Along with the Dejeuner
sur I'herbe and Olympia, The
Surprised Nymph is one of Manet's major treatments of the
quintessential subject-matter of academic practice: the female
nude. Like the two slightly later paintings, this is a large work
and one which clearly took Manet some time to produce.
It is believed that the model for the painting was
Suzanne Leen-hoff, Manet's future wife. In part, the work may be a
pun on her name, for her pose is reminiscent of that of
conventional depictions of Susannah disturbed by the elders, at
once provocative and chaste. Around the time he produced this
work, Manet moved into a new apartment on the rue de l'Hotel de
Ville with Suzanne and Leon and the ambivalent attitude of the
nude woman may suggest the artist's response to his future wife
who in later paintings is shown as an upright member of the
bourgeoisie. She is perhaps best understood in contrast to the
nude woman in the Dejeuner for whom she represents both a
prototype and a transformation. Whereas The Surprised Nymph
depicts a naked bourgeois woman who shields her body from the gaze
of the voyeuristic onlooker, she is presented in the Dejeuner as a
professional working model apparently flaunts her body and
subverts the traditional roles of the spectator and the nude.
MOST POPULAR PAINTINGS
A Bar at the Folies-Bergere
Olympia
Luncheon on the Grass
The Fifer
The Railway
The Balcony
Music in the Tuileries Garden
Self Portrait with Palette