Okay, let's dive in. We're tackling a figure
today who is, well, incredibly important, often
controversial, and really foundational. We're
doing a deep dive into Edouard Manet. That's
right, a French modernist painter. Born 1832,
died quite young in 1883. And his work didn't
just challenge the 19th century art world. I
mean, it arguably blew it wide open. Well, it's
paving the way for, well, pretty much everything
we think of as modern art. He's this essential
bridge figure, isn't he? He's standing right
there on that fault line between academic realism,
the old way, and then boom. Impressionism bursts
onto the scene. So our mission today for you
listening is to really unpack how he navigated
that transition. Why are his paintings, especially
those early controversial ones, seen as these
critical watershed moments? Yeah, what makes
them mark the definitive start of modern art?
It's a big claim. And when we say watershed,
we really mean scandal, don't we? Pure, unadulterated
outrage. Manet almost seemed to court provocation.
He absolutely did. His whole identity as this
modernist pioneer is completely tied up with
the intense fury that followed his early masterpieces.
We're talking The Luncheon on the Grass. Le Déjeuner
sur l 'Air. And Olympia, premiering 1863 -1865.
These weren't gentle suggestions for change.
No, these were like cultural bombs going off
in the Paris salon, instantly condemned by the
establishment critics, the gatekeepers. So just
as instantly hailed by the younger progressive
artists, they saw it immediately. This was something
new, something revolutionary. That audacity just
made him notorious overnight. It really is fascinating
when you trace his career arc, isn't it? That
is an artist who is so, so harshly judged. I
mean, wasn't there that famous critique about
his brushwork? Oh, yeah. The infamous floor mop
comment that it looked like his painting was
done with a floor mop. Unbelievable hostility.
And yet the same artist comes to be universally
seen as the father of modernism. It's quite the
journey. And he just kept working through it
all. The condemnation didn't stop him. His productivity
was actually immense. If you look at the numbers,
we're talking about 430 oil paintings, nearly
90 pastels, over 400 works on paper. He worked
with incredible speed, incredible persistence.
And it's precisely that controversial output,
that constant pushing that opened the door for
basically every major art movement that followed.
So who was this guy? This rebel in a frock coat,
as some call him. He definitely wasn't the stereotypical
starving artist in a garret. Not at all. He came
from serious money, serious status in Paris.
A true bourgeois revolutionary, if you like.
Born January 23rd, 1832. Grew up in an ancestral
mansion right in Paris. affluent, extremely well
-connected family. His father, Auguste Manet,
was a high -ranking official in the Ministry
of Justice, a respected judge, and he had very
firm ideas about his son's future. Law. That
was the expected path. A safe, respectable career.
And his mother, Eugenie Desiree Fournier, also
quite connected. Very much so. Her father was
a diplomat, and interestingly, she was the goddaughter
of the Swedish Crown Prince, Charles Bernadotte.
So... You know, not exactly humble origins. That's
an almost crushing level of societal expectation,
surely. Immense pressure. But Manet just wasn't
having it. He apparently showed little interest
or aptitude for his studies at the College Roland.
He was, by all accounts, bored stiff by convention.
So the law was out. What did he try next? Well,
to sort of appease his father, he tried the Navy.
He sailed on a training ship to Rio de Janeiro
in 1848. But when he got back, he failed the
entrance exam. twice. Hmm. Was it failure maybe?
Convenient? A way out? One wonders. Yeah. Whether
it was strategic or genuine failure, it worked.
His father finally, maybe reluctantly, gave in
and agreed to let him pursue art. Okay, so his
formal training begins 1850 to 1856. He studies
under Thomas Couture. An academic painter. That
seems like a contradiction right there. It is.
And that contradiction is absolutely key to understanding
how Manet later subverted everything. Couture
was actually considered somewhat progressive
for his time. He encouraged his students to paint
contemporary life, to look at the world around
them, not just classical myths or history. Which
sounds great. But? But the relationship soured
because Manet took that advice very literally.
And he applied it to subjects that Couture found,
well, disgusting. Like what sort of subjects?
Couture was apparently horrified by Manet's choices.
He started painting lower class figures, the
disenfranchised, subjects considered degenerate
at the time. Think of the absent drinker, painted
around 1858 -59. Ah, right. So Manet soaking
up all this classical technique. Exactly. Learning
the craft, the draftsmanship. Only to point it
directly at the gritty, unsanitized reality of
modern city life and poverty. That must have
caused friction. Huge friction. Meanwhile, though,
he was doing his homework as a serious student,
traveling Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and
crucially, spending hours in the Louvre copying
the old masters. Who specifically? Figures like
Diego Velasquez, the Spanish master. Titian.
