Description
A firing squad occupies the right of Manet’s lithograph, its soldiers’ backs turned toward the viewer as gun barrels point toward men at the left. Pale gunpowder smoke passes across the middle of the scene, interrupting the darker human forms. The arrangement makes the execution a close encounter between groups rather than a distant military spectacle.
The design dates to 1868, while this lithograph on chine collé was published in 1884 and represents the first of three states. The dates distinguish the image’s creation from its later printed appearance. Manet gives the subject a graphic form separate from his painted treatments of the same event. Its interest lies in how an image can make a historical action available to sustained looking without reducing its gravity to a neutral description of uniforms and weapons.
Read our guide to giclée prints, browse more Édouard Manet prints, or explore The Rue Mosnier with Flags.
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