Olympia, Manet and Modernization

A painting of a nude woman, a Negress and a cat changed the way of art, class and modernity in 1865. It was a time of ordre moral, a time when bourgeoisie and primness dominated high brow culture. Edouard Manet rebelled against this by rattling the world with his painting of Olympia. Since its unveiling, at the Salon in Paris, reactions ranging from horrified shock to scholarly criticism ignited and still persist today. T.J. Clark, an art history professor at the University of California at Berkeley, examines this painting and responds to it in his book, The Painting of Modern Life. C…