Manet was the quintessential "painter of modern life," a phrase coined by his contemporary, the French poet Charles Baudelaire. Although he declined to participate in the Impressionists' group shows, Manet had been a key participant in their gatherings from the beginning.
In 1878-79, he painted a number of scenes set in the Cabaret de Reichshoffen on the Boulevard Rochechouart, where women on the fringe of society freely intermingled with well-heeled gentlemen. The most developed of these, "At the Café," shows an older gentleman and a young woman seated at the counter of the crowded café. An image of the singer is reflected in the mirror on the back wall. In this composition, Manet captures a sense of the fleeting, disjointed quality of the pleasures of Parisian nightlife. The handling of the paint seems rapid, and the figures are crowded into the compact space of the canvas, each one seemingly oblivious of the others. The top-hatted dandy with the walking stick sits next to a despondent young woman, who likely is a prostitute.
When exhibited at the gallery of "La Vie Moderne" in 1880, this work was praised by some for its unflinching reality and criticized by others for its apparent crudeness.
[Oil on canvas, 47.3 x 39.1 cm]
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