The choice of images and objects for scenes taken from modern life was a kind of “lie detector” for the impressionists. But Manet approached this issue even more thoroughly, which becomes obvious if we carefully examine his first big canvas, “Music in the Tuileries”.
Like the Impressionists, Manet often wrote bars “Corner of a cafe-concert”, theaters, oarsmen, but at the same time, completely uncharacteristic for them “plots”, the scene of which became the streets, railway stations, port marinas or beaches.
The artist turned to the very “unattractive” topics. So, in 1865, he painted from life a series of portraits of beggars, wanderers, homeless old people and rag-pickers – in the appropriate decorations.