The Races at Longchamp

Painted in 1866 and now at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Races at Longchamp is among Manet's most ambitious attempts to capture the speed and spectacle of contemporary urban leisure. The Longchamp racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne was one of the premier social venues of Second Empire Paris, and racing was both a sporting and social event that brought together all classes of Parisian society. Manet's treatment is remarkable for its radical perspective — the horses and jockeys racing directly toward the viewer, a point-of-view so unusual in racing painting that it becomes almost abstract. The AIC holds it alongside other major French 19th-century works.

The radical frontal perspective — horses charging directly toward the viewer — creates a sense of speed and disorientation unique in racing subjects. The horses are rendered as a blur of motion, their forms overlapping and fragmented in a manner that anticipates both photography's ability to freeze motion and modernism's interest in simultaneity. The crowd and grandstand in the background are handled as rapid tonal suggestion.