You also see the clear influence of Dutch painters
like Frans Hals and definitely Goya. And that
deep dive into the classics, that intimate knowledge
of the canon, is what allowed him to then break
away. Precisely. It gave him the foundation to
build his own distinct style when he opened his
own studio in 1856. He starts developing this
technique that visibly moves away from the highly
polished, almost invisible brushwork favored
by the salon. How did it look different? Much
looser brush strokes, more visible paint, a simplification
of details, and critically, the suppression of
transitional tones. Okay, what does suppression
of transitional tones mean for someone looking
at the painting? It means he started getting
rid of those subtle, gradual shifts in shading,
the chiaroscuro, that creates the illusion of
smooth, rounded, three -dimensional form. Think
of how Renaissance masters modeled a face or
a body. Right, lots of layers, smooth blending.
Manet started ditching that. using larger blocks
of often quite flat, opaque color placed right
next to each other. It creates this visually
startling flatness. Figures can look almost like
cutouts sometimes, rather than fully rounded
bodies in deep space. And subject -wise. He fully
embraced the realism championed by Gustave Courbet,
focusing strictly on contemporary, everyday subjects.
Beggars, singers, Romani people, folks in cafes,
bullfights. He made a very conscious choice.
After this point, he almost never paints religious,
mythological, or historical scenes again. It's
all about the now. So his first real moment at
the salon, 1861, The Spanish Singer. That must
have given people a taste of this new approach.
It did. It was accepted, which was a win. It
was even admired by the influential critic Théophile
Gaultier and got a good spot in the wall. So
a success. Yes, but a success that already hinted
at trouble. While the establishment found it
acceptable enough, the younger, more adventurous
artists really noticed the technique. The sources
say its style looked slightly slapdash compared
to the super meticulous paintings all around
it. Slapdash meaning unfinished. Kind of. Loose.
Immediate. Painted in a strange new fashion.
One contemporary observer apparently said it
caused many painters' eyes to open and their
jaws to drop. Wow. So that mix of intrigue and
maybe slight technical offense, the feeling that
he was daring to submit something so direct.
Exactly. That's the seed of what he would soon
amplify into. full -blown, career -defining controversy.
And that initial intrigue just explodes, doesn't
it, into what we're calling the three great provocations,
works that really kick -started modern art. Let's
take them chronologically, starting with 1862,
music in the Tuileries. Right. This is one of
his first major masterpieces focusing purely
on modern leisure, the Parisian bourgeoisie enjoying
themselves outdoors. It's a crowd scene in the
Jardin des Tuileries. And it includes recognizable
faces. Yes. Portraits of people in Manet's own
social circle. You can spot the poet Charles
Baudelaire, the composer Jacques Offenbach. Manet
even tucked a little self -portrait in there.
Now, for us today, a painting of people chilling
in a park seems completely harmless. Why on earth
was the reaction so vicious? The sources say
the attention was substantial, but most of it
negative. It boiled down to execution and subject
hierarchy. The audience back then was just conditioned
to expect smooth, invisible brushwork. especially
in paintings aspiring to high art. Manet's brushstrokes
are thick, visible, almost blocky in places.
So it looked crude, unfinished. Exactly. To them,
it looked negligent, like a sketch blown up large.
And then there was the subject itself. By painting
his specific friends... intellectuals dandies
modern city folk relaxing rather than say roman
senators or greek gods he was challenging what
was considered important enough to paint precisely
he was implicitly saying my friends hanging out
on a tuesday are as valid a subject for serious
art as any scene from the bible or mythology
that was a radical statement in itself and the
reality The reaction wasn't just verbal critique,
was it? People apparently threatened the painting
itself. That's the report, yes. That some visitors
were so offended by the crudeness, they actually
threatened to destroy the painting right there
on the wall. It's a staggering reaction to visible
paint and a modern scene. But it put them on
the map. Oh, absolutely. It achieved that first
major goal. Notoriety. Eugene Delacroix, the
established master painter, was actually one
of the few who defended it. The controversy made
Manet a household name in Parisian art circles,
even if it was for scandalous reasons. And the
notoriety just snowballed the very next year,
1863, with Luncheon on the Grass, Le Déjeuner
sur l 'herbe. This one wasn't even accepted by
the official salon. Correct. It was rejected.
But 1863 was a year of massive rejections by
the salon jury. There was such a public outcry.
from artists and their supporters that Emperor
Napoleon III himself stepped in. And created
the Salon des Refusés, the Salon of the Rejected.
