The Café-Concert (At the Café or The Bock Drinkers)

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The Café-Concert (At the Café or The Bock Drinkers): Edouard Manet

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Edouard Manet Oil Painting - The Café-Concert (At the Café or The Bock Drinkers)

Keywords: Café, Concert, Café, Bock, Drinkers

Work Overview: The Café-Concert (At the Café; The Bock Drinkers)
Artist Édouard Manet
Year circa 1879
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 47.3 cm × 39.1 cm (18.6 in × 15.4 in)
Location The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

The Café-Concert is a 1879 painting by the French painter Édouard Manet, who often captured café scenes depicting social life at the end of the nineteenth century similar to those depicted in this painting.

The setting has been identified as the Brasserie Reichshoffen on the Boulevard Rochechouart.[2] Manet shows us men and women in the new brasseries and cafes of Paris, which presents the viewer with an alternate view of new Parisian life.[3] Manet claimed he was painting “des oeuvres sinceres” or “sincere works”. The women depicted in these scenes were courting certain risks with regards to perception and morality.

n The Café-Concert, Manet presents a café-concert in which three central figures form a triangle but are all engaged in opposite directions. The scene of a café-concert, supposedly casual, is hinted by Manet to be one of separation. The waitress enjoys a beer, while the woman at the bar smokes a cigarette and appears subdued and the man appears to be at ease as he watches the performance (the singer known as “La Belle Polonaise” is reflected in the mirror in the background of the painting). It is noted that the man evokes confidence, because men unlike women could frequent café’s without insecurity.[3] The painting was posed and completed in a studio but gives the appearance of being freshly observed.

In this painting, concepts of conventional composition are rejected. The figures of the individuals represented are not clearly defined but modeled with brushstrokes. The colors are placed directly on the canvas with loose, repetitive strokes instead of applying layers of pigments and glazes over a dark background.

Currently, The Café-Concert is being featured in Off the Wall, an open-air exhibition on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland. A reproduction of the painting, the original is part of The Walters Art Museum collection, will be on display at the CFG Community Bank (Fell's Point).[5] The National Gallery in London began the concept of bringing art out of doors in 2007 and the Detroit Institute of Art introduced the concept in the U.S.. The Off the Wall reproductions of the Walters' paintings are done on weather-resistant vinyl and include a description of the painting and a QR code for smart phones.

The style known now as bock was a dark, malty, lightly hopped ale first brewed in the 14th century by German brewers in the Hanseatic town of Einbeck. The style from Einbeck was later adopted by Munich brewers in the 17th century and adapted to the new lager style of brewing. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced "Einbeck" as "ein Bock" ("a billy goat"), and thus the beer became known as "bock".

Bock is historically associated with special occasions, often religious festivals such as Christmas, Easter or Lent. Bocks have a long history of being brewed and consumed by Bavarian monks as a source of nutrition during times of fasting.

This painting belongs to Manet's many café scenes such as The Plum Brandy, the Corner of a Café-Concert, and the Bar in the Folies-Bergère.

Among the numerous cafe scenes painted by Manet, this cafe-concert is among the most suggestive. With bold, golden strokes that seem to take their color from the beer in the mugs, Manet shows us people looking on while the singer reflected in the mirror sings herself hoarse. Above and beyond the picture of boulevard life it presents, this painting is remarkable for its brilliance and vigor. Manet has painted the hands with great skill and elegance. (It is interesting to note that his treatment of hands is never so fine as when he has not labored over them too much.) The composition itself is a symphony of blues and golds that illuminate the blacks and impart a lively rhythm to the whole picture.

The setting is the Reichshoffen cabaret on the boulevard Rochechouart. The picture is one of a series of similar scenes painted either here or at the Nouvelle-Athenes. The man in the top hat is one of Manet's regular models; he also posed for the watercolor entitled Punchinello.

Manet liked the atmosphere of cafes and brasseries and often sat in them for relaxation after working. He met his friends there, and most of the knowledge we have of his life and habits comes from the people who used to talk with him or sit near him at the Cafe Guerbois, Tortoni's, or the Nouvelle-Athenes.

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