Luncheons on the Grass: Reimagining Manet's Le Déjeuner Sur l'Herbe - Hardcoverby Jeffrey Deitch (Author), Aruna D'Souza (Author), Marina Molarsky Beck (Author) Thirty five contemporary artists create their own version of Le Djeuner sur l'herbe. douard Manet's Le Djeuner sur l'herbe (1863) is generally cited as the first modern painting. The entry slide in art history lectures about modernism, the work remains among the "most audacious painting[s] ever seen in France," as Ross King described it in The Judgement of Paris (2006).