mardi 20 décembre 2016

Why The Oil Painting Olympia Is One Remarkable Piece

By Timothy Moore


Some of the best paintings were made using oil paint. The most realistic ones were by the great artists from the Renaissance. The subjects for the works made during this era were essentially religious, evolving around concepts with an abundance of cherubs, biblical characters, gods and goddesses.

Venus was a favorite subject especially when portraying nudes. Another notable thing with traditional art is how they are so incredibly life like. Pieces made during this time barely showed brush strokes even when painting using oil, which is a very thick medium. Manet was that one artist that defied all things traditional with his oil painting Olympia.

The thing with late Renaissance art was that it was very heavily rooted to technique and how well it was able to portray anatomy and physics of the objects in the painting. This piece by Manet was essentially a parody of Venus of Urbino, notable for its subject, the goddess Venus laying on a chair like bed in the nude. Nudes then were not at all seen as lewd, but this artwork by Manet was an exception.

The woman on the canvas was not Venus, but a parodied symbolism named Olympia. Based on what she was wearing, slippers and a black choker, this tells you that she is a courtesan. The most ironic thing you can use to portray a goddess would be a prostitute. Maybe even then people thought the concept was offensive and sacrilegious.

The shock value was immense initially. Now, we see it as the start of the modern art movement. Technically, the artist intended to make the brush strokes evident as opposed to what most critics were used to. He probably did not want to sedate the public with the beauty of his work, but rather, snap them back to the reality of what already surrounds then.

The woman on the painting stares at you point blank which was a huge statement if you compare it to the Venus equivalent. It was as if Manet meant the asymmetry of her face to say that no female face is symmetrical and as perfect as a goddess and that is still worthy of making into art.

The piece at most is an honest portrayal of current state of events during the time. While most traditional late Renaissance works are focused on blurring the lines between realistic imagery, Manet made it a point for viewers to identify that this is a painting and not a means of escape from horrid realities that you get to see outside the gallery.

This painting effectively became something revolutionary and is a genius way to cross abstraction with traditional realism. Then it would have been considered as a bad painting. But it is general understanding that if the piece is able to evoke emotion. It can never be considered as bad art.

Olympia was met with mockery but anything that significantly shook the world is always met with the same manner. To this day the piece is an icon and is a reminder to all artists that use any medium that one can send a powerful message with only relaying an idea or an interpretation of an already existing one. In this case, art was able to achieve the first movements or artistic revolution against how convoluted aesthetic was during the late renaissance.




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