The Rue Mosnier with Flags

Red, white, and blue flags ripple along the Rue Mosnier in this bright Parisian scene, painted by Edouard Manet in 1878. The street was one Manet knew well, as he could see it from his own studio window and returned to paint it more than once. On this particular day the flags were out for the very first Fête de la Paix, a national holiday marking peace and recovery after France had endured the Franco-Prussian War and the bloody chaos of the Paris Commune just a few years before. The mood feels sunny and celebratory, with quick dabs of paint suggesting movement and light.

Down in the lower left corner, though, a small figure changes the whole story. A man on crutches, his back turned and one leg gone, makes his way along the street beneath all those cheerful banners. He was probably a wounded veteran or a hard-up laborer, and his solitary shape sits in quiet opposition to the festivities overhead. Manet seems to be reminding us that the joy of the day did not reach everyone. His loose, rapid brushwork places this work right at the doorway of Impressionism, the movement he helped set in motion. A happy holiday scene on the surface, it hides a gentler and sadder thought underneath.