Manet and the Execution of Maximilian was going on tonight so I went to view the Manet Paintings.   One thing about the show I did not like - it focused way too much on the time-line of events and not so much on the paintings.

Here’s the marketing notes:

“Between 1867 and 1869, Edouard Manet completed a series of compositions depicting the execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Maximilian, a member of the Hapsburg family of Austria, had been installed in power in Mexico by Napoleon III of France in an attempt to recover unpaid debts and establish a European presence there. This endeavor failed miserably, ending with the execution of Maximilian and two of his generals by firing squad on June 19, 1867. The execution was by order of Benito Juárez, who had been displaced as president when the French took control of Mexico.

News of the execution reached Paris on July 1, and Manet, a republican ideologically opposed to Napoleon’s policies, set to work almost immediately. Informed by a steady stream of written and graphic accounts of the event, he produced three large paintings, an oil sketch, and a lithograph on the subject.

Due to the political content of these works, there was no opportunity for Manet to display them in Paris under Napoleon III. Only the final, largest painting was exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, when a friend arranged to take the work to New York and Boston in 1879. A handbill was made to advertise that exhibition. The painting attracted little attention, however, and this and Manet’s other compositions on the subject remained largely unknown until the early twentieth century.

Manet and the Execution of Maximilian unites these five works for the first time in the United States and features selected additional works that illuminate the fascinating development of this series.”

It seems to me Napoleon III of France deserves to have his head handed to him as he desired to collect money from a bankrupt Mexico by convincing a stupid relative rule Mexico and act like an emperor.  Well…that lasted a couple of years till Napoleon III pulled most of his forces out, realizing it was a mistake, but he left is buddy, Maximilian, a member of the Hapsburg family of Austria, hung out to dry.   Not that anyone is an angel here… but it seems to me that Napoleon III should have been the one shot at.

The paintings …were great, but the I liked some of the smaller paintings better.  I’m really exhausted or I’d write more.

Manet is one of my favorite painters and I wanted to really focus more on that … and I had not seen any of the Execution of Maximilian paintings - and was not aware there were actually 3 versions of it.   What I did get is ….Manet had a little of the social revolutionary with him …. he painted Execution of Maximilian to protest what he saw at the corrupt regime of Napoleon III and he was right.