Page "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" Paragraph 2

The central figure stands before a mirror, although critics — accusing Manet of ignorance of perspective and alleging various impossibilities in the painting — have debated this point since the earliest reviews were published.

In 2000, however, a photograph taken from a suitable point of view of a staged reconstruction was shown to reproduce the scene as painted by Manet.

According to this reconstruction, " the conversation that many have assumed was transpiring between the barmaid and gentleman is revealed to be an optical trick — the man stands outside the painter's field of vision, to the left, and looks away from the barmaid, rather than standing right in front of her.

" As it appears, the observer should be standing to the right and closer to the bar than the man whose refection appears at the right edge of the picture.

This is an unsusual departure from the central point of view usually assumed when viewing pictures drawn according to perspective.