un bar aux folies-bergere, edouard manet, 1882




this painting is very soothing for me, it makes me calm and it's kind of familiar.
i don't know why it makes me feel that way, you can clearly see that she's not happy to be there, the mirror acts like the barrier between her and all the others there, she's the essential part of the crowd, but isolated. also, her reflection takes up more space then she does on the other side, i never really understood that.

i read once, that all the oranges on the first plane of the painting means that she was a prostitute, because manet always associated oranges to prostituiton in his paintings.
all the elements in the counter makes me feel comfortable, like they're all supposed to be there. all the colors and positions of everything pulls you into it.
the message it tries to give compared to my perception of it is kind of worrying. this painting is about how things reflected on a mirror is different from our perseption of it, it's about seeing and feeling like you saw every angle of it but there's still more to that.

if i'm not mistaken, this was one of the last big painting manet did before he passed away, and it's my favorite of his.







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