In the 1800s, most paintings looked like this.
Muted colors, complex scenes, and lots of mythological stuff.
But in 1865 something came along that was so different, it caused shock and horror and
outrage.
“ the body's putrefying color recalls the horror of the morgue."
"a skeleton dressed in a tight-fitting tunic of plaster."
“takes on at times the undefinable terror of a painted corpse.”
"her face is stupid, her skin cadaverous… she does not have a human form."
The painting is called Olympia, and it changed the art world forever.
Édouard Manet painted Olympia in 1863.
When Paris was the cultural center of the world.
And the center of this cultural center was the Academy of Fine Arts.
The Academy was made up of upper-crust art critics that worshipped the Italian Renaissance
painters of three hundred years prior.
You know - Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian…
And at the Paris Salon — the Academy’s legendary annual art show — they only displayed
art that mimicked the renaissance style.
To determine who got in, they had a bunch of rules.
First and foremost - great art was supposed to convey a moral or intellectual message.
And all acceptable art fell into one of five categories ranked by their capacity to deliver
those messages.
Landscapes and still lifes were at the bottom. In the middle are portraits...
And genre paintings — mostly quaint scenes of poor or foreign subjects, painted for the
rich.
At the top of the list is History painting, the Academy’s darling.
These depicted major historical or mythical moments, they were considered the best at
providing an ethical or moral lesson.
Like depictions of the birth of Venus - showing the goddess emerging fully formed from the
ocean, a symbol of womanly perfection and divine love.
Which brings us to the second set of rules.
Equally important to what was painted was how it was painted.
Take that painting of “The Birth of Venus”
It’s the kind of painting the Academy loved.
Its subjects are idealized, prettified visions of the world — smooth and beautiful, with
no body hair and flawless skin.
The painting follows the rules of depth and perspective — meaning it looks like it could
exist in the real world.
And the scene is complex and layered - there’s a lot going on.
Its colors are ones you’d find in nature. They aren’t too saturated or harsh.
And the brushstrokes are smooth. So smooth that they’re nearly invisible on the canvas.
For a long time, really the only way to become a successful artist was to follow the Academy’s
rules.
Which makes Manet’s Olympia all the more an outlier.
Check out this painting by Renaissance master Titian from 1538.
Look familiar?
It should.
Manet painted Olympia as a direct riff on Titian’s “Venus of Urbino.”
— but there’s a reason Manet’s painting ruffled so many feathers when it hung in the
Salon.
For starters, the name Olympia was a popular pseudonym for sex workers.
Manet took a beloved, instantly recognizable painting and corrupted it - subbing in a common
sex worker for the morally upright goddess of love and fertility.
There’s not much room for a sex worker in the heirarchy of genres.
But it was also how Manet painted Olympia was what really changed things
Manet used stark and unnatural colors that give Olympia a cold, harsh look.
And look at how rough and textured Manet’s brushstrokes are compared to Titian’s imperceptible
ones.
And, unlike Titians, Manet’s painting doesn’t seem to exist in real space. It’s much flatter
and less complex.
And beyond the rules, the two paintings just feel different.
Venus lounges while Olympia sits at attention.
Venus’ maids place furs in a chest, probably a wedding gift. Olympia’s maid brings her
flowers, likely from one of her regular customers.
And compare their hands.
People really didn’t like Olympia’s tensed fingers - one critic claimed she was “mocking
the pose” of Venus, with a hand shamelessly flexed"
Where Venus is warm and inviting, Olympia is tense and stiff. It’s as if Venus invites
you to look at her, while Olympia confronts you— almost like she’s shaming you for
intruding.
It’s not totally clear why the Academy chose to display Manet’s rule-breaking painting,
but it probably had something to do with Manet’s growing popularity.
You can see his influence so clearly in what came next.
He led the charge toward modernism in the late 1800s.
Starting with the impressionists - Monet, Degas - who adopted his penchant for modern
themes and loosened brushstrokes.
But it’s not just the impressionists who owe Manet.
More than anything, Olympia is proof that no one entity gets to decide what art should
look like.
And, when we look back on the history of art, we don’t remember the people who were really
good at following the rules.
We remember the people who moved the needle forward.