Modern Life, Leisure, Entertainment

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Manet 'Bar at the Folies Bergers' (1882)

Leisure

  • First venue of kind on Boulevard Montmarte, 'no theatre could exude such glamour as this'
  • First painting of electric light, Electrcitu fair, influence of Baudelaire in paiting 'epic quality of life today', increased middle class and leisure

Modern People

  • Suzon real barmaid, Taine said it was workclass girl's dream, but she's melancholy- comment on alienation of modernity, Hopper went to Paris- inspired images of city disloaction
  • Barmaids linked to prostitutes (30,000 in Paris), sexualised, suspicious man in mirror
  • Mery Leurant (prostitute) in back, actress Jeanne de Marsay and trapeze artist Katarina Johns
  • Prostitution part of modern life to satisfy male desire, but linked with STDs and de-evolution

Technique

  • Sketches on spot - flaneur, obvious, unacademic brushstrokes (Couture), out of focus
  • Great attention to still lifes, constructed in a studio, prehaps futher comment on superficiality
  • Innacuracies with viewers position not matching mirror
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Monet 'La Grenouillere' (1869)

Modern Location

  • Isle de Croissy, 7.5 miles from Paris, accessible on pleasure trains - industrial rev and wealth
  • Rise in tourism as Npaoleon III visited, 'all the scum of the world, all the most distinguished riff raff, all the motliness of Parisian society' -Maupassant, 'frog' could also ref prostitutes
  • People swimming, socialising, floating dance hall, 'both indecent and refined'

Modern Style

  • Sketch for larger piece, quick , en plein air, painted with Renoir
  • New tubes of paint, portable, new pigments emerald, viridan and chrome shown
  • Lack of subject, more about colour, photography influence in blurry and halation effect

Modern Influences

  • Nadar, scietific journals and Cheveruel's work on optical theory -uses blue/ orange for shadow
  • In England, saw Turner- abstraction, modern life, outdoors and Constable- transitory effects
  • Japanese prints- graphical flatness, bright colours, Ukiyo-E school depicted modern world
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Renoir 'La Loge' (1874)

Context

  • Models - Renoir's brother and Linny Lopez
  • Couple in theatre box- huge rise in theatre as social spectacle, 20,000 tickets sold a week
  • Popularity of fashin, La Mode Illustree modelled in theatre boxes, invention of sewing machine

Woman

  • Vacant stare, heavily made up, sexualised red lipstick, expensive jewellery, decollatage
  • 'Tenure de Premire' - to impress, passive with glasses down, fan connotes flirting
  • Renoir misogynistic, women belonged in home and should be objectified, re-feminises

Male gaze

  • Man active, mirrors own act of looking, could be scanning for prostitutes (common in theatres)
  • Renoir- men had right to admire, scopophilia (pleasure in looking), Impressionist theme
  • Compare to Cassatt's 'Woman in Black'- dominate female, actively looking
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