The old musician

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The old musician: Edouard Manet

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Edouard Manet Oil Painting - The old musician

Keywords: old, musician

Work Overview: The Old Musician
Le Vieux Musicien
Artist Édouard Manet
Year 1862
Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 187.4 cm × 248.3 cm (73.8 in × 97.8 in)
Location National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Old Musician is an 1862 oil painting on canvas by French painter Édouard Manet, produced during the period when the artist was influenced by Spanish art. The painting also betrays the influence of Gustave Courbet. This work is one of Manet's largest paintings and is now conserved at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.[1]

The painting is composed of seven characters in a landscape. The old musician in the center who is preparing to play the violin is Jean Lagrène, the leader of a local gypsy band.[2] To the left is a young girl standing with a baby in her arms, as well as two young boys. In the background, the man in the top hat is the rag picker and ironmonger Colardet.[2] At the right, the Oriental man (partly shown) with a turban and a long robe, represents Guéroult, a "wandering Jew".[2] Attitudes and clothes of the characters seem to be inspired by Diego Velázquez or Louis Le Nain.[2] [3][4]

The painting contains a series of allusions: the man in the top hat is the same character as The Absinthe Drinker, painted by Manet some years earlier and who reappears in this painting without any particular reason. The young boy in straw hat, meanwhile, is explicitly inspired by Antoine Watteau's Pierrot.

In a review of the 1846 Salon, poet and critic Charles Baudelaire urged artists to depict "the heroism of modern life." Manet embodied Baudelaire's ideal painter of contemporary Paris. Emperor Napoleon III ordered the renovation of Paris under the direction of Baron Haussmann, and early in the 1860s the slum where Manet located his studio was being razed to accommodate the planned broad, tree–lined boulevards that still characterize the city. In this painting, Manet represented a strolling musician flanked by a gypsy girl and infant, an acrobat, an urchin, a drunkard, and a ragpicker—individuals the artist might have observed near his studio. The seemingly casual gathering is composed of the urban poor, possibly dispossessed by Haussmann’s projects. Neither anecdotal nor sentimental, Manet’s portrayal carries the careful neutrality of an unbiased onlooker, and this distinctly modern ambiguity and detachment are characteristic of all Manet's work.

By placing pigments side by side rather than blending tones, Manet could preserve the immediacy and directness of preliminary oil studies in his finished works. Effects produced by this technique were sharper and crisper than those obtained using academic methods. When they first encountered Manet's work early in the 1860s, Monet and Renoir admired his manner of painting and emulated it as they forged the style known as impressionism.

Manet travelled the length and breadth of European search of masterpieces. In 1856, he was overwhelmed by the works of Diego Velazquez in Vienna. It was to be a decisive influence; the superlative Portraits Philip IV sent to the Vienna court were a revelation to Manet. The astounding economy of means that allowed Velazquez to obtain great intensity from very few tones - was a lesson that Manet took to heart: the greatest colourists, he realised were sparing in their use of colour.

In The Old Musician Manet has painted characters from this area he called "a picturesque slum." Most are real individuals. The seated musician is Jean Lagrène, leader of a local gypsy band who earned his living as an organ grinder and artist's model. The man in the top hat is Colardet, a rag-picker and ironmonger. At the right a man named Guéroult is cast as the "wandering Jew," the prototypical outsider. In their poses and dress, several figures recall those of Diego Velázquez or the peasants painted by French seventeenth-century artist Louis Le Nain, whose works Manet would also have seen during his studies in the Louvre.

Impassive and silent, these people from the margins of Parisian life are restricted to the narrow plane of the foreground. Presented with neutral detachment, they do not interact, appearing equally unconnected to each other and the vague, undefined setting they inhabit. The urchin and rag picker look toward the seated musician, but he is unaware, focused instead on the viewer outside the picture. The emotional blankness of Manet's painting felt "modern" to contemporary viewers.

The Old Musician is an oil on canvas work painted by Edouard Manet in 1862. The painting measures 73.8 by 97.8 inches. The work is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Style and Composition
Manet developed a keen interest in Spanish art, and the style of this painting shows the influence of Spanish artists like Velazquez.

The painting is set in a rural location. The musician of the title is seated on a case. His violin is resting in his lap, held in place by his left hand. He holds his bow in his right hand. He is looking directly towards the viewer.

On the left of the group, a young, barefoot girl, wearing a blue dress and black shawl, is cradling a baby. Beside her are two young boys. Two adult males are depicted on the right of the painting. One of the men is well dressed and wearing a top hat. The other man is only partially visible.

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Edouard Manet

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