"Manet and His Time," the dazzling exhibit which opened this week at the Hood Museum, flaunts three important Impressionist paintings surrounded by gems from the Hood's permanent collection.
Richard Rand, the Hood's Curator of European Art, assembled the exhibit with art history Professor John Jacobus' senior seminar on Impressionism in mind.
"It's a really good example of the Museum working with the academic departments," Rand said.
Instead of viewing Manet's work and its influences on Impressionists as a springboard toward modernism, Rand's critical approach deals with its subject matter. To this end the exhibit is organized thematically, by portraiture, depictions of women and the underclass, and landscape.
The Hood borrowed three significant paintings for the show, including "Portrait of Maguerite de Conflans" (1873) and "Interior at Arachon" (1871) by Manet and "The River Oise near Pontoise" (1873) by Camille Pissarro. Though the Hood's collection lacks Impressionist paintings, it is rich with etchings and lithographs from the era, including works by Cezanne, Renoir, Whistler, Daumier, Tissot and Couture. These complement the paintings and demonstrate Manet's influence over his contemporaries.
The show opens with "Interior at Arachon," an informal indoor scene that Manet probably painted for his own amusement during the Prussian siege of Paris in 1873. Its depiction of a man and woman in a parlor with a view on the sea foreshadows the detached esthetic of modernism.
An edition of miniature posters for the Folies Bergere and the Bal au Moulin Rouge by Jules Cheret are another highlight. The posters' popularity-the public continually stole them from kiosks-led to this color lithograph collector's edition.
Another section of the show deals with Raoul Hausman's famous rennovation of Paris, which left many Parisians homeless and destitute. Depictions of ragpickers and gypsies reflect the artists' observational, journalistic method of walking around town and recording all they saw during this period.
"Manet and His Time" runs until July 10. Jacobus will give a lecture, "Manet Refuse, Manet Retrouve" on Apr. 22 at 5 p.m. in Loew Auditorium.
