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20. Édouard Manet, Lola de Valence, 1862.

Oil on canvas, 123 × 92 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

21. Édouard Manet, Street Singer, c.1862.

Oil on canvas, 171.1 × 105.8 cm.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The art of Manet was one of the most important aesthetic factors contributing to the emergence of Impressionism. Although he was only twelve years older than Monet, Bazille, Renoir, and Sisely, those painters considered him a master. “Manet was as important to us as Cimabue and Giotto were for the painters of the Italian Renaissance,” Renoir told his son (J. Renoir, op. cit., p. 117). The originality of Manet’s painting and his independence from academic canons opened new creative horizons for the Impressionists.

His wealthy family of the Paris bourgeoisie wanted their son to be a lawyer, not an artist-painter. As a compromise, it was decided Manet would become a sailor. After failing the entrance exams for the Naval Academy. In 1850, with his school friend Antonin Proust, Manet entered the studio of Thomas Couture.

Manet constantly copied the old masters and demonstrated a wide variety of interests at the same time he was training in Couture’s studio. During trips to European cities he copied paintings in museums, including Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and probably the museums of Kassel, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Florence, and Rome. He was very interested in the nude, in his own words, “the first and last word in art.” The Louvre was also where Manet often made new acquaintances. It was there that in 1857 he met Henri Fantin-Latour and few years later Degas.

Manet also had a role model among his living contemporaries: Eugène Delacroix. When critics attacked Manet’s painting Music in the Tuileries Gardens, Delacroix said that he regretted “being unable to come to this man’s defence.” (Manet, op. cit., p. 126). The year was 1863, shortly before Delacroix’s death and during Manet’s exhibit at the Martinet gallery. Manet attended Delacroix’s funeral with Charles Baudelaire. The loss of Delacroix coincided with the advent of Manet’s art before the public. Manet had yet to visit Spain; his awareness of Spanish painting was limited to the Louvre’s collection and to reproductions. Nevertheless, the young Parisian painter had discovered in the work of seventeenth-century Spanish masters the colour quality he was seeking in his own painting.

22. Édouard Manet, Portrait of Théodore Duret, 1868.

Oil on canvas, 46.5 × 35.5 cm.

Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris.

23. Édouard Manet, The Absinthe Drinker, c.1859.

Oil on canvas, 180.5 × 105.6 cm.

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

24. Édouard Manet, Monsieur and Madame Auguste Manet, 1860.

Oil on canvas, 110 × 90 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Victorine Louise Meurent, Manet’s favourite model, played a special role in his painting during the 1860s. The painter met the young Russian girl with milky white skin somewhere in a Parisian crowd, perhaps in rue Maître Albert where she lived, not far from Manet’s studio. She posed for Manet on numerous occasions after The Street Singer, including the marvellous painting entitled, Miss Victorine Meurent in the Costume of an Espada (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), which Manet exhibited a little later. Manet actually retained the name of his model in the title of this highly eccentric composition. Although there was absolutely nothing Spanish about the subject, the painting had the atmosphere of Spain, which the painter had never actually seen. Manet was criticised for the clash between the bullfight scene in the background and the figure of Victorine; his inability to establish proportions; and even for his drawing and painting skills.

Among the paintings exhibited at the Martinet gallery, Lola de Valence (Paris, Musée d’Orsay) was unquestionably the most Spanish. On the surface of Lola’s skirt, which he painted in broad black strokes, Manet seemed to have carelessly thrown small bits of red, green, and yellow impasto. It represented an unprecedented freedom, even compared to Courbet’s palette painting. Courbet’s name automatically came to mind at the Martinet exhibition. Manet was definitely walking in Courbet’s footsteps with his composition entitled, Music in the Tuileries Gardens (London, The National Gallery). Nevertheless, Manet had more spontaneity; he did not elaborate the setting, but seemed to capture a slice of life as it unfolded around him.

To the future Impressionists, Manet’s colour and style of painting were a revelation, even if in principle they contrasted with their own investigations. At this stage, Manet was oblivious to plein-air painting and the direct observation of colour in nature held no interest for him. The coloration of Manet’s “Spanish” paintings was acquired from the museums. He had intensified his colour and made his brushwork more expressive than that of the old masters. Moreover, Manet had actually invented the colour that his admirers, the future impressionists, were trying to find in living nature.

