brush painting brilliant artist- Impressionist Claude Monet was painted in oil on canvas, and reached 130 by 181 cm in size. The canvas was created eight years before the famous first exhibition of the Impressionists, shortly after the sensational painting of the same name by the artist Edouard Manet, which brought scandalous fame to its author.

Work on the painting "Luncheon on the Grass" Claude Monet began in 1965 in Giverny, when he saw the presentation of the painting of the same name by Edouard Manet at an exhibition in the Salon. These works have little in common - they only have a landscape background in common, as well as a name, although initially Claude's canvas was called differently.

Over time, it is difficult to establish why the painting by Claude Monet received the same name (probably by analogy with the painting by E. Manet), but earlier it was called "Lunch under the Trees", which was more in line with the composition of the work

Claude Monet painted his picture as if in imitation of his friend and almost namesake (artists were sometimes confused by their contemporaries - Parisians, as they are confused now), whom he, like other future impressionists, considered his teacher.

Preparing to create a canvas.

Monet refrained from depicting nudes human bodies, because it was this factor that caused public outrage in those days. On the contrary, Claude Monet depicted ladies in luxurious summer dresses and men dressed in frock coats. At the same time, the figures of people do not stand out against the background of the landscape, but are its equivalent part.

The artist set himself the task of making human figures part of the landscape, enveloping them with air and light, achieving their merger with nature, so that the picture becomes a particle of the surrounding life.

In the process of writing the canvas, Claude Monet prepared for a long time. So, he carefully chose the landscape, and found - still a suitable clearing in the forest of Fontainebleau. Next, Monet begins work on writing sketches. First he makes numerous sketches forest landscape, and after that he takes up the image of human figures in different positions.

Later, when a huge number of sketches were ready, Claude Monet works all alone in his studio, where he harmoniously fits human figures into the wonderful landscape background of a forest glade in Fontainebleau.

Features of the composition of the picture.

The characters in the composition are people close to the author, his friends are artists, among whom stands out tall figure Frederic Basile, as well as Monet's first wife, Camille. In the construction of the canvas, tribute is paid to classicism: three figures correspond to the wings on the right, and a still life is presented in the center - the essential attributes of a picnic. The spatial perspective is marked by figures going deep into the forest.

The canvas “Luncheon on the Grass” by Claude Monet deserves attention not only due to the peculiarities of the composition, but mainly because the painting is made in a unique artistic technique.

Mixing paints in a special way and skillfully applying them to the canvas, the artist achieved the effect of extreme lightness and airiness of the image. The painter's manner of depicting the sun's rays penetrating through the dense foliage of trees is also unique. The bright glare of the sun yellow and white color flutter on tree trunks. white tablecloth and on people's faces. This determines the artistic style of the future impressionist.

The further fate of the painting by C. Monet "Luncheon on the Grass".

Initially, Claude Monet planned to paint a huge canvas, but working on it turned out to be an impossible task for the artist, especially since he wanted to have time to present it at an exhibition at the Salon of 1866.

Therefore, Monet left the unfinished canvas as payment for rent. Landlord doesn't understand true value and keeps it in a damp basement. As a result, the image on most of the canvas deteriorates.

Six years later, in 1872, Claude Monet redeems his work, and finally completes work on it. The artist restored the lost fragments, and also added some new, interesting details to the canvas.

The canvas is a finished sketch big picture, which Monet cut in a fit of dissatisfaction with himself, which happened to him all the time. Three parts of the canvas have been preserved and are now exhibited in different museums peace.

Of course, the original paintings are priceless and belong to the treasures of world culture. However, in your apartment or country house you can use high-quality reproductions of paintings by great masters.

This will give the design an atmosphere of luxury and refined nobility, and will also help to fully reveal the taste preferences of the owners of the house. In addition, paintings are used in interior design in many styles. It is important to choose the right reproduction of the picture in accordance with other decorative details of the room.

Edouard Manet, Breakfast on the Grass, Olympia, Bar at the Folies Bergère

The work of Edouard Manet was the center around which the formation of the direction of impressionism began. He was the son of wealthy parents and was educated in the workshop of Couture - one of the greatest masters academic art. It was his stay in this workshop, in all likelihood, that inspired Manet with a persistent aversion to the "school". He considered Titian, Velasquez, Rubens, Goya to be his true teachers. These masters, great colorists, were for him the subject of constant admiration. Even in composition, sometimes he directly follows the well-known classical works.

