321 lines
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321 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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art
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art-reviews
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8427059
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# Manet: Inventor of the Modern, Muse d'Orsay, Paris, review
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## Manet's wit, modernity and mischief make this major new show a treat, says
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Richard Dorment Rating: * * * *
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560
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TelegraphPlayer-8427374
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[![][1]][2]
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By [Richard Dorment][3] 5:48PM BST 04 Apr 2011
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[Comments][4]
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Money can't buy success, but for an artist it can buy the next best thing -
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time. And money is what a surprising number of impressionist and post-
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impressionist painters had a lot of. Manet, Morisot, Caillbotte, Degas and
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Mary Cassatt came from prosperous upper-middle-class families; Toulouse
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Lautrec was an aristocrat and Cezanne's father nouveau riche. All had private
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incomes that enabled them to defy popular taste without the fear of failure or
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need to sell their work. What this meant in practice becomes clear as you walk
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through Manet: Inventor of the Modern, which opens today at the Musee d'Orsay
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in Paris.
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Manet was the silkiest of men about town. Impeccably groomed and dressed, he's
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the incarnation of Baudelaire's observer of the urban scene, the flaneur. For
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though a dedicated professional who sought critical validation and public
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recognition, there is also something emotionally detached about Manet, his
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aloof personality reflected in pictures that are by turns amused, disarming,
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worldly and cynical.
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The contradictions pile up. His many years of training in the atelier of
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Thomas Couture left him with nothing but contempt for his master's academic
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technique, and yet the only success he deemed worth having was at the Salon.
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Manet sought public recognition as a painter of ambitious historical and
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mythological subjects - but only if he could paint them on his own terms. And
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that meant making them look as fresh as a headline in the morning newspaper.
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This is the place to say that one of the constants of his art is his ability
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to make ordinary things beautiful simply by the way he painted them. Manet
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could turn a pile of discarded clothing, a stalk of asparagus or a few fish
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into a work of art that sends a shiver down your spine.
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Both his immersion in the history of art and his mockery of its conventions
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are evident from the start of the show. In his Dejeuner sur l'herbe, he sends
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up the Arcadian idylls of Giorgione and Titian, replacing their chaste nudes,
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lute players and river gods with two dissolute art students, a stark naked
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model and - what was even more outrageous - a second young woman in the
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background obviously freshening up before some alfresco sex.
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## Related Articles
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* [Manet set for record 30m][5]
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11 May 2010
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* [Philip Pullman on Manet][6]
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29 Sep 2010
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* [At home with the Manets][7]
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13 Mar 2002
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* [Record Manet sale][8]
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22 Jun 2010
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* [Joan Mir: a Catalan surrealist's life in art][9]
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02 Apr 2011
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As though determined to tell us what was really going on in those Renaissance
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pictures, a year later he painted one of the most unforgettable images of the
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19th century. Olympia, too, parodies the old masters.
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Whereas the shapely hand of Titian's Venus of Urbino appears to rest by mere
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chance over her sex, that of Manet's tough little courtesan presses down hard
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on the same spot with her open palm, as if to say, "pay my price and it's all
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yours". Not "I", notice; "it".
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All this implies a new and more active relationship between the subject and
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the viewer. Titian's goddess feigns indifference to our presence whereas
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Olympia sizes us up, takes our measure. One is immortal, beyond human reach;
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the other could be booked after a good lunch at the Jockey Club. In Manet's
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work, the immediacy of the moment is underscored by the painting technique.
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Abandoning the academic practice of applying layers of paint and translucent
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glazes over a dark brown ground, he paints "alla prima" (in one layer) over a
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white ground, working quickly and without blending his strong colours. To his
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contemporaries, his pictures simply looked unfinished.
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Having dealt with mythology, he next turned his attention to religious
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painting. What is still startling about his Dead Christ with Angels is not the
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bloodless corpse, but the two angels so obviously painted from the same studio
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model wearing the same fake wings. Manet is here treading on dangerous ground
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by introducing a note of religious scepticism. And yet he was no more
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parodying religious belief in his religious paintings than in Olympia he was
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being censorious about prostitution. He's telling his viewers what they
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already know - that a picture is an artificial construction painted from
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models in a studio. It is not to be confused with the supernatural.
