Manet's Un bar aux Folies Bergère

Isn't it strange what sticks in our mind?

When I was at college, I had two art teachers who were both local artists. One was a water-colourist, the other worked in oils. They were both immense fans of the Impressionist movement, and I think they passed that onto we students, as two of my classmates still paint, and one is a professional artist.

I am a 'traveller' in art: I see what I like, and I buy it if I can; remember it if I can't. My tastes are divergent: I like modernist architecture (Ian Athfield was brought in to talk to us at school - we had no idea this was a privilege), but appreciate craft anywhere, really. I remain a fan of the impressionists, but also enjoy modern art, classicism, romanticism and almost any other -isms. Caravaggio. Manet. Renoir. Van Gogh. Sculpture? Yes: Henry Moore. Auguste Rodin. Ceramicists like Katie Gold and Christine Boswick.

One night I awoke from sleep, dreaming that I had written a blog post illustrated by the Manet work, "Un bar aux Folies Bergère" (a bar at the Folies-Bergère). Manet is probably my favourite impressionist painter - many of his works have somehow connected with me ("Music in the Tuileries Gardens"; "The Fifer", "Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire's Mistress, Reclining (Lady with a Fan)"; "Chez le père Lathuille"; and "Olympia"). But the bar at the Folies-Bergère has something that is: quiet in a noisy environment; everyday yet a night club; somehow reflective despite what must be a busy night (no pun intended with the mirrored background). What appears to be a bored bartender awaiting the order of the "gentleman" in front of her - with all her own luscious fruits on the bar ...yet somehow she still holds our attention. Perhaps it is her stillness. Perhaps her downcast gaze. Perhaps her rolled up sleeves signifying she is at work; she is the service professional, after all. She is drawn in such detail as she appears to face us, while the actual bar conversation reflected in the mirror is somehow sketchier, less real, less attractive.

“Behind her, and extending for the entire length of the four-and-a-quarter-foot painting, is the gold frame of an enormous mirror. The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty has called a mirror ‘the instrument of a universal magic that changes things into spectacles, spectacles into things, me into others, and others into me.’ We, the viewers, stand opposite the barmaid on the other side of the counter and, looking at the reflection in the mirror, see exactly what she sees [... .] A critic has noted that Manet’s ‘preliminary study shows her placed off to the right, whereas in the finished canvas she is very much the centre of attention.’ Though Manet shifted her from the right to the center, he kept her reflection on the right. Seen in the mirror, she seems engaged with a customer; in full face, she’s self-protectively withdrawn and remote” (Meyers, 2005, p. 77).

We watch. And - despite her detachment - she holds us. Waiting. And haunting our dreams.

Sam

References:

Meyers, J. (2005). Impressionist Quartet: The intimate genius of Manet and Morisot, Degas and Cassat. Harcourt, Inc.

Wikioo. (2023). Edouard Manet - A bar at the Folies-Bergère. https://img.wikioo.org/ADC/Art-ImgScreen-3.nsf/O/A-5ZKCA2/$FILE/Edouard-manet-a-bar-at-the-folies-bergere.Jpg