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Félix-Jacques Moulin, Nu allongé souriant, 1852
Alphonse Lecadre, Nu allongé,1870
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Salon de la rue des Moulins, 1894
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La visite médicale, ca.1894
Josef Engelhart, Loge dans la Sofiensal, 1903
Catherine Labouré Novice des Sœurs de la Charité
Jean Beraud The Proposition
Paul Baudry, La perle et la vague, 1863
Photographie Edouard Manet par Nadar, 1874
Edouard Manet Nana, 1877

Édouard Manet
Olympia and A Bar at the Folies Bergère 

Two unforgettable, complex and still mysterious works

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863-65
Edoard Manet, un bar aux Folies Bergères, 1881-1882

Olympia and A Bar in the Folies Bergère by Édouard Manet are paintings so familiar that 

they have almost lost their mystery.

 

But what about Olympia? Why did what was, in the end, just one of many nudes provoke the most violent outcry that Paris, the capital of prostitution, had ever seen? The story of a triple taboo: philosophical, bourgeois and sexual.

 

As for A Bar, who is this luxuriously dressed young woman working as a waitress at the Folies Bergère? How does she relate to the viewer? To the customer? Will we ever know? The richness of the painting also lies in the multitude of possible interpretations.

 

These two masterpieces of Western art are fascinating, and Manet still surprises us today. A tribute to the master.

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