The Funeral

Painted c.1869 and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Funeral is a relatively small canvas depicting a Parisian funeral procession against the backdrop of the city — dark-clothed figures processing through the urban landscape with the dome of the Panthéon visible in the distance. The work belongs to the series of Parisian subject pictures through which Manet documented contemporary life without the moralising or ideological content of academic history painting. A funeral — the most universal of urban rituals — is treated with the detached observation characteristic of his approach to modern subject matter.

The funeral procession is rendered as a dark band of figures across the mid-ground, their black clothing creating a solid horizontal mass. Above them the Paris skyline is sketched rapidly — buildings, dome, sky — handled with breadth rather than detail. The foreground is relatively empty, creating distance between viewer and procession. Manet's handling is deliberately sketch-like and rapid, appropriate to an outdoor urban observation.