Arranging the Model
36" x 46"
1988
Collection of Toshiko Connor
There are two intruders in this painting. As usual, I am the unseen one cheerfully disrupting the compositions of great artists, in this case ignoring the train station glimpsed through the bars and shattering the lovely, taut balance that bound the seated woman and the child. I've brought in another fellow, whose relation to them is not at all clear. Manet was breaking ground again; the original was the first plein air Impressionist painting shown in a Salon. I imagined Manet himself, acting like the director of a film or a photo shoot, stepping into the scene at the last minute to arrage the hair of the model, once again the indispensable Victorine Meurent. I found the artist's look-alike in another Manet paitning in which he was originally holding a cigar in his left hand.
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