Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Edouard Manet - The Balcony - Google Art Project.jpg

The Balcony by Edouard Manet

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Original – On the balcony are depicted to the left is Berthe Morisot, who became in 1874 the wife of Manet's brother, Eugène. In the centre is the painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is violinist Fanny Claus.

Reason

It is an important and well known painting made 1868 by Édouard Manet. It was one of the paintings that together with Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe), painted 1863 marked the beginning of the impressionism. It is considered inovative and iconic and it went against the conventions. When exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869, it was considered unusual. It depicts among others Berthe Morisot, Manet's favourite model 'for the first time. She was a painter herself, and Édouard Manet's syster in law.
The Museé d'Orsay describes the painting:

The painting tells no story or anecdote; the protagonists are frozen, as if isolated in an interior dream, evidence that Manet was freeing himself from academic constraints, despite the obvious reference to Goya's Majas at the Balcony. At its presentation at the 1869 Salon, this enigmatic group portrait was overwhelmingly misunderstood.[1]

The contrast of colors with the background completely black, the white faces and clothes, the blue tie of the man, and the green railings bold green drew much attention, at the time when the public was used to the dull academic paintings and their style.

Articles in which this image appears

The Balcony (painting), (own article) Western painting, (lead picture) Luncheon in the Studio, Édouard Manet and List of paintings by Édouard Manet

FP category for this image

Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Artwork/Paintings

Creator

Édouard Manet

• Support as nominator – Hafspajen (talk) 22:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support: Notable for its history alone and this is indeed a fine painting. Fylbecatulous talk 00:20, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support - Good scan, interesting work. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support - Historical work.--Godot13 (talk) 00:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support - Very nice (I particular like the shadowy figure of Leon Leenhoff making cocktails in the background. Absinthe Daiquiri anyone?) Belle (talk) 12:37, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Promoted File:Edouard Manet - The Balcony - Google Art Project.jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 02:30, 7 October 2014 (UTC)