Two months after the Martinet gallery show, Paris got a new surprise. On 1 May, 1863, for the first time in the history of French art, two parallel exhibitions opened simultaneously: the traditional Salon and the Salon des Refusés. Napoleon III had come to personally tour the exhibition rooms shortly before their opening. Astonished by the jury’s strictness, he ordered all the rejected paintings be exhibited. Manet, in the most remote room, burned a hole in the wall with his Luncheon on the Grass” (A. Tabarant, Manet. Histoire catalographique, Paris, 1931, p. 95). In his landscape, Manet had broken the tradition of following the classical rules of constructing aerial perspective. Manet’s foreground is bright green, rather than a warm, yellow-brown; and Manet’s background shines with yellow sunlight, rather than fading into blue-green. In the middle ground, a half-dressed woman splashes around in pure blue water. In the foreground, the artist paints a still life, whose bright blue shadows and yellow and cherry-red colours compete with the tonalities of the figures. Broad strokes of colour applied with apparent carelessness give the impression of a sketch made a la prima. In fact, Manet was still using a multi-layered pictorial technique, as he was taught by Couture, a top painting instructor. X-ray photographs of Manet’s paintings show a classic under layer of lead white, upon which (once it had dried) layers of colour were superimposed. The end result was nevertheless inconsistent with traditional values; it moreover seemed impossible for such a painting to have been executed out of doors.

25. Édouard Manet, Portrait of Victorine Meurent, c.1862.

Oil on canvas, 42.9 × 43.8 cm.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

26. Édouard Manet, Music in the Tuileries Gardens, 1862.

Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 118.1 cm.

The National Gallery, London.

In 1865 Olympia was shown to the viewing public. And again there was shock and an incredible scandal around the painting. “Insults rain down on me like hailstones,” Manet wrote to Baudelaire, “I’ve never had such a reception.” (Manet, op. cit, p. 181). The black servant confirmed what everyone suspected, namely that this was definitely a prostitute waiting for a client who had brought her a bouquet carefully made by a florist. Unlike Titian’s Vénus d’Urbino, which Manet greatly admired, but which only existed in the closed world of his canvas, Olympia looked out at the viewer unabashedly.

Everything in this painting caused indignation, beginning with the title on the frame. Who was this Olympia? There were wide-ranging interpretations. Olympia was the name of an evil woman in the Tales of Hoffmann, which were very popular in Paris at the time.

In any case, the name given to the painting defied classical tradition. Even Courbet was incapable of understanding Manet’s Olympia. “It’s flat, it has no modelling,” he said. “It looks like the queen of spades from a deck of cards coming out of the bath.” (Manet, op. cit., p. 182).

And just as in Lola, Manet’s seemingly careless impasto technique creates an impression of freshness in the flower bouquet. With the black cat arching its back at the foot of the bed, the painting was perceived by contemporaries as a means to simultaneously mock bourgeois decency, good taste, and the classical rules of art.

In July 1864, when Manet arrived in Boulogne, life threw him the gift of a marvellous subject: in the Channel off Cherbourg a battle was taking place between two American ships, the federal corvette called the “Kearsarge” and the Confederate ship called the “Alabama.” This painting may be considered his first historical painting. We are unaware if Manet witnessed the combat himself. Nevertheless, it was the landscape in this painting, not the dynamics of the battle, that impressed all who saw it. The sea in Manet’s painting is alive. It is a uniform green without any reflections of colour; the impression of waves is solely created by some white touches. Monet was undoubtedly impressed by these seascapes as a French Norman.

Each painting by Manet was a new surprise, due to his unexpected pictorial approach. In 1866 he painted The Fifer. The figure of the fifer, outlined in black, appears to be cut out from the shimmering grey-green background, which represents nothing more than the air. Manet was the first painter to use colour to render surrounding air. The painting has no concrete decoration, landscape, or interior. Only a small strip of shadow extends from the fifer’s feet to show he stands firmly on solid ground. Three flat patches of colour – deep red, black, and white – form the painting’s palette with extreme concision. Only the little boy’s face is handled with delicate pink shades. The concision of Manet’s painting lost none of its meaning for succeeding generations of painters.

