Art as the Erotic

Edouard Manet’s Dejeuner sur l'herbe was immediately met with crticism by the Salon, and would in fact become the focal point of the heavily criticized Salon des Refuses in 1863. But why was this painting met with such tribulation and given the moniker “taboo”? It was sexually confrontational.

Manet ascribed the painting’s composition to a now lost tapestry by the master Raphael – two men gathered next to a naked Venus. Yet, we aren’t observing a Venus, which was Manet’s exquisite subversion. We find our subversion in the nakedness of the model at the left foreground, mind the distinction between naked and nude. She is a woman, one that you could find walking the streets in Paris, and she is looking directly at us. It is her confrontational gaze that offers us a matter-of-fact description about her sexual desire. And, it begs the question, not what, but who is for lunch?