Practice question · Multiple choice
Why was the nude in Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe found intolerable when nude goddesses were not?
Hints
- Compare a mythological Venus with a modern woman, what changes?
- Look at where her eyes are pointed.
Show the answer
A. She is a contemporary Parisian who returns the viewer’s gaze
Why
A goddess is a permitted fiction; a naked woman in 1863 Paris who has noticed you looking implicates the viewer. Manet removed the mythological alibi and left the audience holding it.
Practise Realism and Impressionism
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