Edouard Manet's Olympia (1863) is a nude…

Edouard Manet's Olympia (1863) is a nude portrayed in a style reminiscent of early studio photographs, but whose pose is based on Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538).

As he had in Luncheon on the Grass (1863), Manet had again paraphrased a respected work by a Renaissance artist.

The painting is also reminiscent of Francisco Goya's painting The Nude Maja (1800).

Manet had embarked on the canvas after being challenged to give the Salon a nude painting to display.

His uniquely frank depiction of a self-assured prostitute is accepted by the Paris Salon in 1865, where it created a scandal.

According to Antonin Proust, "only the precautions taken by the administration prevented the painting being punctured and torn" by offended viewers. (Manet by Gilles Neret (2003; Taschen).

The painting is controversial partly because the nude is wearing some small items of clothing such as an orchid in her hair, a bracelet, a ribbon around her neck, and mule slippers, all of which accentuate her nakedness, sexuality, and comfortable courtesan lifestyle.

The orchid, upswept hair, black cat, and bouquet of flowers are all recognized symbols of sexuality at the time.

This modern Venus' body is thin, counter to prevailing standards; the painting's lack of idealism rankles viewers.

The painting's flatness, inspired by Japanese wood block art, serves to make the nude more human and less voluptuous.

A fully dressed black servant is featured, exploiting the theory, current at this time, that black people are hyper-sexed.

That she is wearing the clothing of a servant to a courtesan here furthers the sexual tension of the piece.

Olympia's body as well as her gaze is unabashedly confrontational.

She defiantly looks out as her servant offers flowers from one of her male suitors.

Although her hand rests on her leg, hiding her pubic area, the reference to traditional female virtue is ironic; a notion of modesty is notoriously absent in this work.

A contemporary critic denounces Olympia's "shamelessly flexed" left hand, which seemed to him a mockery of the relaxed, shielding hand of Titian's Venus. (Hunter, Dianne. Seduction and theory: readings of gender, representation, and rhetoric. University of Illinois Press, 1989. p. 19.)

Likewise, the alert black cat at the foot of the bed strikes a sexually rebellious note in contrast to that of the sleeping dog in Titian's portrayal of the goddess in his Venus of Urbino.

"Olympia" is the subject of caricatures in the popular press, but is championed by the French avant-garde community, and the painting's significance is appreciated by artists such as Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and later Paul Gauguin.

As with Luncheon on the Grass, the painting raises the issue of prostitution within contemporary France and the roles of women within society.

The roughly painted style and photographic lighting in these works is seen as specifically modern, and as a challenge to the Renaissance works Manet copies or uses as source material.

His work is considered 'early modern', partially because of the black outlining of figures, which draws attention to the surface of the picture plane and the material quality of paint.

He becomes friends with the painters—later to be known as Impressionists—Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne and Camille Pissarro through another painter, Berthe Morisot, who is a member of the group and draws him into their activities.

The grand niece of the painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Morisot had had her first painting accepted in the Salon de Paris in 1864, and she will continue to show in the salon for the next ten years.