L'asperge, Édouard Manet
Transcript
NARRATOR: Here we see a view of the garden and the house where Manet lived in Rueil, a suburb just west of Paris. This is one of two views he painted in 1882. Scott Allan.
SCOTT ALLAN: In this particular picture, the facade of the house cuts off the background. There’s no glimpse of sky. It’s this kind of slightly overgrown garden, so you feel like the vegetation coming in at you.
NARRATOR: At this point, Manet was so ill he was confined to the house and grounds and could only move about by carriage. Manet’s tightly-cropped composition gives the painting a sense of confinement, perhaps reflecting his own mental and physical state.
SCOTT ALLAN: But at the same time, it’s this incredibly vibrant and luminous painting with the sunlight on the facade of this house, and then all of these incredibly light, bright greens in the grass and the foliage.
NARRATOR: In the lower left corner, Manet signed and dated the painting evidence that he intended it for exhibition.
SCOTT ALLAN: It was one of the only paintings he actually signed and dated that summer, so it had a special status. So until the end, Manet still had serious ambitions, and this picture reflects that.
NARRATOR: In a letter to his close friend Méry Laurent from this time, Manet wrote:
ACTOR: VOICE OF MANET: “We’re not blessed with fine weather, my dear Méry. But maybe the new moon will bring us some sunshine. I make the most of sunny spells by walking in my garden, but to distract myself and even to feel really well, I’d have to be working.”
NARRATOR: In his final year, Manet was working on two paintings to submit to the 1883 Salon. He grew increasingly frustrated with the subject and his ailing condition, slashing one canvas. Neither painting was finished. Manet died on April 30, 1883, one day before the Salon opened. He was fifty-one.