Winter 1880. Paris. In the twilight of his life, Edouard Manet begins the creation of his final masterpiece: A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. The foreground depicts a composition of vividly colored drinks and fruits, set against a waitress with a vacant gaze. But why does nothing reflected in the large mirror appear ‘‘realistic’’? To understand this painting, a true milestone of modern art, we set into an investigation of the light emitted by the two lamps behind the central figure. From Japan to the coal mines of Northern Europe and the Parisian nightlife, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Manet tells the transformative story of the emergence of electric light in our modern society.

From The World in a Painting collection