TIMERIDERS - A HIDDEN CURIOSITY
The evidence is circumstantial at best, but let’s consider this famous painting by French painter, Edouard Manet.
As you can see from the subtitle above, it’s called ‘The Bar at the Folies Bergeres’. It was in fact Manet’s very last painting, which he did in 1882. Now, many art historians have made much of the ‘improbable reflection’; namely that at first glance it seems that the barmaid has a mirror behind her and that most of this scene is in fact a reflection. The mirror also shows the face of a man being served by the barmaid, and it’s argued that the painting is in fact the ‘point of view’ of that man being served. Therefore the message is – ‘the observer is this man’. Interesting.
That’s the ‘first pass’ interpretation. However, look more closely, the reflection is not quite right. The woman in the reflection appears to be slightly fatter, the posture is slightly different…and the angles really just don’t add up. Given how proficient he was as an artist (just check out the quality of the glass fruit bowl, the glass holding the flowers – the refraction through the glass is absolutely spot on) it seems unlikely that he was unable to properly pull off the illusion of reflection. So…it’s almost certainly a deliberate mistake. Manet is attempting to draw our attention to something in this scene. But what? This of course will always remain a mystery.
But, I have some thoughts on this.
Firstly, look at the ‘reflected’ gentleman in question. Certainly there is something vaguely sinister about the man. Almost threatening. Secondly – far more interesting I think – in the background we can see two of the bar’s customers. I’ve hi-lighted and enlarged those two people so you can look more closely at them. What strikes me immediately is that the ginger-haired woman appears to be using a cell phone! The second thing that strikes me is that the young man appears to be grinning, almost laughing at the painter himself.
Perhaps Manet was trying to tell us something in his last work. Perhaps imortalise forever some extremely interesting friends he made in his last days?
I won’t say any more. These are just observations. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Comments
Latest Posts:
- TIMERIDERS - THE PLAYLIST 20.02.12
- Maddy's just blog-posted again! 16.02.12
- ALTERNATE HISTORY- DOs AND DON'Ts 15.02.12