“Olympia,” the brothel scene that birthed modern art, crosses the Atlantic for the first time in the Met exhibition “Manet/Degas.” By Jason Farago “A colossal ineptitude,” one enraged critic called it ...

Olympia stares out from the canvas, her level gaze almost a dare. In Édouard Manet’s famed 1863 painting, a woman—a courtesan, in fact—reclines on a chaise lounge. She is naked and her body is pale, ...