Brief Report

The Still Life with Asparagus was painted on a fine, pre-primed canvas, which can be shown to be part of a pre-painted larger-format canvas. This is proved by colour discrepancies between the still-life and paint-layers which extend on the bottom turnover edge right to the edge of the canvas (fig. 6). As it is only at the lower edge of the picture and in the area of the bottom right-hand corner that paint applications dating from the first painting can be found beneath the painting visible today, where otherwise intact surfaces of the pale-grey ground are either visible through the paint or else are simply exposed (fig. 7), most of the canvas appears to have been unpainted when Manet set about painting the bunch of asparagus.

Small holes at relatively large intervals between the nails of the still extant authentic stretching of the canvas point to a temporary fastening of the piece of canvas, which was evidently cut out on all four sides (fig. 5). This interim fastening, which may have been on to a rigid base, can however at most have served for the preliminary planning of the composition, as none of the paint applications extend beyond the front edges of the frame, in other words were only applied after the canvas was stretched on the extant original stretcher.

Using brush and paint, Manet sketched the shape of the bunch of asparagus on the primed canvas (fig. 8). The sequence of the application of the different colours cannot be determined, as the first applications, in the region of the bunch of asparagus, the brown background and the greenery are juxtaposed carefully without any overlapping. The brown paint applications in the background are thin and in some cases semi-transparent (fig. 8). In transmitted light, we can discern the strokes of a flat-ferrule brush or possibly a hake brush too (fig. 3).

As the painting proceeded, wet-in-wet, the pale-grey ground was incorporated into the colour scheme with great efficiency and to great effect by being left unpainted, in particular in the area of the bunch of asparagus. In the harmony of impasto brush-strokes and dabs, the surface of the asparagus stalks and heads is imitated to make them almost tangible (fig. 8). Only shortly before the painting was complete were the boundaries between the different colour fields relaxed by individual brush-strokes. Likewise at a late stage, if not last of all, the edges of the painting were gone over with a brush-handle or something similar to reveal the pale ground once more (fig. 11). It is unclear whether the object was to test the effect of the composition or to suggest a pale frame. Individual paint applications overlapping these scraped-away edges indicate the placing of final colour accents, however, completing the paintng, which was presumably executed very rapidly in a single sitting, including the signature which was added while the paint surface was still wet (fig. 4).

Edouard Manet
Asparagus Still life, 1880, oil on canvas, 46.5 x 55.0 cm, WRM Dep. 318

Edouard Manet

born on 23 January 1832 in Paris,
died on 30 April 1883 ibidem

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso


Fig. 03

Transmitted light photograph; the numerous unpainted
areas (here yellow) and areas of thin paint application are clearly visible, as are the places in the picture background where a flat-ferrule brush was applied to the canvas and lifted


Fig. 04

Detail, signature


Fig. 05

Nail and hole presumably due to a temporary fastening,
microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 06

Detail , dark paint left over from a previous painting of the lower foldover edge


Fig. 07

Detail, the light-grey ground, integrated into the colour composition through being left unpainted


Fig. 08

Detail, impasto applications of paint


Fig. 09

Detail, wet-in-wet highlights on larger area of paint in the area of the greenery


Fig. 10

Mixing of various colours wet-in-wet in the asparagus tips,
microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 11

Detail, all-round scraping of the still-wet paint in the region of the top left corner


Fig. 12

Detail, final paint applications overlap the scraped edges