In 1863, young artists, rejected by the official jury and not accepted for the next exhibition, staged their own exhibition called "Salon of the Rejected". It was here that Manet's painting titled "Breakfast on the Grass" was presented. Not at all wanting to become a destroyer of the foundations official art, Manet, who largely followed the classical traditions, was met with deep hostility by official academic circles.

His painting, in an unusual pictorial manner, depicts two dressed young men and two naked girls having breakfast on the grass in the shade of trees. In this work, the author pays attention to the problem of sunlight and the entire light-air environment in which both human figures and landscape objects are immersed. The appearance of this painting at the exhibition was accompanied by loud scandal.

No less indignation of critics was caused by more late work Manet - "Olympia". The painting depicts a young naked girl against a background of bluish sheets and a yellowish shawl, to whom a maid gives flowers. This work represents modern interpretation the plot of Titian's "Venus", conveyed with all the tension and sharpness characteristic of the new direction of art. But it is not perfect image harmonious female beauty, a modern portrait, coldly and ruthlessly conveying a resemblance to nature.

In 1867, Manet arranges his own exhibition and becomes central figure artistic intelligentsia of Paris. Young artists such as Pissarro, Cezanne, Claude Monet, Renoir, Degas and others unite around him. They usually gathered in the Gerbois cafe on Rue Batignolles, so they were conditionally called the Batignolles school.

However, they were not a school in the traditional sense, since they did not have a single program. They were united by their unwillingness to follow the canons of official art and the desire to find new, fresh forms, as well as the search for ways to convey the light environment, the air that envelops objects. To do this, experimenters from painting tried to decompose light into the primary colors of the spectrum, trying to write in pure color without mixing it on the palette. They tried to get as close as possible to how a person sees this or that object in nature, i.e. in all the variety of interaction with the light-air medium.

Much connects Manet with impressionism, especially in the works of the 70s. - "Argenteuil", "In the boat", "Party of croquet". The Parisian bohemia depicted by him, the streets, bars, the Parisian crowd, the contemporary landscape are conveyed in all the richness and variety of accurately captured movement and unexpected accidents, which is characteristic of impressionism as a whole.

The most expressive in this regard is the painting “Bar at the Folies Bergère”. The mirror behind the beautiful barmaid reflects a hall full of people. In an instant, the artist manages to convey all the trepidation of life. Hence the feeling of unsteadiness and flicker. The image of the world seems almost unreal.

Manet's work differs from the works of the Impressionists in that he did not abandon a broad stroke and retained the integrity of the transmitted characters and the realism of the characteristics.

In his work, on the one hand, the classical traditions of the French realism XIX c., and the other - the first steps have been taken in solving the problems of development Western European art XX century.

While photos from the next race are being uploaded, I'll tell you about another one. scandalous picture Edouard Manet "Breakfast on the Grass"

The painting was first exhibited in the famous Salon of the Rejected, which was opened on May 15, 1863 in Paris by Emperor Napoleon III, who wished to be known as a defender of freedom and creativity. Then the jury rejected many works by artists who were not allowed to participate in the exhibition. Edouard Manet offered his "Breakfast on the Grass" for dessert to the "Salon of the Outcasts", which caused a storm of emotions, harshest criticism and the unanimous verdict that this "breakfast" is absolutely "inedible".

The plot of the picture - two men with a completely naked woman - caused a real scandal, besides, the characters were easily recognizable. On the canvas, the artist depicted his own brother Gustav (the one on the right) and the brother of his wife Ferdinand Leenhof. In the image of a woman, the artist combined the features of a permanent model, Victorine Meuran, and his own wife, Suzanne (body). The quiz was Manet's favorite model and is depicted in many of his works, in particular in the famous Olympia. She herself painted good pictures, many of which were later lost. She suffered from alcoholism and in her advanced years begged on the street, playing the guitar. Known for her love relationships with women. In 1863, "Breakfast on the Grass" became the symbol of the Salon of the Outcasts and later a source of inspiration for many generations of artists.

