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Discover the Subtle Details in These Paintings That Are Easily Missed
How learning to look helps us notice more
Édouard Manet’s painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère has long been one of my favourite works of art. I’ve been looking at it for years, but it took me a long time to notice one tiny detail that easily goes unnoticed.
The image shows a scene from the Folies-Bergère, a popular entertainment venue in Paris not far from Montmartre.
The tiny detail I’m talking about occurs in the top-left corner of the painting. Notice a pair of legs with green shoes on.
These legs belong to a trapeze artist swinging high above the audience. What I like about this detail is its humour and also how it suggests that a lively, raucous evening at the Folies-Bergère is now underway.
Moreover, the detail helps to unlock the wider composition of the painting.
It becomes clear that what we are looking at is a counter in the nightspot where a barmaid has come to serve a customer. Behind her is a large mirror that takes up the entire span of the painting — and in this mirror we can see what’s going on in the rest of the nightclub, including the legs of the trapeze artist and the spectators watching the performance.
A Few Seconds More
Anyone who spends time in art galleries will know how most visitors tend to look at the objects on display for just a few seconds each, perhaps stopping for a minute or two before something that catches their eye.
It can be hard to achieve a more sustained looking, especially if there are hundreds of paintings on display. The situation is made more difficult if the gallery is crowded with other visitors, all jostling for a view.
In these circumstances, it perhaps becomes natural to give most weight to our “first impression” of a work of art, to judge it quickly and…
