Naked sandwich. When I was growing up I had a collection of Famous Paintings stamps- a gallery of 30 tiny masterpieces, fit for a Barbie house’ living room. I liked how under a magnifying glass the print on the stamps dissolved into pointillistic mess, also known as Benday Dots. One of the stamps depicted my favourite painting- Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass. It seemed like an obviously winning combo- the great outdoors, fresh air, food… The absurd presence of a naked woman only gave it gravitas and a confirmation that the world of grown ups didn’t make sense. Seemingly, it was specially true of 19c France. So when I heard recently The Royal Academy was mounting a Manet exhibition I, and my good friend Pat, obviously had to check it out.

“Luncheon on the Grass” (French “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe”), originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sandwich ethos. Have you noticed how, in terms of its ethos, the Royal Academy has sandwiched itself between Tate Britain and Tate Modern? Tate Britain puts on what used to be the cutting edge and controversial in its day. Tate Modern is keeping with its title and would not do anything less than eyebrow-raising. The Royal Academy is somewhere in between. Gross generalisation, I know. And still, a show of a grand master like Manet would needs to have popular items, as well as the more quirky works- exactly what they had at Portraying Life…

Art at night. I love going to the Royal Academy on late Friday night openings. In contrast to a Saturday during a high profile exhibition –respectful but determined bone-crashing efforts from the patrons to get up close and personal with the paintings- after 8pm on a Friday there’re very rarely ticket queues, no need to fight your way through the rooms full of tourists discussing where they’ll be having their dinner, and there’s no-one breathing down your neck when crowded around the star exhibit.

Also love the contrast between the chaotic Piccadilly with its shops (yes, I’m thinking of you Fortnums) and markets and endless traffic, and the contrast with the almost ritualistic hush of the Royal Academy. You can really just forget shopping for a moment. Its great!

Life and Love. So the exhibition title Portraying Life– doesn’t really mean anything- one hopes all art portrays life in some shape or form. Its like releasing an album Love in Song – give me a song which is not about love and I’ll give you the stars, because that does not exist. Here we had loosely selected works -some of which Manet didn’t want to exhibit and or weren’t commissioned. Thus alongside a portrait of Zola and one of the smaller versions of Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, there are those which had never been exhibited in his lifetime.

So, they were meant to reflect life around the artist more directly than the works he did exhibit and/or got paid for. Did I get this right, or could I say that Manet was true to life whether he was paid for his work or not?

May be by Life RA meant to focus on the intimate. It was still a great excuse to see live Manet- he’s so good at getting close and personal, his portraits are almost claustrophobic. How un-British of him to invade his sitter’s personal space! Compare and contrast with his contemporary John Singer Sargent (an American)- cool and stylish sitters, classy milieu.

I loved the photograph-like informality and composition in The Horsewoman or the many studies of his wife. In the crazy chaos of bohemian artistic Paris she must’ve looked like a pillar of stability.