The year 1867 was full of significant events in Manet’s life. It was the year of the new Universal Exposition. Courbet opened his own independent pavilion as before. Manet, too, decided to do something rash: with his own means, he built a temporary shelter next to Courbet’s exhibition at the corner of avenues Montaigne and Alma, not far from the Universal Exposition.

Beginning in 1866, when the Salon jury rejected The Fifer, Émile Zola took up Manet’s defence in his review of the Salon. Zola was the first to openly declare his admiration of Manet’s talent, honesty, and desire to create by listening to his own heart. Zola spoke of Manet as a painter who stayed close to nature, placing his confidence solely in the observation of nature, rather than science or experience. Zola considered Manet’s individual exhibition a significant cultural event on par with the exhibition of Courbet, whose genius had already been acknowledged in his lifetime.

27. Édouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863.

Oil on canvas, 208 × 264.5 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

In 1868, Manet painted the Portrait of Émile Zola (Paris, Musée d’Orsay), expressing in his own way his gratitude for Zola’s support. The cover of Zola’s brochure on Manet is clearly visible amongst papers scattered over a desk and the writer holds an open book in his hands – The History of Painters by Charles Blanc – that could always be found in Manet’s studio. In the reproduction or print of Manet’s Olympia, the model appears to have turned her eyes towards the painter, whereas in the painting she looks straight ahead: yet another expression of the gratitude the painter felt towards the writer.

In June of the same year (1867), Manet finished his history painting entitled, The Execution of Maximilian. The painting reflects his active interest in the life of his times. In 1867 Mexican insurgents executed the archduke Maximilian appointed emperor of Mexico by Napoleon III, along with the generals who remained faithful to him. Many people in France blamed Napoleon for evacuating his troops from Mexico at the very moment the young emperor needed their aid. Manet was deeply moved by the tragedy and for months worked on variations of this painting, which gave new meaning to the term history painting. Manet was interested in the history of his own era, rather than subjects from antique mythology and the Bible, as was the practice at the École des beaux-arts and the Salon. It was no coincidence that his contemporaries were reminded of the Spanish masters when viewing Manet’s Emperor Maximilien, specifically, Goya’s The Execution of 3 May 1808 (Madrid, Museo del Prado). In addition to learning colour from the Spanish painters, Manet also learned how to achieve the emotional tension of Goya’s work.

At first glance, there is an obvious connection between The Balcony and Goya’s Majas on the Balcony. Manet had produced something his viewers were accustomed to by taking his inspiration from Spanish painting once again. He transplanted Goya’s motif to the mid-nineteenth-century Paris. Manet’s elegant figures have lost their romantic appearance and bring the atmosphere of everyday life into the picture – albeit the life of fashionable Paris. At that time, Monet was not painting en plein-air the same way he did in Luncheon on the Grass. He had placed his figures in a contemporary Parisian context. And once again, as in Music in the Tuileries Gardens, the painting has no subject and tells no story. As paradoxical as it may seem, in the eyes of Manet’s contemporaries, the lack of literary content made his work enigmatic. The idea that one could create a painting solely for pictorial reasons (as Manet had done with the Fifer) was foreign to people living in the nineteenth century. Manet was the first nineteenth-century painter to let himself be guided primarily by colour and light when composing his works, which is why he became a model and a master for the future Impressionists.

The Luncheon is in the same vein. It was composed during the summer of 1868 in Boulogne-sur-Mer where Manet was staying with his family. X-ray photography reveals the background initially depicted large studio windows overlooking the sea. Manet eliminated them in the final version, in which the room instead takes on the appearance of a dining room. The background has become darker; now it is the faces and interior details that are becoming exceptionally expressive, thanks to the lighting. A pensive young man leans against a table, his figure cut-off at the knees, giving the viewer the impression that at any moment he might step forward to leave the room and at the same time walk out of the painting. This is the first time Manet directly combines reality with the world in the painting to bring the viewer into the composition he created. A plant in an earthenware pot makes another appearance, in this instance constituting one of Manet’s best still lifes, and was the only aspect of the painting praised by critics of the 1869 Salon. All are painted with such precision in handling and arranged in so harmonious a fashion that Manet may in truth rival the seventeenth-century Dutch masters or Chardin.

28. Édouard Manet, The Battle of the U. S. S. “Kearsarge” and the C. S. S. “Alabama”, 1864.

Oil on canvas, 137.8 × 128.9 cm.