1866 Claude Monet.

In 1865, Claude Monet, who would later be called the founder of Impressionism, painted a large painting en plein air at Chailly and called it "Breakfast on the Grass" - a curtsey in honor of the famous work of Edouard Manet. Leaving for Paris, the artist left the finished canvas as a pledge to the owner of the Golden Lion Hotel, where he lived. The painting was kept in a damp basement and was significantly damaged. Monet cut it into pieces and threw away the moldy fragments. Now preserved parts of the painting can be seen in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A year later, the artist returns to this topic again and creates a reduced version of the composition. This picture is painted more softly, it lacks the sharp contrasts inherent in the surviving fragments of "Breakfast on the Grass". The painting depicts a company of 12 people, but the artist used only two models to paint them. For the female figures, the artist's beloved and his future wife Camille Donsier posed, and for the male figures, Claude Monet's friend, the painter Frederic Bazille, who died four years later in battle during the Franco-Prussian War at the age of 29.

"Breakfast on the grass" 1959-62 After Manet Pablo Picasso.

Between 1959 and 1962, Picasso performed a series of works in painting, graphics, lithography, sculpture and ceramics, inspired by Edouard Manet's 1863 painting Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner Sur l "Herbe, today at the Musée d" Orsay).
Picasso first met her in 1900, on world exhibition in Paris, and in 1907 she inspired him when he wrote his Avignon maidens. He was greatly impressed by Manet's innovation.
Sometime in 1929, Picasso remarked: "When I see Déjeuner Sur l" Herbe, I say to myself, this is my problem for the future. "And in fact, half a century later, he would make dozens of variations of the picture. Manet, in turn, wrote Breakfast on the grass as a stylization of Giorgione's work (now considered early work Titian) Rural Concert, 1509 (Giorgione, Pastoral Concert, Louvre, larger here), and in part, on an engraving by Raimondi based on a drawing by Raphael. Thus, Picasso with his series conducts his "dialogue through the ages" with several great masters of European art at once.

Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

Edward Mane.

Olympia. 1863 Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Edward Mane. Bar in the Folies Bergère. 1882 Courtauld Institute, London.

IMPRESSIONISM

Impressionism - artistic direction originated in France in the last third of the 19th century. At the exhibition of the "Anonymous Society of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, Engravers and Lithographers", arranged in a Parisian photo studio in 1874, Claude Monet's painting "Impression. Sunrise ”(1872) - a view of the harbor, shrouded in pink fog, through which the morning sun appears through the veil. FROM light hand criticism of the newspaper "Sharivari" word "impression"(French impression) gave a name to the work of the artists participating in the exhibition.

The Impressionist exhibition was the first collective challenge to official academic art, the Salon, criticism and the conservative public. Claude Oscar Monet (1840-1926), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841 - 1919), Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and some other artists were well known to the Parisian public : for about fifteen years they have been demonstrating their art.

Contemporaries called these artists "rebels", and the Salon jury constantly rejected their works.

One of the most important rules followed by the Impressionists was the work in the open air. Going out into the street towards the light and air, the artist finds himself in a situation that is completely different from the conditions of the studio. Clear contours disappear here, the color is constantly changing. Consequently, it is possible to depict only an instantaneous impression of the color and shape of an object.

Solving this problem, the Impressionists came to a completely new method of painting. They abandoned mixed colors, began to write with pure bright colors, thickly applying them in separate strokes. The desired tone was achieved by optical mixing of colors while contemplating the picture.

Following in the footsteps of the Impressionists was the next generation of artists: neo-impressionists and post-impressionists, whose talent was fully manifested in the last two decades of the 19th century.

Claude Monet. Paddling pool. 1869 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Alfred Sisley. Flooding in Port-Marly. 1876 ​​Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

Edgar Degas.

Blue dancers. 1875

Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

August Renoir.

Portrait of Mademoiselle S. (Portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary). 1878 State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, Moscow.

Claude Monet. Field of poppies. 80s XIX in. State Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Camille Pissarro.

Boulevard Montmartre in Paris. 1897 State Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

POST-IMPRESSIONISM

In the 80s. 19th century the situation in French art has changed a lot.

The last three exhibitions of the Impressionists showed the highest achievements of this direction and at the same time testified that it had already exhausted itself.

At the end of the century, four artists made a loud statement, summing up the art of the 19th century and paving the way for the future. These were Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Bright individuals, they did not unite into a group, but from different sides they moved towards the same goal - the knowledge of the true essence of things, hidden under their appearance. Thus was born post-impressionism (from lat. post - "after"). This trend was closely associated with impressionism and could manifest itself only at the time of its decline.

