The House at Rueil
The House at Rueil | |
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French: La maison du Rueil | |
Artist | Édouard Manet |
Year | 1882 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 71.5 cm × 92.3 cm (28.1 in × 36.3 in) |
Location | Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany |
The House at Rueil | |
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French: La maison du Rueil | |
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Artist | Édouard Manet |
Year | 1882 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 92.8 cm × 73.5 cm (36.5 in × 28.9 in) |
Location | National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia |
The House at Rueil (La maison du Rueil) is the title of two oil-on-canvas paintings by Édouard Manet completed in 1882. The paintings depict a view of the house where Manet and his family stayed for a few months before his death. The two versions are almost identical, but one is in landscape format, and the other is portrait format. The landscape version measures 71.5 × 92.3 cm and is in the collection of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany, whereas the portrait version measures 92.8 × 73.5 cm and is at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. The composition shows typical characteristics of Impressionism and influenced various painters in the early 20th century who created similar works based on this model.[1]
Overview
The paintings depict the front of a house at Rue du Château No. 18 in Rueil-Malmaison in the suburbs of Paris, in which Manet and his family stayed during the summer (July to October) of 1882. He rented the house from André Labiche, who was possibly a relative of the comedy poet Eugène Labiche. Manet was very ill at the time. From his letters of the period, he suffered from depression and a sense of hopelessness, and indeed he would die less than a year after these paintings were completed. However, despite his infirmity, Manet remained productive and in the same letters complained that inclement weather limited his painting activity.
Manet's portrayal of the house at Rueil was not intended as a faithful architectural rendition but instead is focused only on a section of the front façade of the two-story structure. This view is further limited by a tree trunk that deliberately cuts through the center of the field of view and obscures the entryway to the house, which may or may not be open, with the ambiguity adding to the viewer's attention and appeal. The setting is on a hot summer day with bright sunlight, but with a sense of cooling shade provided by the tree, which extends out of the field of view to the top of the canvas. The walls of the house are light yellow and the window shutters are light blue. In the Berlin version, some shutters are open and others are closed; in the version in Melbourne all the shutters are open. In either version, some of the windows are open; others are closed by window shutters or curtains. In the Berlin version, only part of the dark blue roof can be seen, the rest is cut off from the upper edge of the picture. A lighter shade of blue in the upper left corner could suggest the sky. In the Melbourne version, the picture ends on the second floor; the roof area is completely cut off from the upper edge of the picture. Overall, the version in Melbourne shows a narrower section of the house compared to the Berlin version, especially on the left side, where the Berlin version shows further windows. The Berlin version also shows a bench positioned in front of the house and a garden bench to the right, both of which are missing in the Melbourne version. Both images have a chair to the right of the entry with what appears to be a blanket or coat draped across it.
It is not known which of the two versions of the picture Manet painted first. The authors of the 1975 catalog raisonné, Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein, refer to the portrait version of the Melbourne Museum as “Réplique”, alleging that Manet would have initially executed the landscape format Berlin version. However, the painting in Berlin is unmarked, whereas the version kept in Melbourne is signed and dated, which indicates that Manet considered it to be completed.
See also
References
- ^ "Landhaus in Rueil". Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Retrieved 16 June 2024.
- Scott Allen, Emily A. Beeny, Gloria Groom: Manet and modern beauty, the artist's last years. Art Institute of Chicago und J. Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles 2019–2020, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2019, ISBN 978-1-60606-604-1.
- Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalogue raisonné. Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris und Lausanne 1975.
- Sonia Dean: European paintings of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the National Gallery of Victoria. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1995, ISBN 0-7241-0179-9.
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- List of paintings
- The Barque of Dante (1854–1858)
- Christ the Gardener (1856–1859)
- The Absinthe Drinker (1859)
- Spanish Cavaliers (1859)
- Portrait of Madame Brunet (1860)
- Portrait of Monsieur and Madame Manet (1860)
- The Spanish Singer (1860)
- Boy Carrying a Sword (1861)
- La Nymphe surprise (1861)
- The Street Singer (1862)
- Music in the Tuileries (1862)
- The Old Musician (1862)
- Portrait of Victorine Meurent (1862)
- Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada (1862)
- Little Lange (1862)
- The Luncheon on the Grass (1863)
- La Négresse (1863)
- Olympia (1863)
- Young Man Dressed as a Majo (1863)
- The Dead Man (1864))
- The Bullfight (1864–65)
- The Dead Christ with Angels (1864)
- The Kearsarge at Boulogne (1864)
- The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama (1864)
- The Races at Longchamp (1865)
- Jesus Insulted by the Soldiers (1865)
- Bullfight (1865–66)
- Bullfight – Death of the Bull (1865)
- The Matador Saluting (1866)
- The Fifer (1866)
- A Young Lady in 1866 (1866)
- The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867)
- Portrait of Emile Zola (1868)
- Boy Blowing Bubbles (1868)
- Madame Manet at the Piano (1867–68)
- The Balcony (1868)
- Luncheon in the Studio (1868)
- The Reading (1868)
- The Port of Boulogne by Moonlight (1868)
- Departure of the Folkestone Steamer (1869)
- The Brioche (1870)
- Repose (1870)
- The Funeral (1870)
- Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge (1870)
- Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872)
- Tarring a Boat (1873)
- The Railway (1873)
- The Croquet Game (1873)
- Masked Ball at the Opera House (1873)
- Argenteuil (1874)
- Berthe Morisot with a Fan (1874)
- Claude Monet Painting in his Studio (1874)
- Boating (1874)
- Portrait of Marguerite de Conflans (c. 1876)
- Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé (1876)
- Le Suicidé (1877–1881)
- Nana (1877)
- Plum Brandy (c. 1877)
- The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags (1878)
- Blonde Woman with Bare Breasts (c. 1878)
- Chez Tortoni (c. 1878–1880)
- Georges Clemenceau (Fort Worth) (1879)
- Georges Clemenceau (Paris) (1879)
- Chez le Père Lathuille (1879)
- Portrait of Marguerite Gauthier-Lathuille (1879)
- In the Conservatory (1879)
- Madame Manet in the Conservatory (1879)
- The Waitress (1879)
- Corner of a Café-Concert (1879)
- The Café-Concert (1879)
- Self-Portrait with Palette (1879)
- A Bundle of Asparagus (1880)
- A Sprig of Asparagus (1880)
- Portrait of Countess Albazzi (1880)
- Portrait of Monsieur Pertuiset the Lion-Hunter (1881)
- Dead Eagle Owl (1881)
- The Rabbit (1881)
- Rochefort's Escape (1881)
- Spring (1881)
- Autumn (1882)
- A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)
- The House at Rueil (1882)
- Flowers in a Crystal Vase (1882)
- White Lilacs in a Glass Vase (1882)
- A Studio at Les Batignolles (1870 painting)
- Bazille's Studio (1870 painting)
- The Impressionists (2006 series)