Luncheon On The Grass: Art Comparison

Luncheon on the grass created an enormous amount of negativity and Manet's painting Olympia put the icing on the cake. Due to its brazen nudity it was labeled as being obscenely vulgar. Although It was painted in 1863 it was submitted and had its first showing in 1865 at the Salon. The image is of a modern French prostitute. The actual name of the lady posing is not Olympia it is Victorine Meurent. Manet used her in other paintings of his including Luncheon on the grass. The two paintings were an extremely radical break away from Academic art. People thought of them as outrageously scandalous. Manet based Olympia on Titian's Venus of Urbino painted in 1538. Of the two it's plain to see their similarities and their differences. For instance, the way they are laying is exactly

The difference is that one is considered a goddess and the other is known to be a prostitute. The goddess is depicted with a chunky body and the prostitute's body has a sensual nature. She is lying on an oriental stole on a couch. She is wearing pearl earrings, a choker around her neck, and a bracelet on her arm, a flower in her hair and the kind of shoes she has on confirms the idea that she is a lady of the night life, along with the black cat that symbolizes that she is a prostitute. Another difference is that there's a maid standing right next to her fully dressed. as if to make you more aware of her nudity. She is holding flowers and has a blank look on her face. The public or the critics could not accept or understand why he would replace a goddess with a prostitute. Also it was not the nudity that appalled people; this was common and had been for centuries but only in a different perspective. The viewers were scandalized by the brazen look on her face. It had more of a bold challenging look. The painting made a bold stand and was too much to accept. The people were so upset by it that the administration had to take extra safety measures to keep the