Where Time Meets a Mirror.

Un bar aux Folies Bèrgere (1882)
Édouard Manet
Courtauld Institute of Art London

(Lines and circles added by me for a better understanding)

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A lot is said about the Un bar aux Folies Bergère. I have seen this artwork three times already and probably will visit the Courtauld Gallery in London again during my next visit. Even though it is wildly discussed, I want to give it a go as well. It is worth it because the more often we allow ourselves to dive into a piece of art we love the more it seems to reveal to us.

The experts say the scene we see at Un bar aux Folies Bergère is two zones, reality and illusion. They also say it is one viewpoint we share with the man, but two moments. They do say two moments, logical but not chronological. But if you ask me, they are entirely chronological. It is the same evening; Suzon and the man know each other better than they should. Over the evening, something extraordinary happens between them. Something that might have felt like a bit like gamechanger in their relation to each other.

To go into that we should start with a point in the painting nobody started before. I do think the story the paining tells starts with a man on the balcony. Try to find the man with the top hat who sits directly under the dangling legs of the trapeze artist, I circled him purple. I’m certain, this is the man who stands, at another time of the same evening, in front of thr girl at the bar, Suzon. Look at him. The faces of the audience’s people are quite blurry, but at him, and only him, we can make out a slightly clearer face with a mustache. No other man on the balcony is painted in that clearer way. And why does he sit under the legs? Wouldn’t you look up if an acrobat is performing in the air above you? Isn’t there some jolly noise to get the people attracted? Well, nobody in the venue reacts. Instead, the man is fixating Suzon. Feels odd, right? Manet wants us to notice him through this oddness. That’s why I made the purple connection and line between the circus artist and that man. The man is part of a society that ‘uses’ Suzon. He enjoys the evening with all entertainments like music, drinking, clowns, girls. He should have fun, another point why he is placed under bright green shoes on funny legs. My point is, that he as he sits there he  cannot immediately go to the barmaid because he is with other people of his circle. Or, another suggestion, the two of them have already met. Either way, the key holder of what is going on in this work is not Suzon as you would expect, it is the man. The man on the balcony is the man in the mirror’s reflection.

A question was raised all those years whether the mysterious man at the bar is Manet. I think it is. I thought about it for some time and considered it unimportant, but there is something interesting about it. I come back to it later. For now, let’s go back to our story.

Suzon. Let her have her moment. As she stands before us behind the bar’s counter, she looks beautiful. Meticulously even in her appearance.  Her hair is done, combed and shiny. Her face is made up, rouge on her cheeks and mascara on her lashes. I noticed she is not wearing lipstick. Her lips have that beautiful natural tone. Hence, her face looks fresh and rosy, not heavily ‘painted’ with make-up. Not particularly barmaid- like, is she? Her ears are adorned with small golden earrings; the pearls play with the lighting of the bar. Around her neck we see a necklace, a kind of locket, also golden, on a broad velvet band. On her arm she wears a golden bangle, beautifully classic but with an engraving that points to us. Her dress is dark, tailored, with a low, square-cut neckline. We see a row of buttons down her front that have the shape of flowers. The dark colour of her velvet dress is softened by a trimmed delicate white lace on the collar and cuffs. The structured bodice contrasts with the delicacy of the lace. She looks very feminine and stunning in this with the exposed décolletage and the playful details.

The next thing I want to direct your attention to is the Suzon in the mirror reflection. What a discrepancy if we look closely! Where has all the beauty, the neatness gone? Her hair suddenly looks untidy, especially the part where it is put together with pins. Her dress looks slightly shabbier, not so well fitted anymore. And, where are her earrings? Please zoom in, she is not wearing her earrings in the mirror reflection. Manet painted this girl remarkably unlike the Suzon who looks at us. The brushstrokes at the back of her dress or her hair in the reflection, to give you examples, show such a different technique. Why is that? Let’s explore that!

I think the distinctions we see between the real Suzan and the one in the mirror reflection do indeed show different moments. Well, that is nothing new I hear you say. It was already said. Right, but what moments do they show? I think it is not enough to say it is, in total, the encounter when the man ordered his drinks as one moment and what was said between them during this engagement was another. I do believe there is a much bigger gap of time than we assumed between what we see in the reflection and the Suzon in front of us. Two different points in time during the same evening. The man, when at the bar to meet Suzon, is not there when we are. He was there long before we even decided to fancy a drink ourselves. How so?

