Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863
Édouard Manet
Oil on canvas · 208 x 264.5 cm
A calmly nude woman picnics with two fully dressed men, scandal included.
Manet scandalised Paris in 1863 by seating a nude woman, gazing calmly out at us, beside two clothed men at a picnic. Its flat light and modern frankness broke every academic rule — the provocation that helped launch modern painting.
What you're looking at
She is looking at you and nobody else in the picture is looking at her. The bather behind is painted far too large for how far away she is meant to be, so the space refuses to recede — that flattening was the real offence to the academy, more than the nudity. The composition is lifted from a Renaissance engraving of river gods, which Manet expected people to recognise. In the corner the discarded clothes and spilled fruit are painted as a full still life.
On a Frame TV
About 5:4. Matted file — the clean crop takes the woodland above and the still life below. Mid-toned with strong darks; it holds a normally lit room.
Department of Paintings of the Louvre · Visit it in Paris →
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Other works in the collection, starting with Édouard Manet.
