Description of the picture:
Music at the Tuileries – Edouard Manet. 1862. Oil on canvas. 76.2×118.1
Tuileries Garden in the very center of Paris – a favorite recreation area of urban residents in the XIX century. 10s, hundreds of evidence of this are contained in the works of literature, painting and music. Just as the Garden Ring in Moscow was once truly a garden ring, so Tuileries was a garden (at the moment it is faster than a public garden). You can understand why this place was so pretty, especially for walking with the children, which Manet depicted in the foreground. I recall M. Mussorgsky’s play The Tuileries Garden (Quarrel of Children After the Game), possibly the best musical image of the Tuileries. The artist in the title of the picture directly indicates that music sounds in him: the visible inspiration of the crowd is its consequence. Among the characters, Manet portrayed himself and his family, also S. Baudelaire, T. Gauthier, J. Offenbach.
This work is the artist’s first major work reflecting modern urban life. He bathed in this atmosphere, made sketches, already hatched the plan of a large canvas, showed them to friends, meeting with approval and enthusiasm. Finally it was written. And what is the effect? The salon rejected him. Even friends did not understand what the artist nevertheless wanted to portray. The young Emil Zola again defended himself. He said that “someday they will finally understand what place Eduard Manet takes in the transitional era that the French school of painting is going through. He will remain in her as a characteristic and most individual phenomenon. ” Later, Zola will write the novel “Creativity”, the prototype of the hero of which will be Manet."