Reflections
“If you work in the service economy you’re performing, aren’t you? Basically, you can’t hide anywhere and that is what in a way she’s doing well: trying to put on a front almost like a performance of herself in a theatre-like space, so there are different levels of performance are going on here.” Jeremy
“I think, as with all great art, that we are talking about it because it is universal and some part of it is a shared experience. As someone who works 20 hours in a bar a week, I have a very similar response to the barmaid in the painting.” Noah
“We might relate the painting to how we have been performing on Zoom in recent times, in our different boxes. In a sense you are putting yourself on display for a certain audience.” Remy<
Leisure in Paris
The city of Paris was transformed during Édouard Manet’s (1832-1883) lifetime. At the order of Napoleon III, cramped and dirty medieval streets were torn down and replaced with wide, tree-lined avenues called boulevards. Tall apartment buildings rose up from the rubble and provided homes for the city’s booming population. New forms of leisure designed to cater to the growing middle class (bourgeoisie) required new spaces including shopping arcades, restaurants and night clubs. Older recreational spaces such as theatres and parks were also transformed.
The Folies-Bergère was a music hall with the highest entrance price in Paris. Manet was from a comfortable background and the art historian Griselda Pollock has described A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) as the artist’s “social word in miniature”. She has also suggested that in selecting this subject, Manet was asking himself: “What place, in all of the modern city, will really capture the essence of modernity?”
Image credits:
Discuss
Manet has given us a small clue about the type of entertainment taking place. Can you spot it?
Which elements of the painting suggest this was a relatively expensive venue to attend?
What would if feel like to be in the audience?
How would the experience be different as a member of staff or a performer?
What are our contemporary spaces of leisure? Where do you prefer to socialise?
Discover more
Discover our Folies-Bergère playlist and explore works by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) to find out about other spaces of leisure captured by artists around the same time.
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Leisure in Paris:
The city of Paris was transformed during Édouard Manet’s (1832-1883) lifetime. At the order of Napoleon III, cramped and dirty medieval streets were torn down and replaced with wide, tree-lined avenues called boulevards. Tall apartment buildings rose up from the rubble and provided homes for the city’s booming population. New forms of leisure designed to cater to the growing middle class (bourgeoisie) required new spaces including shopping arcades, restaurants and night clubs. Older recreational spaces such as theatres and parks were also transformed.
The Folies-Bergère was a music hall with the highest entrance price in Paris. Manet was from a comfortable background and the art historian Griselda Pollock has described A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) as the artist’s “social word in miniature”. She has also suggested that in selecting this subject, Manet was asking himself: “What place, in all of the modern city, will really capture the essence of modernity?”
Discuss:
- Manet has given us a small clue about the type of entertainment taking place. Can you spot it?
- Which elements of the painting suggest this was a relatively expensive venue to attend?
- What would if feel like to be in the audience?
- How would the experience be different as a member of staff or a performer?
- What are our contemporary spaces of leisure? Where do you prefer to socialise?
Reflections:
“I think, as with all great art, that we are talking about it because it is universal and some part of it is a shared experience. As someone who works 20 hours in a bar a week, I have a very similar response to the barmaid in the painting.” Noah
“We might relate the painting to how we have been performing on Zoom in recent times, in our different boxes. In a sense you are putting yourself on display for a certain audience.” Remy
“If you work in the service economy you’re performing, aren’t you? Basically, you can’t hide anywhere and that is what in a way she’s doing well: trying to put on a front almost like a performance of herself in a theatre-like space, so there are different levels of performance are going on here.” Jeremy
Discover more: Explore our Folies-Bergère playlist and works by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) to find out about other spaces of leisure captured by artists around the same time.
