Dead eagle owl
Dead eagle owl (French: Le Grand-duc ) is the title of a painting by the French painter Édouard Manet . The 97 × 64 cmpicture, paintedin oil on canvas, shows a dead eagle owl hanging upside down on a wooden wallas a hunting trophy. The work, which belongs to a series of four almost equally large still lifes , was created in 1881 during a spa stay in Versailles , when Manet was already marked by serious illness. Models for this hunting trophy symbolizing death can be found in French still life painting of the 18th century and by Dutch painters of the 17th century. Dead eagle owl is one of the few hunting still lifes in the artist's oeuvre. The painting belongs to the collection of the EG Bührle Collection Foundation in Zurich .
Image description
The motif of the 97 × 64 cm painting is an eagle owl hanging upside down on a wooden wall. A nail with the tied ends of a small rope can be seen between the dead animal's feet. This rope was probably used to tie the legs together and hang the animal on a nail. The hunting trophy hanging down is turned to the left so that the viewer can see almost exclusively the right side of the animal. Only the right eye of the eagle owl can be seen and the right wing largely covers the left. Although Manet's depiction of the hunting trophy in this painting is "extremely painterly" impressionistic ", he clearly shows the different fletching of the individual parts of the body. The fletching of the head, torso, legs and wings is differentiated from each other by shape, color, pattern and brushstroke.
The dead bird is not positioned exactly in the middle of the picture, but takes up the top three fifths of the picture. The lower two fifths of the picture are reserved for the exclusive representation of the wood grain. To the left of the bird, the grain of the board wall can also be clearly seen, while the area to the right of the body is partially covered by the animal's wings and behind it a kind of shadow effect is painted. This shadow suggests a light source beyond the top left of the picture. Both the positioning of the eagle owl in the upper area of the picture and the portrait format of the painting reinforce the impression of the animal being hung up. Due to the lack of any spatial environment, the picture can be assigned to the trompe l'œil painting, which has been popular in still lifes since Jacopo de 'Barbari . The signature "Manet" is in the lower right corner of the picture.
In the painting, the painter used almost exclusively shades of brown and black to depict the animal and wood. While the eagle owl is mainly created in short brushstrokes and dabs of color, the horizontally running wooden boards are reproduced by an elongated brush stroke, the wave-like movement of which underlines the wood grain. Manet's lively style of painting contrasts with the subject of a dead animal. The art historian Ina Conzen describes Manet's style of painting as follows: “As a modern variant of a hunting still life, the motif appears… sober and objective, devoid of any rhetoric. As painting, the sensual stimulation of the material qualities of things - the feathery, violent characterization of the battered creature and the accentuated grain of the wooden wall - speak in a direct way. "
background
Édouard Manet had suffered from the effects of syphilis since the late 1870s . In the years up to his death in 1883, he was particularly affected by paralysis in his left leg, which not only made him difficult to walk, but also made it impossible for him to stand for long periods of time. To alleviate these symptoms, Manet spent several months a year at spa stays in the Paris area since 1879. To this end, he rented a house in Bellevue in 1879 and 1880 and in Rueil in 1882 . He spent the months from late June to October 1881 in a house at 20 avenue de Villeneuve-l'Étang in Versailles. The painting Dead Eagle Owl was also created during this time . In a letter to the poet Stéphane Mallarmé dated July 30, 1881, Manet noted: “I have no model and especially no imagination.” And further “I have not been satisfied with my health since I moved to Versailles.” On September 23, 1881 wrote he to the painter Eva Gonzalès about the stay at Versailles: “Like you, we unfortunately had to endure terrible weather. I think it's been raining here for a month and a half. So when I came here to study in the park designed by Lenôtre, I had to be content with simply painting my garden, which is the most hideous of all gardens. Some still lifes, and that's all I'll bring. "
Since Manet caused considerable pain when standing, he concentrated on small-format pictures during his stay in Versailles, which he could take while sitting. In Versailles, for example, he created the painting The Garden Bench and the Oil Sketch Bull on the Meadow , as well as a series of four almost equally large still lifes. In addition to the dead eagle owl , the hare , bindweed and nasturtium as well as garden corners were part of this series of images. In the painting The Hare , the left half of the picture remained unfinished and the two garden motifs in this series are only painted in a sketchy manner. Only the dead eagle owl was signed by Manet and is therefore considered a completed work.
