Olympia? We’ll talk about this tonight in class, but Eduard Manet’s painting, Olympia, which caused such a stir in the 1865 Paris Salon, has been called the first work of modern art. Why? In a nutshell : she’s a naked lady who isn’t a goddess or heroine and she’s flat, “flat as a playing card,” according to Gustave Courbet, Manet’s fellow Realist painter.
Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863-65, oil on canvas, Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
– Prof. Steer
