Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!

    Do I have your attention yet?  On Monday, March 22, at 6:30 p.m., the Wassenberg Art Center will present a program titled “Multi-Chocolated:  A historical journey into the wonders of chocolate.”  Karen Koch will delve into everything chocolate, from history to health benefits -- including the pairing of chocolate with wine.  (A few samples will be available for all to enjoy.)  The cost is $10 for members or $15 for non-members.  It’s going to be a fun evening!  Preregistration and prepayment are required.  If you have questions, please call 419.238.6837 (toll free 1.888.238.3837) or e-mail wassenberg@embarqmail.com.

    In April, we’ll be moving back to evening class hours.  April 6, 13, 20 and 27 we will offer “Fun with Ink and Watercolor”.  The cost is $45 for members or $55 for non-members.  You will need to bring some of your own supplies.  For more information, contact the art center, or visit our website at www.vanwert.com/wassenberg.

    The Ohio Watercolor Society Exhibit is back.  We are currently hanging the show and will open it on Sunday, March 7.  It will run through March 27.  Exhibit hours will be 1-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday (closed Mondays) and admission is free.  This annual exhibit features 40 of the top paintings chosen by the OWS this year to travel throughout the state.  The OWS exhibit is sponsored by Central Insurance and Purmort Brothers Insurance Agency.  For a full schedule of exhibits, visit www.vanwert.com/wassenberg, or contact the art center to have one sent to you.

    Our hours of operation may vary while we are between exhibits, so please leave an answering machine message or e-mail if you cannot reach someone right away.  Hope to see you Sunday!

    The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington St., Van Wert, Ohio.  It is a not-for-profit community art center supported by grants, donations, sponsorships, and memberships.  Call, e-mail or write for more information.

The railway without a train

    Photo caption:  “The Railway,” also known as “The Gare Saint-Lazare,” by Manet.

    “You ask me, where the devil can the railway be in the painting ‘The Railway.’  Where is it?  By Jove!  There, in this smoke which leaves its modern gray trail on the canvas... the smoke is enough for me.” (Jacques de Biez in his 1884 lecture on Edouard Manet)

    The Gare Saint-Lazare is the second busiest train station in Paris, handling 274,000 passengers each day.  In the 1870s Impressionist artist Edouard Manet (1832-1883) (not to be confused with that other great Impressionist, Claude Monet) lived so close to the station that the trains rattled his windows.  “We make our way into the studio,” wrote a newspaper reporter who visited, “--a huge room paneled in old, dark oak...the train passes close by, sending up plumes of white smoke that swirl and eddy in the air.  The ground constantly shakes under one’s feet like the deck of a ship in full sail.”  (Fervaques, “Le Figaro,” 27 December 1873.) 

    It is no wonder Manet felt compelled to capture the excitement of the railway station in paint.  However, his painting “The Railway” (popularly known as “The Gare Saint-Lazare”) caused quite a sensation when it was first exhibited at the 1874 Paris Salon because it was so different from the kind of paintings people were used to. 

    Manet wanted to paint the beauty of ordinary life rather than paint perfect (but unrealistic) ideals.  “You must be of your time and paint what you see,” he said.  Rather than painting a romanticized picture of the railway station, he painted an everyday scene that expressed the experience of being near the station when a train came in.

    Manet painted the picture from a position in the back yard of a friend’s apartment house, looking across the railway tracks through an iron fence to the street on the other side.  The door and windows on the upper left corner are those of his own studio.  The train itself is hidden by the great cloud of steam it puts out as it chugs into the station.  A little girl stands looking through the fence with her back to us, fascinated by the noise and activity.  Next to her a pretty young woman with a sleeping puppy in her lap looks up from her book.

    In this painting, Manet is concerned with the effects of light and shadow.  He contrasts the woman’s dark dress and the dark iron bars with the great cloud of white steam and the little girl’s bright clothing, which echoes the steam in its white and airy appearance.  The colors are strong and lovely.   The young woman looks directly at the viewer, as if we have just walked into the scene.  We can almost imagine the fresh air, the warm sunlight, the hiss of steam, and the rattle and clatter from the train in the background.

    The little girl is the daughter of a fellow artist.  The young woman is Victorine Meurent, Manet’s favorite model during the 1860s. He felt that her healthy, unconventional beauty was the perfect counterpoint to the frail, romanticized females so common in paintings of the time. 

    Today, we can appreciate the beauty and emotion of Manet’s painting.  But in 1874 people were used to seeing highly finished paintings of idealized, uplifting subjects.  Many Salon visitors and critics were baffled by Manet’s painting.  They couldn’t understand why anyone would want to paint scenes of ordinary life.  The composition was odd, the technique was sketchy, and the picture seemed to have no meaning.  In addition, the woman in the painting wasn’t classically beautiful, the little girl had her back to the viewer, and the puppy was sound asleep.  This was completely contrary to the painting subjects people were used to seeing.

    Caricaturists ridiculed Manet’s painting and newspaper stories made fun of it.  The critics raked Manet over the coals.  “Doubtless he (Manet) belongs to a school which, failing to recognize beauty and unable to feel it, has made a new ideal of triviality and platitude,” said the critic de Hauranne in his review of the Salon exhibit.  Only a few people recognized the artist’s highly sophisticated vision. 

    Manet ignored the criticism.  His goal was to paint truthful pictures of real life, and he didn’t care whether he pleased the critics or not.  On an invitation to an exhibition in his studio, he printed the motto “Faire vrai, laisser dire,” which means, “Be truthful, let people say what they will.” 

    Fortunately, his work gained positive recognition during his lifetime as people became more open to new ideas and art moved away from idealism and toward realism.  The poet Stephane Mallarme spoke for many when he praised Manet as a “bold innovator” who “seems to ignore all that has been done in art by others, and draws from his own inner consciousness ...effects of light incontestably novel.”