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Audio Stop 620

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Against a hilly landscape and on a patch of dirt, five people wearing tattered clothing gather around a bearded man who holds a violin in his lap in this horizontal painting. Most of them have pale skin. Starting from the left is a barefoot young woman holding a blond baby to her chest. She faces our right, and her chestnut-brown hair hides her profile. She wears a black shirt over a calf-length skirt streaked with slate and aquamarine blue. To the right two young boys face us. The boy on the left of that pair wears a loose white shirt tucked into tan-colored pants and an upturned wide-brimmed hat. The boy next to him has short brown hair and is dressed in a black and brown vest and pants over a bone-white shirt. His right arm, to our left, is slung across the shoulders of the blond boy and he looks off to our right with dark, unfocused eyes. The man who holds the violin is to our right of center. He sits on a stone with his body facing our left, but he turns to look at us with dark eyes under heavy brows. He has tan skin, dark gray, curly hair, and a trimmed silvery gray beard. A wrinkle under one eye suggests he may smile slightly at us. He wears a loose brown cloak with a ragged bottom hem, teal-blue stockings, and black shoes. He holds a violin on his lap like a guitar. One hand fingers a chord on the neck of the violin, which comes toward us, and the other hand holds the bow and plucks a string. A sand-colored bag with a strap lies at his feet. Two men stand to our right of the musician. One wears a tall black top hat, a brown cloak, gray pants, and black shoes. His face is loosely and indistinctly painted but he has a beard. Finally, the sixth person is a man who stands along the right side of the painting and is cut off by that edge. He wears a turban, a black polka-dotted scarf, and a long black cloak or coat. One hand clutches the scarf and the other rests on a wooden cane by his side. His chin and long, light-colored beard tuck back against the scarf, and he looks off to our left with dark eyes. There are loosely painted olive and forest-green leaves in the upper left corner. The landscape beyond is painted with indistinct areas of muted green, blue, and brown. Bits of azure-blue sky peek through puffy white and gray clouds overhead. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “ed. Manet 1862.”

Edouard Manet

The Old Musician, 1862

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 89

Read full audio transcript

EDOUARD MANET, THE OLD MUSICIAN

ACTOR: OLD MUSICIAN

   Bonjour! May I play you a tune?

         [violin music]

ACTOR: OLD MUSICIAN

         My name is Jean Lagrene. I was a street musician in Paris, a hundred years ago. I earned my living performing for passers-by. I also worked as a model for artists, like the painter Edouard Manet who made this picture. If not for him, I might have been forgotten.

FEMALE NARRATOR

         Take a closer look at the people who have gathered around the old musician. Find the barefoot girl holding a baby. Beside her are two young boys, one with his arm around the other. A man in a dark cape and top hat watches from behind. And to the far right stands an elderly man with a white beard and long dark top coat. What a strange group of people to find together in a painting. What could this painting be about?

         Artist Edouard Manet was interested in capturing the modern world around him. Regularly walking about Paris, he often used people from everyday life as models for his work. And, his paintings chronicle the changes taking place in the French capital, which, at the time, was being transformed into a grand city with tree-lined boulevards, beautiful buildings, and new restaurants and cafes. But you don’t see any of them here! That’s because Manet is showing the less glamorous side of modern life, painting people from a poor area on the edge of Paris. The old musician plays for passers-by, hoping for money.

      [sound effect: coins clanking]

ACTOR: OLD MUSICIAN

      Merci.

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