With our eyes, we can wander along the mirror frame behind the back of the Suzon that we in our position as the viewer see. I drew the blue line on the mirror frame. Manet painted the broad golden frame not only as a functional frame. It also serves as a divider of those two situations in timing. It is intentional that the thick golden border is so prominent.  The Suzon who is with us in our space of time stands before that border; the Suzon the man had met at another time is inside the border. It is, of course, a mirror frame and technically correct, but it is a pretty smart idea to emphasise that meaning. The golden line provides continuity where space, viewpoint and perhaps even time no longer do. Manet allows Suzon, the customer, and even us, to inhabit different visual states and times, while this single horizontal line holds all of us within one picture. How clever and binding!

What happens between the man and the girl? They do interact, yet they are definitely not talking beverages or snack business. It is a very intimate moment that has nothing to do with what we see from our point. She is leaning forwards, animated, telling him something intense. He is silent, just listening. Given her slightly frumpy appearance, I think he might have been at the bar before everyone else arrived. A quiet moment before the bar opens and  without any nosy people around. I would explain his early arrival with the point that Suzon is not yet properly made up. She is not ready yet, that’s why she has untidy hair, a crumpled dress, and missing earrings. Or, another possibility, she is not ready anymore. Imagine this. She was fully made up- hair, dress, face all beautifully done. The man arrives early enough to meet her before the venue fills with people and the shoving and pushing at the bar begins. Did they hug each other? Did they kiss? Can the state of the hair and dress result from physical contact? I came to this thought because Suzon does not wear lipstick when she is all dressed up. In the sketches Manet made previous to this painting we see a barmaid with deep-red lipstick. Why not on Suzon in his final work? Because it was perhaps important to Manet that it was kissed off? And the earrings, can it be that Suzon received the earrings as a love gift from the man just that very evening? Did she put them on for the first time when she eventually got ready for her work and the man was walking to his seat?

My point is that we as the viewer arrive at the bar when the man is already gone. We see a Suzon whose face is difficult to read, but her posture tells us something. Both hands are placed far apart on the counter. This is a very powerful gesture; it makes her appear very present but also enclosed. She is so in thoughts that we would have to wait for our turn until she notices us. Although she is still 'with' the man in her mind, preoccupied with what was spoken or done between them. She looks like she is dwelling in whatever they were engaged about. No lipstick, I need to point that out again. I believe she didn’t put it on because she is still lost in reverie and does not want the feeling of the kiss to go away. A layer of fresh lipstick would destroy that, and she wants to protect the kissing moment. The world around her is unstable and loud but Suzon is not. She is confident and quiet.  We meet her after she had served the man, well after that moment in fact, when he has already taken his seat to proceed with the entertainment. He is watching her; he also cannot so easily forget his turn with Suzon before the evening even began.

Was it Manet? That question remains. Manet sends us round, a carousel of moments in time. Look at the collection of bottles on the counter. They also go round. I read Manet was critisised for how the items were placed, he didn’t get the reflections and order of the bottles right. And of course he didn’t! The bottles ‘move’ as the storyline moves. From our point, on the lower left, we can see the group of bottles on the counter with Manet’s signature on the Rosé (my red circle). Neat and clear to read. He easily could have signed the painting at the bottom corners, couldn’t he? He didn’t. He didn’t because Manet maybe was the man. The bottle is facing the man (whilst he stood there) and us. With his name on the bottle like that, that little painterly trick, he wanted everyone to know the customer was him. For his social status at the time that was unequal to Suzon’s, he could not yell it out into the world, could he? He used bottles. Let’s proceed. On the counter’s right side there are nearly the same bottles next to the bowl with oranges (orange circle). The Rosé, with presumably Manet’s name on it, is pointing to the man in the mirror. Manet. This bottle also, would she move her gaze a little, allows Suzon to see the name. Last group of bottles, the ones in the mirror behind real Suzon (green circle). The red bottle and probably the name ‘Manet’ is facing the man on the balcony. Manet himself.

So, we find ourselves in several moments of time that happened in one evening: I. The man on the balcony, sometime after he was at the bar. II. The man at the bar with Suzon in conversation, without us and yet with us because Manet has shown us those instants through the mirror. III. We at the bar with an absentminded Suzon, and the man already back on the balcony. That’s the chronology.

If we split the whole scene in two, like I indicated with my vertical blue line through Suzon’s arm, it could be two paintings. And there would still be enough room for interpretation and gossip as it was at the time. Now, in this artwork, Suzon is prominently on the centre line (vertical purple line right through Suzon) to bind us with both moments and both spaces.
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Manet made a masterpiece so intriguing and mysterious that has yet to meet an artwork equally outrageous and unfailingly rich in interpretation.
 

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