This Painting Might Just Be the First Work of Modern Art

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Édouard Manet

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) by Édouard Manet. Oil on canvas. 208 × 264.5 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. Image source Wikimedia Commons

Take a moment to consider what one enraged art critic once said of this painting:

“The nude hasn’t a good figure, unfortunately, and one can’t think of anything uglier than the man stretched out next to her, who hasn’t even thought of taking off, out of doors, his horrid…