Focus on The Street Singer (Manet) and analyze the Interpretation.
The art historian and critic Paul Mantz once said: "All form is lost in his big portraits of women, and notably in that of the Singer, where, because of an abnormality we find deeply disturbing, the eyebrows lose their horizontal position and slide vertically down the nose, like two commas of shadow; there is nothing there except the crude conflict of the chalk whites with the black tones. The effect is pallid, hard, sinister... we must ask to be excused from pleading M.Manet's case before the exhibition jury."On the other hand, Emile Zola, art critic and Manet’s friend, admired the painting as a “keen search for truth”.These two art critics represent two viewpoints at the time. Mantz favored the traditions of the academy, while Zola promoted a more modern style.
Emile Zola