Exactly. A parallel exhibition specifically for
the rejected works. And this, ironically, gave
Manet the perfect high -profile stage for his
revolution. And the painting itself, the subject
matter is just legendary for its shock value.
It really is. You've got two fully dressed...
Obviously contemporary, sophisticated men. They're
lounging in a woodland setting. And next to them
is a woman who is completely nude, stark naked,
staring directly out at the viewer. While another
woman, partly dressed, bathes in the background.
It's the sheer lack of justification that got
people right. Absolutely. The salon regularly
showed nude figures, tons of them. But they always
had an excuse. They were Venus or a nymph or
an allegory of truth or something. They were
safely in the realm of myth or history. But Manet's
nude. She was clearly a woman of their time,
a modern Parisian. And her nudity wasn't explained
away by mythology. It just was. It strongly suggested
a contemporary picnic, maybe something illicit
interrupted. Her gaze is so direct, so unashamed.
And again, the style fueled the fire. Oh, definitely.
Critics were absolutely infuriated by the handling.
They called it abbreviated, sketch -like. It
lacked that traditional, smooth, illusionistic
depth. They threw words like ugly, vulgar. And
of course, that was the painting that got the
infamous floor mob critique. But here's the brilliant
twist, the intellectual punch. Manet wasn't just
being provocative for its own sake. He was deliberately
referencing and messing with the old masters.
Exactly. This is where his deep study comes in.
He knew his art history inside out. The actual
arrangement of the main figures, the two men
and the nude woman, is taken almost directly
from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi. Which
was based on a drawing by Raphael of The Judgment
of Paris. Correct. And there are also clear compositional
echoes of Giorgione's or Titian's Pastoral Concert,
another famous Renaissance painting with clothed
men and nude women in a landscape. So he's using
the visual language they respected. But applying
it to a modern, confrontational, arguably vulgar
scene. He's basically saying to the critics,
you know this composition. I've just swapped
out your goddesses for maybe a prostitute on
her day off. It was incredibly clever and deeply
subversive. And it worked in terms of impact.
Le Déjeuner and Whistler's Symphony in White,
number one, became the defining works of the
Salon des Refusés. It made that exhibition legendary.
Absolutely. One of the most famous exhibitions
ever, really. We know the writer Emil Zola was...
Profoundly affected by it, he even based the
pivotal painting in his novel Louvre on Manet's
work. So Manet became utterly notorious, famous
or infamous. But did it help him sell paintings?
Not really, no. He gained notoriety, but still
struggled to sell his work. He was still largely
living off his family inheritance at this point.
The fame didn't immediately translate into financial
success. Which brings us to 1865 and the painting
that perhaps caused the biggest scandal of all.
If luncheon was a shock, Olympia was an earthquake.
Manet consciously decided to double down. He'd
apparently accepted a kind of challenge to give
the official salon a major nude painting they
couldn't ignore. And he delivered, again referencing
a Renaissance masterpiece. Yes, this time it's
a direct, almost confrontational paraphrase of
Titian's Venus of Urbino. Yeah. But also maybe
Goya's Nude Magia. He takes that reclining female
nude pose. And strips it of all idealization.
This is no goddess of love. Absolutely not. This
is a frank, quite stark depiction of a self -assured
contemporary Parisian prostitute. And the scandal
it caused at the 1865 Salon was so intense, they
literally had to post guards near the painting.
Just stop people from damaging it. Yes. There
were real fears of vandalism from outraged viewers.
What was it about Olympia specifically that provoked
such fury? Beyond just the subject. So many things.
First, the realism. She's thin, pale, not the
voluptuous, idealized nude of tradition. Her
body type ran completely counter to the prevailing
classical standards. She looks family. Bony.
Angular. And her gaze? Utterly direct. Unabashedly
confrontational. She's propped up on her pillows,
looking straight out at us, the viewers, who
were implicitly cast in the role of her client.
Her servant is bringing flowers, presumably from
another admirer. The whole scene implies a transaction.
The details reinforce this, too, don't they?
The small items of clothing she is wearing. Exactly.
They're very specific and contemporary. The orchid
in her hair, the bracelet, that black ribbon
tied around her neck, the fancy mule slippers
just falling off her feet. These aren't classical
draperies. They're markers of a specific kind
of 19th century femininity linked to courtesans
and fashion. They accentuate her profession.