The post-impressionists were close to the impressionists in their attitude to bourgeois society. But if the latter only contrasted their art with that of the salon, the former denied the bourgeois way of life. Cezanne, the son of a banker from the city of Aix, portrayed a declassed artist all his life. Gauguin, a successful stock trader, father of five children, gave up his career for the sake of painting. He lived in poverty on the islands of Tahiti and Hiva Oa, studying the customs of the natives and considering them higher than the achievements of European civilization. Van Gogh, who came from a family of a Dutch pastor, studied theology in Amsterdam, then was a preacher in the coal mines in Belgium. Turning to painting, he went to Paris, and then to Arles, where, exhausted by loneliness, he went crazy and committed suicide.

Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, not finding harmony in modern society, turned to nature, seeking solace in it. However, unlike the Impressionists, they sought to capture not moments, but eternity. Post-Impressionists seemed to see not only explicit, but also hidden powers, the secret laws of the universe. They turned their backs on the small world of the Impressionists, expanding their world to the scale of the universe.

The main features of Cezanne's work appeared in the works of the 80-90s. The artist was looking for ways to convey the material structure of things - shape, density, texture, color. Carefully choosing color ratios, he often emphasized the contours of objects with a sharp line, deliberately deforming the image.

On the canvases of Van Gogh, ordinary objects, people, landscape become carriers of the artist's innermost thoughts and feelings, convey his emotional state. Nature appears here in a spiritual form.

Paul Gauguin, who was friends with Van Gogh, combined reality and myth in his works, creating a different reality - direct and pure.

The discoveries made by the post-impressionists in painting had an impact on the development of some trends in Western European art of the 20th century. Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, etc.

Edward Mane.

Title: Breakfast on the grass.

Year of creation: 1866

Canvas, oil.

Original size: 130x181 cm.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.

Description: "In the summer of 1865, after staying in Chailly for five months (as a result of an accident that resulted in a broken leg), Monet began work on preparatory sketches for a huge canvas he had conceived - 6x4.6 m - canvas, in size equal to " Workshop" Courbet, which he called "Breakfast on the Grass" - as a sign of respect for Manet. In this picture there were no naked bodies, only elegant ladies under umbrellas and men in reddingots. The canvas was conceived primarily in order to study the lighting in the forest - in the shade of trees and in a clearing.

This bold undertaking, undertaken by a 25-year-old youth, interested everyone, and Courbet, who at that time lived in Marlotte, visited Monet in Chailly in order to generously help him with advice and encourage his young colleague, whom he always favored. Courbet behaved unexpectedly: he advised the young man to moderate his ardor. As a result, the picture was never completed: either the spirit was not enough, or Monet realized that he was not yet ripe for the implementation of his plan, but he stopped working and never returned to this picture.

This canvas had to go through adventures unheard of in the history of art. Monet, as usual, left the painting on bail to the owner of the Golden Lion Hotel, but he failed to pay the bill in full, despite the subsidies of Aunt Lecadre.

Many years later, he found the canvas in a shed, where it was stored folded, eaten away by dampness. Seeing that the canvas could not be restored, Monet cut off the pieces that were not touched by moisture, and threw the rest away. One of the pieces, having changed many owners, ended up in the hands of a wealthy Lebanese collector: after the war, the experienced merchant Jerome Wildenstein found the other piece in a workshop in Giverny ... and donated it to the Louvre. Noble act and at the same time, Wildenstein's coup in a dispute with a Lebanese who did not give up his piece of canvas in the hope that, tired of the struggle, Jerome Wildenstein would give him his own. By handing over his canvas to the Louvre, the merchant deprived the Lebanese of his last hope.

One can only regret that Monet did not finish his painting: a large preparatory study, stored in State Museum fine arts them. A.S. Pushkin in Moscow, indicates that this work could become one of the most successful in his work.

Based on the materials of the book by J.-P. Crespel" Everyday life impressionists. 1863-1883"./ Translated from French by E. Puryaeva. - M .: Young Guard, 1999. - 301s.

Description of the painting by Edward Manet “Breakfast on the Grass”

On May 15, 1863, the "Salon of the Rejected" was opened in Paris by the ruler Napoleon III. The purpose of this event is to protect creativity. The jury, selecting works for the exhibition, severely censored many works and authors. Then Manet offers them his painting "Tomorrow on the Grass". The work was severely criticized, a sea of ​​emotions fell upon the artist and a verdict was passed: the picture is absolutely not suitable for the exhibition. Moreover, the title and image do not fit together at all, which makes the meaning of the picture very ambiguous.

