Edouard Manet. A Bar at the Folies- Bergre. 1881-2. Oil on canvas. 96 x 130 cm.

Courtauld Institue, London

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Edouard Manet painted A Bar at the Folies- Bergre just a couple of years before his death in 1883. He employed the techniques which characterized the Impressionist painters who were becoming more popular during that time in France. Using quick and broad brushstrokes, Manet combines building, still life, and human figures in his painting. The different surfaces such as the velvet coat with lace detail, crystal vases, marble counter, flower petals, orange peel, and different glass bottles covered with foil are done beautifully and realistically with precise attention to where light is reflected. But, for me, what really calls attention is the mirror at the back. It is through this mirror that many questions about the meaning of the work are raised. Usually, a mirrors value is based on how truthfully it can reflect back reality. Once the surface is cracked or deemed distorted, a mirror no longer serves its purpose well. Manets painting counters this notion through the large mirror in his A Bar at the Folies- Bergre which is physically at the far back of the central picture of the painting, but helps the viewer find out what else is going on inside the FoliesBergre. The setting is a theater or concert hall packed with spectators watching some sort of circus performance (note the feet of a trapeze actor on the top left corner), something viewers would not know if the mirror had not been there. Moreover, the mirror enlarges the space which isnt very large if you notice that the space between the counter and wall behind it, where the mirror is, is just a couple of feet. Also, what is reflected in the mirror, which is in front of the figure, becomes the paintings background. In the painting, we have a barmaid in the center, but through the title we know that she is not just any ordinary barmaid. She works at the Folies- Bergre, where the pay is low unless the women make a large sum of money by doing some extra work for their clients. In the local slang, women who worked at this bar were also called vendors of consolation because they did not only sell alcohol to their customers but sexual favors as well (Smith 53-54). Here is a woman that the wealthy Parisian gentleman of the late 19th century often encountered. We can also assume that Manet himself was a regular client for syphilis was his cause of death. Here is a woman who only showed herself late at night when wives and betrotheds are all enjoying books and knitting by their fireplaces at home. However, she has on her face, not an expression of sensuality or a tantalizing stare which one would readily connect to her profession, but a low, sad, and detached expression. Moreover, she gazes not directly at the viewer but lower at ones neck or chest. We can even question whether she pays attention to us at all. It seems as if her mind is far away; perhaps with her family, her lover, or whosever picture she carries in her locket. What her face carries is that total opposite of the ambiance of the place she is in.

She may not be enjoying the atmosphere just as the other women in the balcony roughly reflected by the mirror are, but she is where is and must do what she must. Through the mirror, we can also see a difference between the way her posture is reflected and the way she stands. In the reflection, we see a waitress who is leaning forward very eager attend to her customers needs. Meanwhile, the actual bargirl seems to be clutching the counter as if trying to maintain her balance. She is at the center of the painting and seems in line with all the other items on the counter. This placement presents her as one of the commodities available in the bar. This most likely disturbed the viewers of the painting, the usual white male bourgeoisie- regular customers perhaps. He may consider himself to be a spectator of the scene. Perhaps he has seen his friends in the middle of this kind of transaction. Or, he may step a little bit to the right and realize that he himself is the one making the exchange- that he is reflected customer reflected on of the mirror. However, in either position (stand right in the center or a step to the right), the mirror does not reflect the space as it should. If one would follow the laws of physics the reflections ought to be closer to the middle. And that the red and green bottles on the lower left of the painting are supposed to be reflected in line with each other and not overlapping as if one is behind the other. James H. Rubin writes that no other painting shakes the foundations of both reality and social identity (47). Clearly, there is a disjunction between what is in the room and what is reflected in the mirror; of how one is in private and how one is known in the public realm. Through this defiance of physics and distorted reflection of space, Manet makes a picture of Parisian culture that does stirs its viewer with a sense of uneasiness. This is not simply the painting of a bargirl behind the counter at a concert hall. The male viewer at the gallery become self-conscious as he identifies himself with the customer in the painting and situate himself where the man is, eventually realizing that he is that man in the mirror. It causes one to reflect over the colorful artifices which mask an objectified ad detestable treatment of people- especially women. All this improperness is seen through the mirror which does not function properly.

Works Cited: Rubin, James H. Impressionism. London: Phaidon Press, 1999. Smith, Paul. Impressionism: Beneath the Surface. New York: Perspectives, 1994.