And the symbolism. The black cat instead of Titian's
sleeping dog. Right. Titian's little dog often
symbolizes fidelity or domesticity. Manet replaces
it with this alert, arch -backed black cat, a
symbol often associated with witchcraft, independence,
or overt sexuality and promiscuity. It adds to
the unsettling. modern vibe and the servant the
inclusion of the fully dressed black servant
was also provocative some contemporary theory
suggested it played on racial stereotypes about
hypersexuality adding another layer of sexual
tension and emphasizing the private transactional
nature of the scene and technically How did he
make her look so stark? Again, it's that suppression
of transitional tones pushed even further. He
uses strong outlines and relatively flat areas
of color. This creates a lack of traditional
modeling and depth, making her look almost pasted
onto the background. Inspired by Japanese woodblock
prints, perhaps? Very likely. Those prints were
becoming fashionable in Paris, and their flatness,
bold outlines, and unusual compositions definitely
influenced Manet and the Impressionists. It made
Olympia feel less like a window onto a realistic
scene and more like, well, a painting. A constructed
image, more disturbingly present and human. The
critics hated it, obviously. They attacked her
dirty hands, her shamelessly flexed left hand
covering herself. They saw that gesture not as
modesty, but as a vulgar, knowing wink. A mockery
of classical poses. But the emerging avant -garde
artists, Courbet, Cezanne, Monet, later Gauguin,
they saw its power. They championed it. Yes,
they recognized its honesty, its modernity. Olympia
forced uncomfortable conversations about prostitution,
about class, about the roles and representation
of women in modern France. It was a truly pivotal
work. Okay, so with these massive scandals, Manet
cemented his reputation as the great provocateur,
the revolutionary. But he then really leaned
into becoming the visual chronicler of everyday
modern Parisian life. He truly became the painter
as Flaneur. Absolutely. That term flaneur, the
detached but passionate observer, the stroller
who wanders through the city streets, soaking
it all in it, was being defined by writers like
Baudelaire, who was Manet's friend. And Manet
gave that literary idea its definitive visual
form. He wasn't just painting scenes of the city,
he was painting the experience of being in the
modern city, observing, sketching. Yes, with
almost a sociologist's eye for detail, but an
artist's hand. Capturing those fleeting moments
of interaction or non -interaction in cafes,
bars, parks, train stations He elevated this
kind of urban observation into a subject worthy
of high art. And his café scenes are just perfect
examples of this, aren't they? They feel so immediate
and not staged at all. Places like the Brasserie
Reichshafen, which inspired paintings like at
the café or the café concert. They're like painted
snapshots. You see people drinking beer, maybe
listening to music, flirting, reading newspapers,
or sometimes just looking bored, waiting. He
uses that loose, quick style, referencing painters
like Halls and Velazquez to... capture the atmosphere.
And the social mix? That's key too. You often
see the urban working class right alongside the
well -dressed bourgeoisie. They occupy the same
space, breathe the same air, even if they don't
interact. Like in the cafe concert, you have
that sophisticated gentleman in his top hat looking
maybe a bit world -weary, and then right nearby,
the waitress standing quite resolutely, maybe
taking a quick sip of her own drink. The class
lines are visible, but the space is shared. Exactly.
Or think of a portrait like Le Bon Boc from 1873.
It's just this incredibly present, cheerful,
bearded man, pipe in hand, glass of beer in front
of him, looking straight out at you. It feels
so warm, so immediate. He uses those dark Velazquez
-like tones, but the subject is completely contemporary
and relatable. But he wasn't only painting bohemian
cafes and bars. He also documented the more formal
activities of the upper classes. Oh, yes. He
moved across the social spectrum. Think of Masked
Ball at the opera. It's this swirling, vibrant
crowd scene. Men in formal black top hats and
coats, women in masks, colorful costumes. And
again, he includes portraits of his actual friends
within the crowd. Making it both a genre scene
and a kind of social document. Right. Or look
at the races at Longchamp. It's all about capturing
motion and energy. He uses this really unusual
dramatic perspective. The horses are thundering
almost directly towards the viewer. You feel
that furious energy, as the sources put it. Even
his paintings of big public events seem to capture
a cross -section of the city. Paris was changing
so rapidly then, with Baron Haussmann's massive
urban renewal projects. Absolutely. Look at his
view of the international exhibition. It's like
a slice of Parisian life spread out before you.
You see soldiers relaxing, prosperous looking
couples chatting, a gardener at work, a boy with
a dog. It represents a whole sample of classes
and ages all mingling in this newly designed
modern public space. Manet also took on current
events, particularly war, using them to kind
of update the grand old genre of history painting.
Yes, he moved history painting firmly into the
present day. His first major example was the
Battle of the Cure Sarge and the Alabama in 1864.
