Aux courses (c.1875)

Manet, Édouard (1832-1883)

Aux courses (At the Races)
c.1875
Oil on wood, 12.6 x 21.9 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

We find ourselves on an emerald-green, grassy racetrack as a dusty cluster of horses and their jockeys bear directly down on us in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. Closest to us, three horses run with their legs widely splayed and a fourth brings up the close rear to our left. Only closer inspection reveals a fifth horse nearby, seen over the shoulder of the jockey to our left of center. All the horses are chestnut brown except the second from our right, which is black. The faces of the jockeys are indistinct but they seem to have light skin. The jockey on the left-most horse wears celery and lemon-lime green. The jockey on the nearly hidden horse wears a sky-blue vest with shell-pink sleeves and a pink hat. The jockey to our left in the closest pair, on the black horse, wears silvery-white and his neighbor wears steel blue. Slate-gray fences line the racetrack to either side and beyond both, speckles, flicks, and dots of brown, black, and cream suggest spectators. Pine-green and olive-colored trees touched with specks of yellow and peach fill the background to the right of the track. The trees reach beyond the top edge of the panel, and the sliver of sky above is marine blue. The artist signed the work with blue paint in the lower right corner: “Manet.” (NGA)