I’ve written before about how Manet liked to paint yellow gloves, but today I’d like to take my interest in Manet’s sunny colors a step further. Manet often used yellow or orange to create a spark in a painting. Those might not be the colors we first associate with the artist, but they occur over […]
When I was in NYC, I spent time hanging out with Victorine. I just sat in the room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Young Lady in 1866 is hanging, looking at the painting and watching other people look at the painting. I particularly liked seeing this young woman looking at Victorine because she […]
Manet died a week ago today, on April 30, 1883. He was just 51 years old. I used the portrait Carolus-Duran painted of Manet at the top of this post because I like how Manet looks in it. Friend Antonin Proust described Manet as “ouverte et franche,” and I think this portrait shows that side […]
At 7 p.m. April 24, I’ll be at The Community Bookstore in Brooklyn to read from Paris Red and share in conversation with Brigid Hughes, founder and editor of A Public Space. I can’t wait to see old friends and meet new ones, and I can’t wait to talk with Brigid Hughes. Rumor has it […]
I celebrated Victorine Meurent’s birthday this past Wednesday, February 18. She was born 171 years ago, in 1844. (She died in 1927, at 83.) I know a few other people celebrated along with me because I got some favorites and retweets on Twitter, as well as some likes on Facebook. I thought it would be […]
This is another of my shabby photos from 1983, taken at the corner of rue de Seine and rue Jacques Callot. It shows the restaurant La Palette and a bit of the outside of Galerie Lara Vincy when the artist Ben (Ben Vautier) covered the outside of the gallery with colored writing for his Boîtes et […]
Where does a gaze in a painting come from? In this post, I’d like to share what Julyan Davis told me about working with the model for By Her Lily White Hand (On the Banks of the Ohio), 2012. When I emailed Mr. Davis, I asked, “When you asked the model to pose for the work, did […]
This is a Julyan Davis painting called By Her Lily White Hand (On the Banks of the Ohio), 2012. It’s one of Davis’s murder ballad paintings, a series of “narrative paintings, setting traditional Appalachian music against the contemporary South.” In the song “On the Banks of the Ohio,” a man asks his love to take a […]
Victorine Meurent is just 17 years old when she meets Manet in Paris Red. (That was probably true in real life, too.) She’s a protagonist with all the strengths and gifts young women have. Does she also have weaknesses? I’m sure. But this blog post isn’t about that. It’s about the power and beauty of being […]
I was really thrilled by Marie Michaud’s review of Rouge Paris for Page des Librairies. She said Rouge Paris was “un roman émouvant sur l’amour, l’art et la vie, véritable plongée dans la bohème parisienne du XIXe siècle.” Click here to read the entire review. Michaud also spoke about Rouge Paris on France Bleu radio […]
Paris Red: A Novel by Maureen Gibbon 