Divisions of Manet

Abstract

Throughout Foucault's work references to Manet surface and resurface, sometimes more or less obscure, but always the context of the dawn of modernity, that point history which the objects and discourses that we are today so familiar with first came into existence. Unfortunately, the book that Foucault had planned, Le noir et la couleur, dealing strictly with Manet never came to fruition, and we are left with Foucault's lecture transcripts from presentations given between 1967 and 1971 Milan, Tokyo, Florence, and finally Tunisia. These lectures, published by Seuil and edited by Maryvonne Saison, were effectively given by Foucault under the heading La Peinture de Manet on May 20, 1971 at the Tahar Haddad Club Tunisia.1 Foucault begins the lecture with a series of apologies for his fatigued state, for his inexpertise on both painting and Manet, and his general lack of preparation saying that he will be speaking in profane on the subject. However, this colloquial tone, at times bordering on insouciance (he mistakes the names of several paintings), that Foucault maintains throughout the conference is stark contrast to the content of that which he attributes to Manet's painting. For Manet's work we witness the first stages of a mutation, a fracturing that would entail a reorganization of the spectacle, the spectator, visibility, and invisibility. By associating Manet with the emergence of a new, semi-modern object, which he calls the tableau-objet, Foucault will use Manet's work to illustrate the advent of a new force painting: the force of objecthood that would alter the order of vision. As we shall see, this transformation the functioning of vision is fact a malfunctioning, a temporary moment of blindness, as the canvas transitions from the site of the represented spectacle to its modern role which the picture plane exists as nonrepresentational object, revealing something that cannot be represented. Traditional Representation versus Modern Objecthood To begin, Foucault charts the history of the relationship between paint and canvas as well as the techniques of traditional representational painting since the Renaissance. Through the use of certain lines, lighting, and color, tactics were developed that work to hide the material components of the canvas, that is, its rectangularity, its flatness, and its underlying support structure. These are well-documented artistic techniques including the use of strong oblique lines a painting to create the illusion of depth, drawing the spectator's gaze away from the edges of the picture plane towards the middle where a spectacle is presented. Additionally, the spectacle is lit so as to complement this fictional space, which is to say a lighting that comes from inside the painting, either from above as most Renaissance art or from the side as is popular later Baroque and Rococo works. This has the effect of illuminating a space that is ulterior to our world as it is lit by an ideal source, and although this ideal lighting may flow out into our space, our light of day never penetrates the picture plane. We can see for example Velazquez's Las Meninas all of these techniques at work. In that painting the strongest, boldest line is without doubt the top of the right-hand wall of the salon-a robust line that moves diagonally, cutting across the vertical and horizontal axes of the two-dimensional canvas. It is primarily on the strength of this line that all the depth of the room is opened up to us, and consequently, by creating this deep space which the spectacle of the Infanta will be situated, the flat surface of the picture plane is necessarily masked. In fact, even placing the back stretcher of a canvas the scene and thus representing the supporting architecture of the canvas the picture plane, Velazquez only does so a way that furthers the creation of an ideal space existing independently of the rectangular two-dimensional support structure. …