Music in the Tuileries Gardens
- Artist: Edouard Manet
- Date: 1862
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
Music in the Tuileries Gardens by Edouard Manet. Painted in 1862, this was Manet's first major painting of contemporary life in Second Empire Paris and an early example of his interest in urban leisure.
The scene depicts a wealthy and fashionable crowd gathered under chestnut trees in the Tuileries Gardens to listen to one of the twice-weekly concerts given there. The group has an almost courtly feel, and includes many artists and intellectuals. We see Manet himself standing at the far left, holding a cane, his body cut by the edge of the canvas and partly obscured by the man in front of him.
The painting also functions as a group portrait of Manet and his family, friends, and associates. You'll notice figures like Comte Albert de Balleroy, the novelist Champfleury, Zacharie Astruc, and Madame Lesjosne, who hosted salons that brought together many of these individuals.
Manet's use of technique here is particularly innovative. He paints the crowd with great economy and precision, distributing the figures across the picture as if in a frieze but without an obvious focal point. The brushwork is visible, and the painting has a sketchy, allusive quality to it.
This work can be seen as a response to Baudelaire's call for images of transient beauty within contemporary urban life. Manet's innovative technique and choice of subject both contribute to his status as one of the leading figures in modern art at this time.
See it in person
Music in the Tuileries Gardens hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
