Edouard Manet - The Absinthe Drinker - Google Art Project

''The Absinthe Drinker'' (French: ''Le Buveur d'absinthe'') is an early painting by

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

, executed c. 1859, considered to be his first major painting and first original work. It is now in the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, Denmark.

Background and history

Manet became a student in the studio of

Thomas Couture Thomas Couture (21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge,Wilkinson, Burke. ''The Life and Works of A ...

from 1850 but over time he grew to dislike his master's

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

style and thereafter set up his own studio in 1856. Little of Manet's earliest work survives and much may have been destroyed by Manet himself. ''The Absinthe Drinker'' is a full-length portrait of an alcoholic ''chiffonnier'' (

rag-picker A rag-and-bone man or ragpicker (UK English) or ragman, old-clothesman, junkman, or junk dealer (US English), also called a bone-grubber, bone-picker, chiffonnier, rag-gatherer, bag board, or totter, collects unwanted household items and sells t ...

) named Collardet who frequented that area around the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

in Paris. Collardet is painted in mostly brown, grey and black tones. The subject is standing, wears a black

top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally m ...

and is wrapped in a brown cloak, like an aristocrat; he leans on a ledge with the empty bottle discarded on the floor by his feet. Manet later added a half-full glass of

absinthe Absinthe (, ) is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from several plants, including the flowers and leaves of ''Artemisia absinthium'' ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. Historical ...

on the ledge. Influenced by the

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

, the work shows a mundane subject on a large scale, measuring high by wide. Manet may have taken inspiration from the poem ''Le Vin des chiffonniers'' ("The rag-pickers' wine") in

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...

's 1857 collection '' Les Fleurs du mal'', from the paintings of ordinary people by

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...

(particularly his paintings of ''Aesop'' and ''Menippus''), and from Watteau's ''L'Indifférent''. Near the completion of the painting, Manet showed the work to his former master. Asked for his opinion, Couture is said to have retorted: "An absinthe drinker! And they paint abominations like that! My poor friend, you are the absinthe drinker. It is you who have lost your moral sense." ''The Absinthe Drinker'' was the first work that Manet submitted to the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

in 1859. It was rejected with only

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

voting in its favour. Part of the reason for its rejection may be its subject; absinthe was thought to be addictive and considered morally degenerate, and this was one of the earliest depictions of absinthe in art. The painting, however, also has technical faults; it is unevenly finished, with brushstrokes visible in places, and the legs join awkwardly with the subject's body. According to art historian Charles F. Stuckey, the painting presented in 1859 may have been significantly different and inferior to the current version, with the subject's legs and the absinthe glass not depicted. Refusal of other works by young painters led eventually to the creation of the

Salon des Refusés The Salon des Refusés, French for "exhibition of rejects" (), is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863. Today, by ...

in 1863. Manet continued to revise the work after 1859 and inserted the same cloaked figure into his 1862 painting ''

The Old Musician ''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 ...

''. The original full-length portrait was cut down to three-quarter length by 1867 when it was exhibited by Manet with 56 other works in a self-funded retrospective at the Exposition Universelle held in Paris, but extended again by 1872 when Manet sold ''The Absinthe Drinker'' and 23 other works to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. The glass of absinthe was a late addition, between 1867 and 1872. The painting was sold to opera singer

Jean-Baptiste Faure Jean-Baptiste Faure () (15 January 1830 – 9 November 1914) was a French operatic baritone and art collector who also composed several classical songs. Singing career Faure was born in Moulins. A choirboy in his youth, he entered the Pari ...

in 1906 and exhibited at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen in 1914 when it was acquired for the Ny Carlsberg Foundation. It was one of the first modern works added to the collection at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, where it is still held.

Possible inspirations

File:Velázquez - Esopo (Museo del Prado, 1639-41).jpg , '' Aesop'' by Velázquez File:Diego Velázquez 022.jpg , '' Menippus'' by Velázquez File:Antoine Watteau - L'Indifférent - WGA25468.jpg, ''L'Indifférent'' by Watteau

Notes

References

''Manet's Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets''
James Henry Rubin, pp. 36-38.
''Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle''
Jad Adams, pp. 35-38.
''Manet's Modernism: Or, The Face of Painting in the 1860s''
Michael Fried, p. 34.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Absinthe Drinker Paintings by Édouard Manet 1859 paintings Absinthe Food and drink paintings Paintings in the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 19th-century paintings in Denmark

Background and history

Possible inspirations

See also

Notes

References

External links