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Olympia

Edouard Manet. 1863

Now we see the natural antagonist of Venus de Cabanel. The famous Olympia by Edouard Manet, made just that year, caused a scandal to show a naked woman, like Cabanel, but devoid of a classic mythological framework and with a much more sensual, almost lascivious.

Olympia caused a scandal in the Salon of 1865 and despite its obvious beauty was branded as grotesque. Manet reinterprets the classic theme of the female nude without costumes and makes a clear reference to the Venus of Titian, the nude maja of Goya and the odalisque of Ingres. The Olympia is the new contemporary muse and probably one of the first paintings of modern art.

Not only the confident and direct attitude of this prostitute was a provocation, but also questioned the audience, since someone has sent flowers, so anyone in the room could be said in love ... probably Olympia is watching.

Manet is known as one of the fathers of impressionism, even though he never defined himself as one: Manet wanted to change the classical art for a more contemporary one from the inside, postulating the Salon de Bellas Artes in Paris, for which he never participated in any of the 8 exhibitions of the so-called impressionists.

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