French or Dutch models
Although there is no evidence of a direct model for the painting Dead Eagle Owl , some possibilities for inspiration are obvious. It is known that even as a child, Manet regularly visited the Louvre with his uncle Edmond Fournier. He continued studying the painting gallery there during his apprenticeship, and in later years he repeatedly found inspiration here. The French still life paintings exhibited in the Louvre were therefore very well known to Manet. As early as 1866, Manet's painting The Rabbit made direct reference to Jean Siméon Chardin's painting Rabbit with Hunting Accessories from around 1727 . The depiction of birds as hunting trophies can be found in French painting alongside Chardin in Jean-Baptiste Oudry and François Desportes . Chardin's mallard with bitter orange hanging on a wall and Oudry's still life with three dead birds, currants, cherries and insects are examples of French models that Manet could have used as a guide for the dead eagle owl .
Jean Siméon Chardin:
Rabbit with hunting accessories
around 1727
Édouard Manet:
The Rabbit
1866
Jean Siméon Chardin:
Mallard duck with bitter orange hanging on a wall
around 1730
Jean-Baptiste Oudry:
Still life with three dead birds, currants, cherries and insects
1712
Art historians consider Dutch works as models for the dead eagle owl in addition to the French. Manet, who was married to a native Dutch woman, had visited his wife's homeland several times and on these occasions also visited the museums there. One of the possible Dutch models for the dead eagle owl is the painting Dead Partridge by Jan Baptist Weenix , which is in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. The former general director of the Berlin State Museums , Leopold Reidemeister , saw the “most convincing source” for the dead eagle owl, however, in the picture Dead Rooster by Melchior de Hondecoeter . However, this picture was still in private ownership during Manet's last trip to the Netherlands in 1872 and was only purchased by the Brussels Royal Museum of Fine Arts in 1877 , so there is no evidence that Manet actually knew this painting.
Jan Baptist Weenix:
Dead Partridge
around 1650–1652
Melchior de Hondecoeter:
Dead Rooster
17th Century
Still life painting at Manet
Unlike his often controversial figure compositions, Manet's still lifes were already highly valued during his lifetime. The art critic Ernest Chesenau acquired a flower still life from the artist as early as 1863, although in the same year he panned Manet's Breakfast in the Green in an article. In 1868, Odilon Redon in the newspaper La Gironde even advised the painter to limit himself entirely to still life painting.
Of the 430 paintings by Manet in the catalog raisonné by Rouart / Wildenstein, more than eighty are still life paintings. This fifth of the entire oeuvre was created during Manet's entire career as a painter. He also added figure compositions and portraits to still lifes. Well-known examples of this are Manet's main works The Spanish Singer , Breakfast in the Green , Breakfast in the Atelier , Portrait of Théodor Duret or Bar in the Folies-Bergère .
With the actual still lifes in the 1860s, Manet initially concentrated on depicting different types of fruit or fish, which he arranged on a table based on the example of 17th century Dutch painters. Also from the 1860s there are some still lifes with flowers that only show peonies. These are either in a vase or, draped as individual branches, also on a table. In addition to a still life with sombrero and guitar , the still life with rabbits described above, based on the model of Chardin, falls out of this pattern .
In addition to a few still lifes that are dated to the year 1876 and repeat the aforementioned motifs from the 1860s, Manet did not turn to still life painting again until 1880. In addition to the well-known paintings The Ham and the Bundle of Asparagus , he initially created a few pictures with fruit motifs before Manet increasingly specialized in flower still lifes in the last year of his life. In addition to the still life with rabbits from 1866, the two hunting still lifes Dead Eagle Owl and The Hare , created in Versailles in 1881, are an exception in Manet's oeuvre.
Manet's series pictures
Manet first dealt with the subject of series pictures in 1879. In April of that year, he submitted to the Prefect of the Seine (Préfet de la Seine) the proposal to decorate the new city hall of Paris with six city scenes. The subjects planned were the market halls , the railways , the harbor , underground Paris , the horse races and the gardens . However, Manet received no response from the city administration and the project did not go ahead.