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As must be obvious by now, in the 1860s Manet was consciously tackling in turn
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each of the conventional hierarchies into which academic theorists had divided
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art since the 17th century. Once he'd finished with myth and religion, he
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moved on to Dutch seascapes and naval battles. With his usual intelligence, he
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waited until the right subject came along, and then seized his chance to paint
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it. It happened in June 1864. The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama
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depicts an incident in the American Civil War when a Union ironclad sank a
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southern raider off the coast of France.
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Working in his Paris studio from newspaper clippings and photos, Manet ignores
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the conventions of painting battles at sea. By raising the horizon line to the
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top of the canvas, he creates a more or less flat field of colour, a choppy
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sea of deep aquamarine, black and white over which to deploy his ships and
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figures. We viewers stand slightly above the scene looking down - just like
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the local people who watched the skirmish from a cliff-top outside Cherbourg.
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Like them, we are plunged into the middle of the action. One of the most
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modern things about the picture is that we have to struggle to make out what
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is happening amid the smoke and confusion of battle. This ambiguity or
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uncertainty about what we are seeing is at the heart of the modern experience
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Manet tries to capture in his art.
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Though he never exhibited with the Impressionists, by the late 1870s their
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influence is increasingly evident in his work. His palette lightens and
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brightens, his brushwork becomes more feathery, and he turns his attention to
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the subject of Parisians having fun.
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Among these late paintings my favourite is the deliciously witty Chez le pere
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Lathuille, which shows an elegant lady of a certain age just finishing a
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lonely luncheon on the terrace of an expensive restaurant.Unexpectedly, a much
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younger man has come over to her table. She does not ask him to sit down, so
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he crouches at her feet, looking up at her with the eyes of an adoring spaniel
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while fingering the stem her glass of champagne and draping one arm around the
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back of her chair. With his intrusive manners, his slicked-down hair,
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moustache, sideburns and open collar he may be a student or more probably a
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gigolo - but he is certainly no gentleman.
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Look at how much fun Manet has with their body language. As the young man
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rudely invades her personal space, the respectable lady's back stiffens in
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disapproval. And yet look closely and you'll see that she has lowered her eyes
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and pursed her lips, embarrassed but also flattered by his attentions. Behind
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them, an old waiter waits discretely with the coffee pot. He will not
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interrupt the pair until the woman has sent the boy away, or has agreed to the
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assignation he is seeking.
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Though I thoroughly enjoyed Manet: Inventor of the Modern, anyone who goes to
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Paris to see it should be aware that it is nothing like as comprehensive as
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the artist's last major retrospective in 1982. The exclusion of the Woman with
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a Parrot, Bar at the Folies Bergere, Boating, Masked Ball at the Opera, In the
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Conservatory and many other major pictures is keenly felt, while the presence
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of works by Fantin, Boldini, Couture and Morisot looks like padding. But I
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don't want to end on a sour note. It's still a hugely enjoyable show and there
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is going to be a public stampede to see it, so book well in advance, and try
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to get there late in the day when the crowds are thinning out.
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_Until July 3. www.musee-orsay.fr (Sponsored by Bank of America). _
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_Telegraph Travel offers a three-night trip to Paris including tickets for the
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Manet exhibition, operated by Riviera Travel from £319pp. Includes return
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Eurostar travel, regional rail for selected dates, (supplements applicable for
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some stations), three nights at an Ibis hotel, sightseeing tours and
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transfers. Call 0844 8730 746 or visit telegraph.co.uk/parismanet _
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[X][10] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][11]
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* Share: [Share][10] [ ][12] [ ][13]
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[Tweet][14]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/8427059/Manet-Inventor-of-
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the-Modern-Musee-dOrsay-Paris-review.html
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Telegraph
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## [Art Reviews][15]
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* ### [Culture »][16]
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* ### [Art »][17]
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* ### [Richard Dorment »][18]
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* ### [Art Features »][19]
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[![antique valuation service][20]][21]
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### [Antique Valuation Service][21]
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In culture
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[![Photograph from the Paul Graham retrospective: 'Woman in Headscarf, DHSS
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Waiting Room?
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][22] ][23]
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### [Gallery preview: in pictures][23]
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[![Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge, The Courtauld
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Gallery (16 June ? 18 September 2011)][24] ][25]
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### [Art exhibitions of 2011][25]
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[![threadsoffeeling.com][26] ][27]
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### [The best online culture archives][27]
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[X][10] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][11]
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Share:
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* [ ][10]
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* [ ][12]
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* [ ][13]
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* [Tweet][14]
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* Advertisement
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![][28]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][29] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][30]
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