La Musique aux Tuileries

A crowd of fashionable Parisians gathers beneath the trees for a weekly concert, yet not a single musician is in sight. Manet painted his own friends, and himself, into the music of modern life.

The story behind the painting

Édouard Manet painted Music in the Tuileries in 1862. It depicts the gatherings of Parisians at weekly concerts in the Tuileries gardens near the Louvre, and it is an early example of his painterly style, inspired by Frans Hals and Diego Velázquez. It also announces what would become a lifelong interest for him: the subject of leisure. Rather than staging a historical or mythological scene, Manet turned to his own world and filled the canvas with friends: artists, authors and musicians, and himself. Even the furniture was up to date. The iron chairs in the foreground had only just replaced the wooden chairs in the garden that same year. The painting was first exhibited in 1863.

What to look for

Start at the far left, where Manet has painted himself; beside him stands the painter Albert de Balleroy. To their right, seated, is the sculptor and critic Zacharie Astruc. Further in, the bearded Henri Fantin-Latour looks out at you. In the foreground, just right of centre, find Manet's brother Eugène in white trousers. Against a tree on the right sits the composer Jacques Offenbach with glasses and moustache, while the critic Théophile Gautier stands against a tree in a brown suit and full beard, with Charles Baudelaire to his left. The fair-haired child in the centre is Léon Leenhoff. Above, the dark green foliage glows with emerald and Scheele's green, while the children's bonnets flash cobalt blue, vermilion and chrome orange.

Meaning and intent

No musicians appear, yet the painting is full of sound. Some regarded it as unfinished, but its suggested atmosphere lets us imagine the music and the conversation of the gardens at the time. By portraying his social circle instead of classical heroes, historical icons or gods, Manet could be read as challenging the value of those traditional subjects, or as raising his contemporaries to the same level. There is also a musical puzzle. Several of the people depicted were prominent French Wagnerians, which has led to speculation that the music being played might be by Wagner himself. The sources treat this as a suggestion, not a fact.

Legacy

When it was first exhibited, the painting drew substantial attention, most of it negative. Viewers used to the finely detailed brushwork of painters such as Ernest Meissonier found Manet's thick brushstrokes crude and unfinished, and some even threatened to destroy it. One of the few defenders was Eugène Delacroix, one of Manet's idols. Yet it influenced contemporaries such as Monet, Renoir and Bazille to paint large groups of people. Manet sold it to the singer Jean-Baptiste Faure in January 1883, and it later passed to Paul Durand-Ruel and, in 1903, to Sir Hugh Lane. After a disputed will and a 1917 court case, it is today shared by the National Gallery, London, and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.

Le saviez-vous ?

Painted 1862, first exhibited 1863
Includes a self-portrait and portraits of Baudelaire, Gautier, Offenbach and Fantin-Latour
76.2 × 118.1 cm
Shared by the National Gallery, London, and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

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