Title: The Races at Longchamp
Description: The Races at Longchamp is an 1866 painting by the French artist Édouard Manet. The Impressionist painting depicts a horse racing at Longchamp and is currently conserved at the Art Institute of Chicago. It has been exhibited many times, the first one at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in January 1884. The work is particularly innovative. About the painting, the Art Institute of Chicago said it "is startling. We find ourselves on the racecourse with a cluster of onrushing horses and jockeys bearing directly down on us. With a few judicious exceptions—the vertical starting post left of center; the crisp rectangle of the viewing-stand roof at the right—everything is blurred, a device that heightens the sense of explosive movement of the galloping horses."
Author(s): Édouard Manet