"Olympia" by Edouard Manet will be brought to the Pushkin Museum
ARTinvestment.RU   07 апреля 2016

Exhibition of famous paintings will be held from 19 April to 17 July 2016. "Olympia" will leave the walls of the musée d'orsay in Paris for only the second time since its writing in 1863

GMII named after A. S. Pushkin
19 April — on July 17 2016
Main building, Moscow, Volkhonka, 12

the Exhibition "Olympia Edouard Manet from the Museum's collection l@aroura (Paris)" opens at the Museum on April 19, 2016. Perhaps the most famous masterpiece of one of the founders of impressionism, written in 1863, and only once they left the walls of the musée d'orsay in Paris, will appear at the exhibition surrounded by three works from the collection of the Pushkin Museum to them. A. S. Pushkin — painting "Queen (king's Wife)" Paul Gauguin (1895), paintings, "the lady at the toilet" Giulio Pippi, called Romano (beginning 1520-х), and sculpture of the Aphrodite of Cnidus by Praxiteles (Roman copy from the original of CA. 350 BC).

the Starting point for the emergence of "Olympia" was the desire of Edouard Manet to rethink and shaped plastic "formula" "Venus of Urbino" by Titian in the spirit of its era, that is, to write a modern Venus. "It is our duty, — claimed Manet, — to be removed from our era all it has to offer, not forgetting that it was opened and found to us." From this point of view the idea of "Olympia" in the overall plan was to try to raise the high modernity to the classic designs and in this way gain a new understanding of both. Don't know who had the idea to rename Venus to Olympia, but the name stuck. It is, from the point of view of critics who in their reviews literally trashed the painting at the Paris salon of 1865, was aggravated by her "indecency", for that was the name of one of the characters of the novel (1848) and the drama (1852) by Alexandre Dumas-сына "the lady of the camellias". Olympia — antagonisti the main character, a brilliant, cold, calculating, doesn't believe in love and not anyone is able to give. In nineteenth century Paris. this name is what-то the time was a household word for all the ladies of her profession. So, "Olympia" — is "Venus-куртизанка".

the Heroine reclines on silky surfaces brilliantly written white fabrics; vibration iridescent shades creates a glow effect reminiscent of mother of pearl glow inside the sea shells, the image of which is also linked to the theme of the goddess of love. But Olympia is not the consciousness of the goddess, which belongs to the whole world. Rather, it's like a cut flower — decorating her hair Orchid, blooming for a while, soon to wither. The customary aloofness in her eyes humbles internal stress, turning it into indifference. Bracelet, earring, velvet with precious stones are meant, as in the Titian painting, to emphasize the nakedness of the moment of polarstate and, hence, intimacy, and homemade shoes — one dressed, the other slipped to his feet and opened the fingertips, — awaken weak, as if in passing, a shot of sensuality and spirit of the boudoir.

the reference to "Venus of Urbino" and further interpretation of the character which made Manet a dialogue not only with the painting of Titian, but with long tradition of existence of this theme in European artistic culture in General. The constancy of the presence of such heroines in works of art over the centuries is explained, in-первых, the special role of myth in the visual arts generally, in-вторых, specific content associated with her narrative, which embodies the understanding of two closely coupled together values that are important in the field of ideal representations of humanity. They are Love and Beauty, embodied in the image of a beautiful woman.

the Origins of this theme, prelaminate in the masterpieces of Titian, Velazquez, Goya, Manet and other masters, can be traced to the works of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. His works reflected the reality of the Greek art of the second half of IV century BC the transition from the predominance of the heroic and strong-willed masculine ideal that dominated in high century classics V — of polykleitos, Myron Phidias imparted even to female deities (Hera, Artemis, Athena especially) the features of titanism and masculinity, — to women, is characterised by intimacy, lyricism, dreaminess. Praxiteles was famous for his depictions of the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite, especially the one that was made him by order of the inhabitants of the island Knid about 340-330 BC and which he posed for the legendary beauty, hetaera (translated as "friend", the representative of free love) frina.

Picture from the collection of the Pushkin Museum to them. A. S. Pushkin called "the lady at the toilet" refers to the beginning of 1520-х, and chronologically precedes the masterpiece of Titian, but stadial belongs to a later historical period, as the artist Giulio Pippi, called Romano (Roman) (1499-1546), a pupil of Raphael, associated with the generation of masters — heirs of the great geniuses of the Renaissance. The work of Giulio Romano discovers a closeness to the work of Raphael "portrait of a young woman, or the Fornarina" (1518-1519; Rome, Galleria Borghese). As you can see, Romano closely the sample, but it is much bolder opens the figure of the heroine, making her almost completely foreseeable. The artist specifically focuses her nakedness with transparent veils, which does not conceal feminine charms ladies, how many calls to strain your eyes to read them. But the true message in both cases, and Raphael, and Romano, — attempt using a secular genre, born on the soil of reality, through the motif of female nudity to appeal to the poetic myth organics.

the Picture of the founder of symbolism in European paintings of Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) from the collection of the Pushkin Museum to them. A. S. Pushkin "Te Arii Vahine. Queen (king's Wife)" (1895), was written by the artist during his stay in Tahiti. Her character "the Royal family" he has found among the inhabitants of the Islands of Oceania, in the world of ancient idols and strange gods, in the atmosphere, fanned by the ancestral spirits, among the simple people and their simple activities: fishing, picking fruit, prayer, conversation, rest are signs of their existence. In the locals the artist discovers the system proportions of the Greek sculptors. Local beauty presented to them resting on a green slope; relaxed she repeats the pose and the silhouette of Venus (and of Olympia, a reproduction of which Gauguin had taken with him in his exotic journey), free, however, from all the attributes of European civilization: not heterosexual, not the mother of the family, and nature itself, the embodiment of human nature, only accentuated in this value organizing the will of the artist.

Source: arts-museum.ru