was in school people were still talking about this painting, 200 years later.”
The American mother finally answers, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“I want to know now.”
“Ask your dad.”
The boy walks over to dad, looking up, asks, “What is a prostitute?”
Dad says, “Ask your mom.” The child looks at his mother, who looks at her son. “Ask Nanny.”
He walks up to Nanny, just returning to Olympia after walking around the gallery. “What does he want to know?” She missed the conversation.
Mom says, “He wants to know, ‘What is a prostitute?’” Nanny hugs him and kisses his head. The American family exits the gallery.
Still in the gallery, the tour guide with the child on her back is lecturing no one but her infant child. She talks to herself, her baby, and whoever is around to hear. She scolds him, “Stop kicking me.”
A pun on “Monet” being a homophone for monnaie, the French word for money.