In this artwork, how is the Description and analysis discussed?
The most noteworthy aspect of the work is the unprecedented view of horses racing directly toward the viewer. Before this, horse racing was generally shown from the side, and Manet himself would go back to this in 1872 in his work The Races in the Bois de Boulogne. The art historian Juliet Wilson-Bareau notes that this presentation of the horses makes them appear "as if exploding from a distant mass of trees in the background." The viewer, who seems to be standing on the track, is set facing south, towards Saint-Cloud.The pole with the circle on top marks the race's finish line, which serves an important role for Manet. Wilson-Bareau comments that "a sweep of green hills high up on the canvas, on the distant horizon, is 'pinned' to the foreground and the picture plane by the circular top of a furlong marker on the track," reducing the perceived depth of the work. Manet further manipulates the depth of the work, according to the art historian Françoise Cachin, by creating "an effect analogous to that of a photographer telescoping toward a subject with a zoom lens; the area in focus grows in proportion to the framing edges, and the depth of field decreases."
While both sides show the crowd paying full attention to the race, the left side of the painting depicts the wealthier part of the crowd, which is clearer than the crowd on the right side. Manet draws attention to multiple details in the crowd. First, in the bottom left, there are two women spectators. The second woman in beige is Manet's wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, who had also modeled for Manet in previous portraits. Further in the background, a man is standing holding binoculars, watching the race. This man is taken straight from William Powell Frith's The Derby Day, where he appears in the middle of the work holding binoculars. Finally, a pink banner can be seen in the back, flying over the crowd.On the right side of the painting, the Tribune Publique stands above part of the crowd. This building catches the viewer's eye, "emphasizing the flatness of the canvas yet also the sense of speed, recession, and limitless space," according to Wilson-Bareau.Manet constructed the work using very loose brushstrokes. The track the horses run on is composed primarily of horizontal strokes, like the top of the hill. The rest of the hill is constructed of diagonal strokes, as are the two full trees, the large one directly behind the horses. The thinner trees and the fence are made mainly vertical strokes. The sky and crowd are both made of varied dabs of paint.
Saint-Cloud The Derby Day Suzanne Leenhoff Bois de Boulogne William Powell Frith