Un Bar Aux Folies-Bergère. What The Hell Is Going On Here?

The short answer is: édouard Manet’s last, significant work he plopped out in 1882 and in The Salon that same year. He manufactured a rousing curtain call by dying the next year… ever the showman.

You can read up on the painting itself or Manet or [fine art] Realism-cum-Impressionism (as a going concern in the mid-19th century) if you want. It’s moderately interesting. There’s lots of scholarly articles committed to those things. I, however, am more interested in just how “OG gangster” Manet was. He had built the reputation over time. It came out in his lifestyle, the company he kept, and most importantly in his submissions to The Salon. (I will quickly add, the reader shouldn’t come to the conclusion I’m necessarily a “fan” of the painter but just an observer who might be semi-passionate about his observations.)

It’s not as if he hadn’t been controversial before. There was, of course, ‘Olympia’ (1863: SHOCKING!) and ‘Le Déjeuner sur l`herbe’ (1862, 63: SCANDALOUS!) and ‘The Old Musician’ (1862: WHAT THE HELL IS “HE” DOING IN THIS?!? PUT THE ABSINTHE DOWN, MISTER!). To be fair, Manet was attempting to embrace the whole, “heroism of modern life thing” even though it appears Baudelaire wouldn’t give him the time of day. He was keyed up to be more forthright than Courbet and more visceral than Delacroix (if one could imagine it) and still, yet, couldn’t seem to get past the “sharp stick to the eyeball” reputation his work provoked.?

Folies-Bergère is “on point” but slightly different than other pieces in compromise. The whole, “having a woman stare right at the viewer” wasn’t unusual or different in comparison (i.e., ‘Berthe Morisot,’ ‘The Railway,’ ‘Argenteuil’ et al.) and neither was the modernity of the subject place/time/actors altogether. But the cheekiness of the painter is on full display here and I’m going to propose an alternate solution to the question, “what the hell is going on here?”

Exhibit 1: It’s clearly understood and accepted that Manet didn’t struggle with the concept of perspective or natural order (like, “how freaking mirrors work”) but this piece challenges the viewer on both matters. (“There’s a dude in the reflection but not in the foreground! And why is the reflection skewed?”) The only other glaring example of Manet openly bucking compositional orthodoxy was in Déjeuner and that probably ought to tell ya something.

Exhibit 2: We, the viewer, are supposed to be the dude. That’s the implication. In the reflection, the bar maid is leaning forward (as if to “hear something”). The actual “lean” in the actual bar maid isn’t emphasized as much (though still apparent and underscoring the distance between us) and I suggest that’s on purpose. There is a subject just off her right shoulder with opera glasses to remind us 1: of the popularity of the location but also, 2: there is a dichotomy of purpose here—to see and BE seen. Whether you like it or not, you, the viewer, are being seen here no matter what you think you see. You’re not as close as the reflection suggests.

Exhibit 3: The oranges. Themselves? Not very controversial. Hell, Manet himself employed them in a rather anodyne still life (‘Four Mandarin Oranges,’ 1882) and so also his contemporaries to no discernible violent conflict. Yet consider—they’re in this composition directly opposed to the bar maid, that is, next to her left hand. Mise en place shouldn’t be ignored here (I’d humbly suggest) and beyond the (inevitably accepted) food metaphor, coupling it so directly with the bar maid is most very likely “suggestive.” Take that and add to it…

Exhibit 4: “That look she has.” Here’s where it may get cheeky. It is well-accepted there is anecdotal evidence bar maids here might (just, might) be susceptible to suggestions they switch roles to something that (*cough, *cough) “embraces the working girl ethic.” I’m not trying to put it on this young lady (per se) but I would suspect it’s not like she hasn’t heard it before.

And that’s what I suspect is going on here.?

This is a proposition.

Sure. I’m going to hear from many who say, “no, no… she’s tired” or “it’s just malaise” or similar. And I hear you. But if I’m adding everything up and I’m considering the syphilitic Manet himself and how many times he’s strategically been a d*ck in the art world, I like to come to another conclusion:?

Here is modernity.?

Noisy, bright, conspicuously busy, urban and yet she’s shrugging off the predictable… the mundane. “Oh, yah, sure. You’re used to prostitutes. But I’ve been on my feet all night. And this is boring. I don’t need this right now.” To me, that’s what Manet is telling you as you cooperate in this composition… by being passively “in it.” You are the problem with modernity. You are the misogynist. You are the creep. In the midst of all this noise and boujee glamour? Screw you.?

And this had to go in front of the Salon committee. I wonder if he kept his tongue firmly in his cheek. One last ‘Absinthe Drinker’ for the ages. Gangster.

That’s what the hell is going on here.

(Note: these are MY observations and mine only. If they’re reflected elsewhere, bonus, but I represent no fine art scholars or their opinions in any shape, form, or fashion. And I’m certain they’re glad about that.)