Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
French painter Édouard Manet became the leader of a rebellious faction of young artists when he challenged the established
artistic community in France. With its bold brush strokes and realistic portrayal of everyday events, Manet's work served as a forerunner
of the impressionist movement.
Manet, Édouard (1832-1883), French painter, whose work inspired the impressionist style, but who refused to so
label his own work. His far-reaching influence on French painting and the general development of modern art was due to his portrayal of
everyday subject matter; his use of broad, simple colour areas; and a vivid, summary brush technique.
Manet was born in Paris on January 23, 1832, the son of a high government official. To avoid studying law, as his father
wished, he went to sea. He then studied in Paris under the academic French painter Thomas Couture and visited Germany, Italy, and the
Netherlands to study the paintings of the old masters. The Dutch painter Frans Hals and the Spanish artists Diego Velázquez, and Francisco
de Goya were the principal influences on his art.
Manet began to paint genre (everyday) subjects, such as old beggars, street urchins, café characters, and Spanish
bullfight scenes. He adopted a direct, bold brush technique in his treatment of realistic subject matter. In 1863 his famous Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) was shown at the Salon des Refusés, a new exhibition place opened by
Napoleon III following the protests of artists rejected at the official Salon. Manet's canvas, portraying a woodland picnic that included a
seated female nude attended by two fully dressed young men, attracted immediate and wide attention, but was bitterly attacked by the
critics. Hailed by young painters as their leader, Manet became the central figure in the dispute between the academic and rebellious art
factions of his time. In 1864 the official Salon accepted two of his paintings, and in 1865 he exhibited his Olympia (1863, Musée d'Orsay), a nude based on a Venus by Titian, which aroused storms of protest in academic circles
because of its unorthodox realism.
In 1866 the French novelist Émile Zola, who championed the art of Manet in the newspaper Figaro, became a close
friend of the painter. He was soon joined by the young group of French impressionist painters, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir,
Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Cézanne, who were influenced by Manet's art and who, in turn, influenced him, particularly in the
use of lighter colours and an emphasis on the effects of light. Manet served as an officer in the French army from 1870 to 1871, during the
Franco-Prussian War. He did not gain recognition until late in life, when his portraits became much sought after. In 1882 one of his finest
pictures, The Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Courtauld Institute and Galleries, London), was exhibited at
the Salon, and an old friend, who was then minister of fine arts, obtained the Legion of Honor for the artist. Manet died in Paris on April
30, 1883. He left, besides many watercolours and pastels, 420 oil paintings.
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Argenteuil
French artist Édouard Manet often illustrated scenes from contemporary life in his paintings. With his modern
subject matter and spontaneous, brushy technique, he influenced the development of modern art. Argenteuil, which
depicts a couple on a boating excursion, was painted in 1874. It is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai,
Belgium.
Bullfight (1865)
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 Portrait d'Emile Zola, 1868
Oil on canvas 146 x 114 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
Still Life with Melon and Peaches, c. 1866
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