{"id":947,"date":"2009-03-25T12:05:06","date_gmt":"2009-03-25T19:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/2009\/03\/25\/manets-bar\/"},"modified":"2022-02-02T03:21:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T10:21:52","slug":"manets-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/2009\/03\/25\/manets-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"Manet’s Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amongst the great benefits of a 1970s higher British education was the complete laxity shown at my school (University College, London) about attendance. Given that I was a mechanical engineering student and realized early on that there was not a living to be made in the subject, I naturally spent most of those three happy years (1973-76) in the art galleries and auction houses of London. As my net worth was my Leica M3 and one pair of jeans, I wasn’t exactly a bidder at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but they let me in anyway and I managed to luxuriate in some of the greatest art works never to see the inside of a museum.<\/p>\n

Of all these great works that became formative influences none surpasses Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re’. It didn’t hurt that it was owned by the Courtauld Institute which just happened to be across the road from my college.<\/p>\n

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\nManet. A Bar at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re. 1882<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n

This is the most intensely photographic of paintings. The use of reflections, the amputated Kermit-like legs of the trapeze artist at top left, the action in the mirror, the sad ‘decisive moment’ look on the barmaid’s face – it’s all there. Best of all, the Courtauld exhibited it under a skylight, meaning that you had a 33% chance of catching the picture at its best (it was raining the other two times) when a beam of sun would illuminate the canvas. The result was magic. You could hear<\/i> the unruly crowds, smell<\/i> the booze and sweat and generally revel in the sheer reality of it all.<\/p>\n

The most photographic of paintings.<\/p>\n

And British beer aficionados amongst you will recognize the red triangles on the bottles on the bar.<\/p>\n


\nAn established brand for a few hundred years now<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n

As for my grades, magna cum laude<\/i> was a perfect ROE (Return On Effort) – six months’ work beating the three years’ worth which a summa<\/i> dictated. A gentleman’s degree!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amongst the great benefits of a 1970s higher British education was the complete laxity shown at my school (University College, London) about attendance. Given that I was a mechanical engineering student and realized early on that there was not a living to be made in the subject, I naturally spent most of those three happy … Continue reading Manet’s Bar<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-painters-and-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36948,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions\/36948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}