Music in the Tuileries Garden by Edouard Manet

Music in the Tuileries Garden by Edouard Manet was painted in 1862. Manet's chosen subject was the middle-class population of Paris. This painting of a fashionable crowd gathered in a public park to listen to a concert contains many portraits, including one of poet Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and several members of Edouard Manet's family. The loose brush stroke and quickly executed masses of color in Music in the Tuileries Garden suggest the spontaneous energy of the moment.

Music in the Tuileries Garden by Edouard Manet (oil on canvas, 30x46-1/2 inches) is housed in the National Gallery of London.

Manet continued to be fascinated with the middle-class throughout his career. On the next page we'll see another example of this.

For more on Impressionist paintings, artists, and art history, see:

• Impressionism
• Vincent van Gogh
• Claude Monet