Olympia
1867
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Edouard Manet
Édouard Manet didn’t have much time to make his mark—he died at 51—but he used every year.
See the richer artist page1867
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Olympia is a 1867 by Edouard Manet, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A pale woman lies on white sheets, staring straight at you. A black cat arches its back at the foot of the bed. A servant holds a bouquet of flowers behind her. This isn’t a goddess or a myth—it’s a real woman in 1860s Paris, and she knows you’re looking. The flat colors and sharp outlines shocked people used to soft, dreamy nudes. Manet painted her like a person, not a fantasy. If you want to see how other artists handled the female nude, look up *chiaroscuro*—the way light and shadow shape the body.
When Edouard Manet’s painting Olympia was exhibited in Paris in 1865, it was met by the critics and general public with jeers, laughter, criticism, and distain. Manet had depicted his model, Victorine Meurent, as a modern day courtesan, confrontational rather than seductive. Manet’s depiction of a prostitute’s body in a contemporary setting was a radical rejection of the idealized beauty of the traditional female nude. Olympia forced recognition of troubled and contradictory attitudes toward prostitution in the mid-19th century, much to the discomfort of contemporary audiences. The artist…
Manet's model, Victorine Meurent, was herself a successful painter who showed her work at Paris's salon.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Édouard Manet didn’t have much time to make his mark—he died at 51—but he used every year.
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