I remember watching an Open University programme about this painting years ago. The professor presenting it made a lot of the fact that it isn't a true reflection, i.e. the customer is in front of the barmaid in the mirror but doesn't actually appear in the foreground.
Nothing about the picture is a mistake. It's a whole pile of products and labels arranged as a bunch of "still lifes", the lowest level in the "hierarchy of genres", framing a portrait of - who?.
Manet has even signed it on a bottle label (at the left). Bass? Famous for it's label trademark. It's also, famously, a picture of a reflection.
It's not a picture of beer - except perhaps of beer as artifice, as product.
Bitter? You'd be pretty sour-faced too if you had to wear a corset as tight as that.
ReplyDeleteShe'll cheer up once she's had some Bass.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why I ordered that octuple gin with the roses in.
ReplyDeleteApparently this was faked up in his studio, so there's no evidence the actual bar served Bass at all. (Though it probably did …)
ReplyDeleteI remember watching an Open University programme about this painting years ago. The professor presenting it made a lot of the fact that it isn't a true reflection, i.e. the customer is in front of the barmaid in the mirror but doesn't actually appear in the foreground.
ReplyDeleteMatt, nit-picking arsehole. The professor. Take that approach and you can pick oles in most art.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are bottles of Bass there. Why look any deeper?
Of course the painting is a true reflection. It's what the man in the mirror is seeing.
ReplyDeleteNothing about the picture is a mistake. It's a whole pile of products and labels arranged as a bunch of "still lifes", the lowest level in the "hierarchy of genres", framing a portrait of - who?.
ReplyDeleteManet has even signed it on a bottle label (at the left). Bass? Famous for it's label trademark. It's also, famously, a picture of a reflection.
It's not a picture of beer - except perhaps of beer as artifice, as product.
Or something.