Manet's Picnic

By Severin Rossetti

A group of art students recreate Manet's famous painting, their aim being to shock their audience. But can their modern recreation ever hope to cause the scandal that the original did? Indeed, was Manet's painting even more scandalous than history suggests? Interweaving the decadent Paris of Manet with the modern world, this story offers a startling revision of art history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piblokto Books
• Release date: Jan 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458073020

Severin Rossetti

Severin Rossetti was a teacher of fine art, but now works in a Liverpool museum/gallery, less money but a lot less stress. At the same time that he turned from teaching fine art, he also turned from its practice -have you seen the crap that passes for fine art these days?!?- to concentrate on writing. After many rejection slips he finally had some encouragement. 'Interesting,' said one editor, 'but it lacks passion. Spice it up a bit.' Which he did, only to be told 'wow!'... 'well!'... 'spiced up, yes, but we can't possibly publish this!' Fortunately, others could, with the result that his erotic stories have been published in the UK and the USA in various magazines and anthologies. Novels and short story collections have also been published in the US by Renaissance Ebooks.com. If the erotic genre is not your thing, however, please note that also available on Smashwords are more 'serious' works, some for sale but many for free. Strange, though, that the erotic genre is proving the most popular, and especially the free ones. So... a cry from the heart... feel free to try the free ones but PLEASE, also, splash out a dollar or two if you can afford it! And if you want to know any more, please contact the author at [e-mail]

Book preview

MANET'S PICNIC

Published by Severin Rossetti at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Severin Rossetti

Smashword Edition, Licence Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes

All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older

Nothing shocks anymore, that's the handicap we labor under, Victoria said earnestly, hunched over the table, facing her two friends. There's nothing about art that causes a scandal these days.

Jeff Koontz... Damien Hurst... Tracey Emin...? suggested Ferdy, but already Victoria was shaking her head vigorously so that her dark hair, loosely fastened, whipped her cheeks.

The money they get for their work, that may be scandalous, she conceded, brushing the hair away from her face and winding it behind her ears. There's nothing that's scandalous about the work itself, though.

Carl Andre and his bricks then? Gene offered.

A joke, an affront to people's intelligence perhaps, but Andre is hardly contemporary these days. Victoria took one of Ferdy's cigarettes from the pack on the table, toyed with it for a moment. The smooth tube of tobacco rolling between her fingers, her hair whipping her face... she was in a pretty tactile mood that evening with sensation creeping through every pore. In any case, you're mistaking the disgust people felt with the shock to the senses that I'm talking about, she said, lighting the cigarette and exhaling slowly so that the smoke shrouding her face gave her pale skin a bluish cast.

Like one of Picasso's women of the Blue Period, Ferdy would think, a melancholy