Lady with fans is a painting by the French painter Édouard Manet, made in 1873-1874 and preserved in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Description
Nina de Villard was an extravagant and energetic woman who had made her Parisian home a lounge frequented by a literary- artistic melange of national scope: among the regulars there were personalities such as Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé, Anatole France and, of course, the same Manet Manet takes the young friend in a completely unconventional domestic pose: Nina, in fact, is lying on a sofa, leans an elbow on a pillow and is wrapped in an Algerian black cloth dress (usually worn by her during the receptions) which volumetrically emphasizes the figure, well separated in this way from the white tones of the canapé and the monochrome wall at the bottom. The latter, in particular, is decorated for the situation with Japanese upholstery and fans, which at the time enjoyed great popularity in Europe : this scenography, also reproduced in the portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé and in various paintings by Monet, Whistler, Tissot and Renoir, does not seem to have particular symbolic purposes.In this painting Manet demonstrates his portraiture talent, managing to penetrate the psychology of the represented character with acuteness. There is no doubt that the artist looks at Nina with sympathy, and does not hesitate to highlight her elegance and her tendency towards social coexistence; behind the amusement and the throbbing complicity, however, there is a cogitabund nature, tired and even melancholy, that not even the slight smile that runs through her lips can camouflage. The pictorial drafting, as usual, has a summary aspect and neglects the details in favor of a more lively and truthful rendering of the image, obtained with the use of strokes that are sometimes rapid and vibrant, sometimes minute and broken. The chromatic choice of Nina's robe deserves special mention, animated by a bright, even bright black, typical of Manet.
