[MUSIC PLAYING] STEVEN ZUCKER: We're in the
Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and we're looking at one
of my favorite paintings by Edouard Manet, "In
the Conservatory." Now, a conservatory
is like a greenhouse. It would be attached to a home,
and would allow for plants to survive the winter. BETH HARRIS: And the woman who
takes up most of the painting seems like a hothouse
flower herself. I mean, look at
her dress and hat. STEVEN ZUCKER: She was actually
the owner of a boutique, and so fashion was
important to her. And it's a wonderful
sort of reminder of the way in which
Paris had become such a showplace
for the bourgeoisie. Being observed and observing
were critically important activities, especially
for somebody like Manet. BETH HARRIS: She has
that air about her, of being above it all. STEVEN ZUCKER: She
does seem detached. BETH HARRIS: I read it as
her aloofness and his desire for intimacy. The center almost
literally is their hands, hers casually draped on
the back of this bench, but his holding a cigar, which
seems to inch towards her. STEVEN ZUCKER: She
looks out past him. And so you're absolutely right. She's the object
of his attention, perhaps of his
desire, and she seems to be elsewhere completely. That man is her
husband, Jules Gamet. BETH HARRIS: Typical of Manet. We have this open brushwork,
this loose handling of paint. STEVEN ZUCKER: You're right. This kind of speed
with which his hand is moving across the
surface of the canvas. I love the way that
the bench functions as a barrier between
them, except of course, at its top, where the
hands almost meet. BETH HARRIS: And so
often, Manet does give us a sense of the momentary,
the sense of something caught by our eye. And I almost have
that sense here, as though we were walking
by and caught this moment. STEVEN ZUCKER: Formally, the
painting is so interesting. She looks off to the right. And although we
don't have a sense that she's looking at
something specific, we do see her gaze
enter an area that we don't have available to us. The man is looking at her, but
we can't quite see his eyes. In Manet's usual
way, there is a kind of flattening that
takes place here. The figures are very
close to the foreground, and the verticals of
the back of the bench help to emphasize, through their
rhythm, the 2-dimensionality of the surface. The relative lack
of differentiation in the greens in the
background and the foliage created an even field and
a kind of shallow space. BETH HARRIS: And
it's this flatness. And it's also the
problems in the narrative that I think would have
upset 19th century viewers. Most academic paintings
would've offered us a narrative that was
entirely understandable. And this one just isn't. We can't firmly say what's
going on with these figures. We don't know what just
outside the frame to the right. STEVEN ZUCKER: So there's
this kind of ambiguity, not only in the
style of painting, but there's a kind of ambiguity
in the relationship, as well. All of which was antithetical
to the strong narratives of the Academy. This illegibility is such
a beautiful expression of the ambiguity of modern life. And Manet was one
of the first artists to recognize this and make
this central to his art. [MUSIC PLAYING]