The plot of the picture is somewhat frivolous. Young people are depicted in the clearing, well-dressed, most likely from high society, and next to them are two girls, naked and half-dressed. We do not see "breakfast" in the full sense of the word. Only a basket of mushrooms and berries, which is lying on someone's dress, gives at least some hint of food and a possible meal.

The center of the picture is a couple - a young man and a naked, not young woman, possibly a spouse. The young man listens to his interlocutor with a slight smile on his face, he is calm and relaxed. The woman next to him is just as calm and smiling.

The second man is more emotional. He says something, gesticulating. Obviously, the story is fun and dynamic, because the couple opposite is listening intently, the woman even took a comfortable position, putting her hand under her chin. In the background, a young girl in a light shirt collects something in the grass. But by the tilt of her head and facial expression, one can understand that she hears and listens to what the conversation is about.

Description of the painting by Claude Monet “Breakfast on the Grass”

Monet is one of the best and famous artists who ever worked in the style of impressionism. The pictures painted by him forever changed the vector of development of the European visual arts, made the rarest adjustments to the concept of painting of that time. He prepared his famous "Breakfast on the Grass" as a kind of pictorial manifesto specifically to support the work of the same name by Edouard Manet. She depicted a naked lady, surrounded dressed men, because of which in 1863 it became the reason for a huge scandal in secular society.

Claude Monet began to paint his canvas of the intended size of 6 by 4.6 meters in 1865. To begin with, he retired to the forest of Fontainebleau to draw small sketches and perform studies to prepare the background. From nature, he painted men and women already in the workshop. Among the latter, his own bride Camille Donsier posed for him. The last step was the arrangement of all elements into a single harmonious whole.

Monet's "Breakfast on the Grass" looks extremely bright and romantic. The canvas depicts a picnic in the forest. The day is sunny, but smartly dressed women and men are covered by the shade of dense trees. Through their branches on the grass, faces and clothes of the picnic participants fall individual sun rays. The technique of chiaroscuro turned out to be the main one when writing a picture.

Monet's work was never completely completed. In 1878, he was forced to leave the unfinished painting as a pledge to the owner of the hotel where the artist lived at that time. After many more years, Monet still tried to finish the work. Many sections of the canvas had time to dampen. Because of this, the artist simply cut them out, thereby completely changing the concept of the picture. The remains of the canvas can now be seen in the Louvre Gallery. The sketch is on display at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

The whole picture is permeated sunlight and calm, against the backdrop of men dressed in dark, female bodies just radiate light and bliss. The work is striking in its simplicity and bright, but not sharp, colors.

About the picture:

The painting was first exhibited in the famous Salon of the Rejected, which was opened on May 15, 1863 in Paris by Emperor Napoleon III, who wished to be known as a defender of freedom and creativity. Then the jury rejected many works by artists who were not allowed to participate in the exhibition. Edouard Manet offered his “Breakfast on the Grass” for dessert, which caused a storm of emotions, severe criticism and a unanimous verdict that this “breakfast” was absolutely “inedible”.

The audience was especially outraged by the fact that decently dressed, shod, men with ties and canes gathered in a forest clearing, next to which naked female bodies glowed. The name of the picture takes on some piquant meaning, especially since nothing edible is really depicted. The left corner of the foreground contains a faint hint of food, but it is clearly visible that on a piece of fabric, perhaps someone's dress, there is a half-empty basket with several mushrooms, and several berries are visible on green leaves nearby. That's the whole breakfast.

Two fairly young men are freely spread out on the grass, talking animatedly about something. The one on the right, gesticulating, tells something interesting, funny, because the interlocutor smiles sweetly. An embarrassed smile shines on the face of the woman sitting next to him. Under it is a crumpled light blue fabric, the woman herself sits in a free light pose, completely naked, not too young, a little overweight.

The couple sitting next to each other has the same hair color, they are the same age, possibly spouses. The second woman in a light, loose, white shirt can be seen a little further, but she can hear the conversation, it can be seen from her that she is listening and also smiling. The picture is full of bright peace, warm bliss.

Painting protector:

After harsh criticism at the exhibition, the painting had almost one defender. But what!

Zola wrote:“In the picture you need to see not breakfast on the grass, but the whole landscape with strong and subtle places, a wide and stable foreground and such light and delicate backgrounds. It is solid flesh, modeled by powerful streams of light. A corner of nature conveyed with such truthfulness and simplicity.

Zola became Manet's friend and protector for many years.