Ever been to a picnic in the nude? Most people haven’t and that is one reason why Manet’s masterpiece The Picnic created such controversy when it was unveiled to the public in 1863. The Picnic, which features a nude woman picnicking with two fully-dressed men in the outdoors is quite shocking even in this day and age; you can imagine how it was received amidst the propriety of the mid-1800s – it was positively scandalous!

Luncheon in the Grass, or The Picnic as it is often called, was painted by Edouard Manet, a French artist who had previously exhibited and won recognition at the French Salon. In this new controversial work of art, the nude woman looks directly at the observer as the two dressed men engage in a conversation with each other. The threesome is situated outdoors in a clearing and some lunch food and clothing are spread out next to them on a blanket. In the background, another woman, scantily dressed, stoops by a small stream.

Manet submitted The Picnic to the French Salon in 1863 but it was refused. Instead, it was displayed at the Salon de Refusés, a gallery that was launched that very year by Napoleon III for works rejected by the Salon to appease a growing number of disgruntled artists who had also been rejected by the Salon. But even there, Manet’s work was an instant object of derision. Public outcry against the painting was so intense that it is actually believed the painting would have been destroyed by the crowd had it not been hung high on the walls of the gallery.

One might think that the inclusion of the nude woman was the reason for rejection of the painting. But The Picnic was not the first painting to feature a nude woman in the presence of clothed men. Two examples of such paintings are Pastoral Concert and The Tempest, both by Giorgione. The reason female nudity was acceptable in these paintings is because the women were behaving modestly. Nudity was also acceptable when it appeared in a mythological or allegorical context. But the woman in The Picnic is gazing directly at the audience with a rather defiant posture and a bold expression, making her appear brazen and therefore, immoral – a definite taboo during this time period.

But it was not only the improper nudity in The Picnic that inflamed Manet’s critics – it was also his style. Unlike other paintings of the times, Manet chose to paint his scene in rather severe contrasts, without the usual subtle graduations of shading. The light on the nude woman is particularly strong and glaring. Manet’s broad blocks of paint are laid rather thickly on the canvas and left largely unblended. The painting also has a drawing-like quality due to the presence of black outlines on some of the figures and objects. And it seems to lack perspective since the woman in the background, the trees, and the boat do not seem proportionally correct. All of these factors indicated to Manet’s critics a sloppiness and lack of completeness.

It is quite possible that the critics didn’t know that Manet most likely borrowed from a Renaissance master when he composed The Picnic. An examination of Marcatorio Raimondi’s copy of Raphael’s The Judgment of Paris reveals a threesome that is strikingly similar to the one in Manet’s painting.

It is not known exactly what Manet’s intentions were in creating The Picnic; he did not often discuss his paintings publicly and it was therefore assumed his work was that of an inexperienced and incompetent artist who cared little for public decency. But one interpretation of The Picnic is that it was designed to be an attack on the hypocrisy of middle-class males who supported the widespread prostitution in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris; it was these same men who were most outraged by the painting when it appeared in public! In any case, most art historians agree that Manet’s work signified a considerable departure from the art of the times and represented a pivotal turn toward what we today call Modern Art.

available at Amazon.com

available at Amazon.com

Return to the Art History home page