John G. Johnson Art Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

29. Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863.

Oil on canvas, 130.5 × 190 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

30. Édouard Manet, The Balcony, between 1868 and 1869.

Oil on canvas, 170 × 124.5 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

31. Édouard Manet, The Lunch in the Workshop, 1868.

Oil on canvas, 118 × 153.9 cm.

Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

One not immediately obvious detail completes the impression of warm intimacy: the black cat at the servant’s feet, against the background of her grey dress. Manet had painted animals before, for example, the little dog playing with a ball at Berthe Morisot’s feet in The Balcony, which was reminiscent of the small dogs in Goya’s portraits. But the black cat was to become Manet’s trademark, appearing for the first time in Olympia, where its well-observed attitude was already attracting attention. Mallarmé’s poem, The Afternoon of the Faun, was published in 1876 with illustrations by Manet. That same year Manet completed his striking Portrait of Mallarmé.

Mallarmé and Manet had met several years earlier, probably as early as 1873, when Mallarmé arrived in Paris, and they quickly became friends. In Manet’s portrait, Mallarmé seems older than he actually was at the time (thirty-four). Lying on a sofa, his ever-present cigar in hand, the poet is profoundly pensive. His casual attitude gives the portrait a special intimacy. Manet discovered an admirable colour harmony, a balance between the warm, golden tone of the Japanese fabric in the background and Mallarmé’s marine blue outfit. With his free and loose paint handling Manet gives the final touch to the creation of Mallarmé’s image, an image of a friend and a great poet. The painting is one of Manet’s best portraits.

32. Édouard Manet, The Fifer, 1866.

Oil on canvas, 161 × 97 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The portrait of another friend, Théodore Duret, has a more official look. Duret, whom Manet called “the last dandy,” is depicted standing in an elegant outfit, cane in hand. In the painting’s grey-brown colours, contemporaries saw the customary influence of Spanish painting. It may have been intentional: the two men had met during Manet’s trip to Spain in 1865.

Duret, as an art critic was, at first, rather critical of Manet, disconcerted by the artist’s sketch-like pictorial style. Nevertheless, he soon became an ardent admirer, not only of Manet, but of his Impressionist friends, as well. In 1878 he published his first serious work: History of the Impressionist Painters. It was Duret who described Manet’s working method, which he had witnessed in Manet’s studio. Duret had grasped the essential thing about his friend’s work: Manet was born a painter the way one is born with perfect pitch. He saw his future painting in colours the same way Michelangelo felt his yet unformed sculpture in a block of stone. And whatever Manet painted, colour alone was both an end and a means.

In Manet’s work it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a portrait from a scene of everyday life, even if one eliminates the instances where Manet asked his friends to pose for paintings, such as Luncheon on the Grass and The Balcony. Manet’s wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, appears in his canvases seated at the piano. Manet had learned to be aware of those times she gave music lessons to him and his brothers. Suzanne posed, alone or with Léon, in the setting of their apartment or on the beaches of northern France.

Manet was never indifferent to feminine charm. In the early 1880s he was commissioned by his friend Antonin Proust to paint portrait-panels symbolising the four seasons. For Spring (location unknown), he chose the beautiful actress Jeanne Demarsi; for Autumn, he chose Méry Laurent. An especially warm friendship developed between the painter and this model. Méry Laurent was a Parisian demimondaine. The first time she visited Manet’s studio was in 1876. The painter had been seduced by her elegance and smile, and especially by her pink complexion combined with her dark blonde hair.

At the same time, he worked on portraits of men, among them the Portrait of Georges Clemenceau at the Tribune painted in 1880. The painter and his model were connected through the many friends they shared. Manet did more than one portrait of his friend from childhood and youth, Antonin Proust, who had given him wonderful memories. The portrait of legendary journalist Henri Rochefort (Hamburg, Kunsthalle) was notable for its unusual emotional resonance.

Manet revealed himself to be no less demanding when it was a matter of his own appearance. He started painting self-portraits late, in the 1870s, “at the very moment when he was at the peak of his career,” wrote Théodore Duret. In his best Self-Portrait with a Palette (New York, private collection), he depicts himself, as did Velázquez and Rembrandt, examining the expression of his own face. But this was very late in his career, only a few years before his death, after Manet had endured the difficult experience of the war and the Commune.