In the same year as the pictures from Versailles, two paintings of a planned sequence of seasons were created. Each of the seasons should be embodied by a woman. Manet's friend Jeanne Demarsy posed for the completed Spring picture , while Méry Laurent posed for the completed autumn . The summer and winter motifs were not started by Manet and it is unknown who was intended as a model.
The series of four still lifes from Versailles was combined in the artist's inventory of June 18, 1883 with two other works by Manet as "six decorative panels". The two other pictures are the paintings Flower Vase from 1877 and The Watering Can from 1880. Although these pictures have almost the same dimensions as the series from Versailles, they have no recognizable connection with the latter.
The art historian Ina Conzen has pointed out the contradicting approaches of Claude Monet and Édouard Manet with regard to the series pictures: "Capturing the same motif over and over again under changing lighting conditions ... does not make sense for Manet." Unlike Monet, who in his Serial pictures varied the same motif in multiple repetitions, Manet's series was about the representation of different motifs that dealt with one topic in their entirety. In the still lifes from Versailles, Manet combined two floral subjects with two depictions of animals. The hunting trophies symbolizing death represent a contrast to the blooming garden pictures that stand for life. It is not known whether these pictures which thematize life and death were intended for a particular room decoration.
Death theme in Manet's work
Before the creation of the dead eagle owl, Manet rarely dealt directly with the subject of death in his pictures. The painting Toter Torero from 1864 was initially part of a larger composition, which, however, did not find recognition at the Paris Salon . In the version reduced to the torero, Manet took over reference to a composition from the 17th century, which was ascribed to Diego Velázquez during Manet's lifetime and which Manet admired all his life. In the same year he painted the picture of Dead Christ with two angels , with which Manet also sought success in the salon. This image also goes back to traditional models. The third picture from the 1860s, in which Manet dealt directly with the subject of death, was The Execution of Maximilian of Mexico in 1867, of which several versions exist. The painting, also planned for the salon, represents the modern adaptation of Francisco de Goya's El Tres de Mayo . The three works mentioned were in the tradition of painting and aimed at a large audience without revealing anything of Manet's inner workings.
The situation is different with The Burial , created between 1867 and 1870 , in which Manet presumably shows the funeral procession of his friend Charles Baudelaire . This is followed by various graphic works from 1871 depicting scenes from the time of the Paris Commune . About ten years later the picture The Suicide was created , which may be traced back to Baudelaire's poem La Corde . The picture shows a man dressed in evening wear lying on the bed, shot with a gun in his hand. It is not known whether Manet considered suicide for himself, given his massively deteriorating health during the last few years of his life.
Both in Manet's letters and in the statements of his contemporaries it becomes clear that Manet was subject to considerable mood swings towards the end of his life. On the one hand, he resigned that the success that had gradually set in in the salon would now come too late for him, on the other hand, he kept making plans for new projects. Like many of Manet's still lifes, the painting Dead Eagle Owl stands for transience. In contrast to the flower pictures, the relation to death becomes clear in this picture. However, this contrasts with the lively painting style of the picture.
Provenance
The painting Dead Eagle Owl was in the artist's studio after Manet's death on April 30, 1883 and was given the number 83 in the estate inventory. At the auction of his works on February 4 and 5, 1884 in the Paris auction house Hôtel Drouot , the collector de la Narde bought the painting for 380 francs . Later it was in the L.–H. Devillez and in a further collection not known by name in Brussels. On November 27, 1948, the painting was offered at an auction at the Giroux gallery in Brussels (catalog no. 39). The painting finally made it onto the Swiss art market through the art dealers Seligmann in Paris and Christoph Bernoulli in Basel. Bernoulli sold it to Emil Georg Bührle in 1955 for 100,000 Swiss francs . After the collector's death the following year, the painting initially remained in the family's possession. This transferred the painting Dead Eagle Owl and seven other works by Manet together with a large part of the deceased's collection to the Foundation EG Bührle Collection , which has been accessible as a museum since 1960.
literature
- Edouard Manet: Letters . German translation by Hans Graber, Benno Schwabe Verlag, Basel 1933.
- Hans Jucker, Theodor Müller, Eduard Hüttinger: Collection Emil G. Bührle . Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich 1958.
