Koya Abe: Study of Olympia/Meurent 2 (Topology of Art Chapter 10: Vantage Point series), 2018. Archival inkjet print. www.koyaabe.com

#koyaabe #Manet #Olympia #VictorineMeurent #art

Palm Sunday (le Jour des Rameaux) opens Holy Week and in much of France, people carry small branches (often boxwood) home as signs of blessing, protection, and spring’s return. French artist Victorine Meurent distills that custom into a single, contemplative gesture, turning public ritual into something quietly personal. The close portrait shows a young woman in right-facing profile against a pale, cool gray background. She has light skin with a soft flush in her cheeks, dark eyes. Her thick, dark-brown hair falls in loose waves to her shoulders, with straight bangs skimming her forehead. She wears a simple high-neck black dress. Her right hand rises near her face, delicately pinching a sprig of glossy green leaves, likely boxwood or similar blessed greenery. Light from the left models her nose and chin and catches the edge of her knuckles, while the figure gathers into velvety dark tones. Her posture is upright yet inward-looking, head slightly inclined forward, eyes fixed on the leaves. The gesture is tender rather than theatrical with fingers curved, wrist relaxed, the leaves angled toward her. With no church, crowd, or interior, the painting invites attention to breath, touch, and the bright green against black. Soft transitions in the skin and a few livelier strokes in the hair make the scene alive. Made in 1885, this may be a claim to authorship. Meurent is one of the most recognizable faces in art through paintings made by other artists, especially Édouard Manet, including Olympia (1863), Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), Mademoiselle V… in the Costume of an Espada (1862), and Lady with a Parrot (1866). Yet, she trained, painted, and exhibited at the Paris Salon (including in 1876 & 1879). This Palm Sunday profile suggests a woman seeking less spectacle, but more interior life. Meurent later lived in Colombes (1907–1927), and the museum’s care for her work helps return her name to the wall as artist and not only a muse.

“Le Jour des Rameaux (Palm Sunday)” by Victorine Meurent (French) - Oil on canvas / 1885 - Musée Municipal d’Art et d’Histoire de Colombes (France) #WomenInArt #art #artText #arte #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #VictorineMeurent #Meurent #MuseeDeColombes #PalmSunday #WomenPaintingWomen

Wallace Polsom, “Rara Avis” (25 April 2019), paper collage, 18.2 x 18.2 cm | wallacepolsom.com/post/1844435... #manet #VictorineMeurent

French artist Édouard Manet depicted model (and fellow French painter) Victorine Meurent in the guise of a male espada, or matador, borrowing her pose from a Renaissance print. Victorine’s shoes are unsuitable for bullfighting, and the pink cape that she flourishes is the wrong hue, but she carries off her role with panache. The backdrop reproduces a scene from Goya’s Tauromaquia series celebrating the feats of bullfighters. When this painting was exhibited at the infamous Salon des Refusés of 1863, a commentator noted, "Manet loves Spain, and his favorite master seems to be Goya, whose vivid and contrasting hues, free and fiery touch he imitates." The painting shows the light-skinned Meurent as a Spanish bullfighter in a bullring, with a bull about to attack a picador mounted on a horse in the background. Her decorative and functional ensemble includes a short, fitted black jacket, waistcoat, and tight-fitting knee-length black pants. She also sports a black montera (hat), a narrow tie, and off-white stockings. A sword in Meurent's right hand suggests that she is prepared to kill the bull. Meurent has turned to stare directly at us rather than the bull. In the far back of the painting are a group of toreros (bullfighters) who watch while keeping a safe distance. Meurent carries a pink cape that is not the traditional muleta color a male bullfighter would carry; her shoes are untraditional stylish brown flats. The scene is fictional, with Meurent having posed in a studio. The theme of "dressing-up" is common in Manet's work He pushed for his work to be recognized as fiction through the title explicitly revealing that Meurent is a model posing in a costume. Trivia: In the 1980s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art conducted x-rays which showed a female nude figure beneath the composition of Meurent. This female nude was upside down and similar to one of the nude females in François Boucher's "Diane sortant du bain."

"Mademoiselle V ... in the Costume of an Espada" by Édouard Manet (French) - Oil on canvas / 1862 - Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) #WomenInArt #art #Manet #ArtText #ÉdouardManet #VictorineMeurent #EdouardManet #WomensArt #TheMET #FrenchArtist #Cosplay #Matador #Espada #MetropolitanMuseumofArt

Victorine Meurent: The Unvarnished Story of Manet’s Muse | Bonjour Paris At the heart of many of Édouard Manet’s paintings is a ginger-haired woman that, although not identical from picture to picture, turns out to be the same model. The nudes in the French painter’s…

#manet #victorinemeurent #berthemorisot bonjourparis.com/history/vict...

Le Briquet (Boy Eating a Loaf of Bread), n.d., by #VictorineMeurent (French, 1844-1927), who died #otd, March 17. Held at the Musée de l'art et l'histoire, Colombes; source, artherstory.net/victorine-me... #artherstory #womenartists #frenchwomenartists