Music in the Tuileries Garden

Édouard Manet painted this scene of Parisian social life in 1862, creating what scholars call "the earliest true example of modern painting in both subject matter and technique." A fashionable crowd gathers in the Tuileries Gardens for one of the twice-weekly concerts, though notably, no musicians appear in the composition.

The painting contains numerous portraits of Manet's circle, including the poet Charles Baudelaire and members of the artist's family. Manet himself stands at the far left, his figure partly cut by the canvas edge. Rather than idealize his subjects, he captured the casual disorder of modern leisure. The compressed space and seemingly random arrangement shocked viewers accustomed to traditional composition.

This work now hangs at the National Gallery in London, jointly owned with The Hugh Lane in Dublin. The painting's influence spread to Monet, Renoir, and Bazille, who painted similar crowd scenes. As writer Émile Zola observed, rarely were Manet's powers as an "analytic painter" displayed more dazzlingly than here.