- A. and T. Brachert, Klutzen, Reidemeister, Vey, Vignau-Wilberg, Zehmisch: Emil G. Bührle Collection Foundation . Artemis, Munich and Zurich 1973. ISBN 3-7608-0325-3
- Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein : Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné . Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris and Lausanne 1975.
- Peter Hughes, Penny Stamp: French Art from the Davies Legacy . National Museum of Wales, Cardiff 1982, ISBN 0-7200-0237-0
- Françoise Cachin , Charles S. Moffett , Juliet Wilson-Bareau : Manet 1832–1833 . Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris 1983, ISBN 2-7118-0230-2
- Bührle, Dumas, Duparc, Hahnloser-Ingold, Moffett, Prather, Deton Smith, Stevens, Tomlinson: Masterpieces from the Emil G. Bührle Collection, Zurich . Artemis, Munich and Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-7608-1029-2
- George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings . Harry N. Abrams, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8109-4391-3
- Ina Conzen: Edouard Manet and the Impressionists . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2002, ISBN 3-7757-1201-1
- Maria Teresa Benedetti: Manet . Skira, Milan 2005, ISBN 88-7624-472-7
- Lukas Gloor , Sylvie Wuhrmann: Chefs-d'ouvre de la Bührle collection . La Bibliothèque des arts, Lausanne 2017, ISBN 978-2-88453-207-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ German title according to Ina Conzen's exhibition catalog: Edouard Manet and the Impressionists pp. 152 and 240. Other titles used in German-language literature, such as The Great Horned Uhu or Eagle Owl , may be due to translation errors from English-language literature.
- ^ French title according to the catalog raisonné by Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné , Paris and Lausanne 1975 Volume 1 No. 377.
- ^ Hans Jucker, Theodor Müller, Eduard Hüttinger: Collection Emil G. Bührle. Page 102.
- ^ Hans Jucker, Theodor Müller, Eduard Hüttinger: Collection Emil G. Bührle. Page 102.
- ^ Ina Conzen: Edouard Manet and the Impressionists, pp. 152–153.
- ↑ Edouard Manet: Letters, page 105.
- ↑ Edouard Manet: Letters, page 106.
- ^ A. and T. Brachert, Klutzen, Reidemeister, Vey, Vignau-Wilberg, Zehmisch: Foundation Collection Emil G. Bührle, page 110.
- ↑ George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings, page 142.
- ↑ Peter Hughes, Penny stamp: French art from the Davies legacy, page 28.
- ^ Bührle, Dumas, Duparc, Hahnloser-Ingold, Moffett, Prather, Deton Smith, Stevens, Tomlinson: Masterpieces from the Emil G. Bührle Collection, Zurich, page 100.
- ^ Bührle, Dumas, Duparc, Hahnloser-Ingold, Moffett, Prather, Deton Smith, Stevens, Tomlinson: Masterpieces from the Emil G. Bührle Collection, Zurich, page 100.
- ↑ George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings, page 11.
- ^ A. and T. Brachert, Klutzen, Reidemeister, Vey, Vignau-Wilberg, Zehmisch: Foundation Collection Emil G. Bührle. Page 110.
- ^ Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné, Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris and Lausanne 1975.
- ↑ George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings, page 12.
- ^ Bührle, Dumas, Duparc, Hahnloser-Ingold, Moffett, Prather, Deton Smith, Stevens, Tomlinson: Masterpieces from the Emil G. Bührle Collection, Zurich, page 100.
- ↑ George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings. Page 142, the flower vase is listed in the catalog raisonné Rouart / Wildenstein with no. 266, the watering can with no. 348.
- ↑ George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings. Page 142.
- ^ Ina Conzen: Edouard Manet and the Impressionists, page 153.
- ^ Charles S. Moffett in Cachin, Moffett, Wilson Bareau: Manet 1832-1833. Page 98.
- ↑ Lukas Gloor, Sylvie Wuhrmann: Chefs-d'ouvre de la collection Bührle , p. 184.
- ^ Bührle, Dumas, Duparc, Hahnloser-Ingold, Moffett, Prather, Deton Smith, Stevens, Tomlinson: Masterpieces from the Emil G. Bührle Collection, Zurich, page 233.