It depicts a naval skirmish from the American
Civil War that actually happened off the coast
of France. Manet might have even witnessed it.
or at least the aftermath. So no Roman legions
or Greek heroes. Instead, it's immediate contemporary
naval warfare. Smoke, ships, the sea. Exactly.
But perhaps his most politically charged work
in this vein was the execution of Emperor Maximilian.
He actually painted three large versions of this
between 1867 and 1869. Maximilian, the Austrian
archduke who Napoleon III had installed as emperor
of Mexico and who was then captured and executed
by Mexican forces. Right. Manet's depiction is
this stark, brutal firing squad scene. It's a
direct, powerful indictment of state -sanctioned
violence, a formalized slaughter. And it clearly
looks back to Goya's paintings of the Napoleonic
Wars, especially the 3rd of May, 1808. And it
was seen as a critique of French foreign policy.
Absolutely. Napoleon III's Mexican adventure
was a disaster and deeply unpopular in France.
Manet's painting was seen as commenting on that
failure, on the human cost of imperial ambition.
It anticipates later anti -war masterpieces like
Picasso's Guernica. And the authorities knew
it was dangerous. Oh, yes. The subject was so
politically sensitive that neither the finished
paintings nor a lithograph Manet made of the
scene were allowed to be exhibited publicly in
France during the Second Empire. That tells you
how potent contemporary history painting could
be. Manet himself lived through intense historical
upheaval too, didn't he? The Franco -Prussian
War and the Paris Commune. He did. He actually
served in the National Guard during the Siege
of Paris in 1870 -71. It was a brutal experience.
Later, during the brief, bloody Paris Commune
uprising in 1871, some of his artist friends
apparently added his name to the list of the
Commune's Fédération des Artistes. But he wasn't
actively involved. No. Manet seems to have consciously
kept his distance from the Commune's extremism
and violence. He admired the moderate Republican
leader, Leon Gambetta, but viewed the Communards
leading the uprising as dangerous radicals. Party
hacks, as one source puts it. But the violence
of that period still found its way into his work.
Yes, most notably in a watercolor and gouache
called The Barricade. It depicts the summary
execution of communards by the Versailles government
troops after the commune was crushed. It's a
shocking image, and he directly reused the firing
squad composition from his earlier Maximilian
lithograph. It's this raw journalistic depiction
of contemporary brutality. And perhaps nothing
blends his focus on modernity, urban structure,
and challenging composition quite like his 1873
painting, The Railway, also known sometimes as
the Guerre Saint -Lazare. Ah, yes. This one is
fascinatingly deliberately awkward, isn't it?
It features Victorine Marant, the model from
Olympia and Luncheon. His notorious muse. Sitting
on a low wall in front of these imposing black
iron railings of the Gare Saint -Lazare train
station. But the train itself is barely visible.
That's the radical part. Compositionally, Manet
just throws traditional perspective out the window.
He ignores the convention of creating deep receding
space. Instead, you have this strong vertical
and horizontal grid of the iron fence stretched
right across the middle ground of the canvas.
It acts like a barrier. It flattens the whole
picture and behind it, just a big puff of white
steam where the train should be. Exactly. The
only real evidence of the railway, the symbol
of modern industrial progress, is that cloud
of steam. and a little girl standing with her
back to us, peering through the railings at it.
So if he's the painter of modern life, why hide
the main event, the technological marvel? Critics
at the time were baffled, weren't they? Completely
baffled. When it was shown at the 1874 Salon,
they found the subject confusing, the composition
incoherent, the execution too sketchy. They wanted
a clear depiction of the train, the power, the
progress. But Manet gives them something else
entirely. It's more about the feeling of modern
urban space. I think so. It's not about celebrating
the train itself. It's about the new environment
the railway creates. The iron architecture, the
steam, the noise, even though you can't hear
it, the sense of compressed space, maybe even
alienation. That fence is like a visual metaphor
for the barriers and structures of modern life.
And placing Victorine Marant there, the face
of his earlier scambles, but now fully clothed,
holding a book and a puppy, looking directly
at us. It anchors the scene in his own controversial
history, but also presents her as part of this
new... somewhat ambiguous urban landscape. She's
looking out, the child is looking in. There's
a sense of disconnect, of observing and being
observed, which is very characteristic of the
Flanner's perspective. So the critics just didn't
get his new visual language. Not at all. They
were still judging by the old rules of clear
narratives and deep perspective. Manet was showing
them the fragmented, ambiguous reality of modern
life through a radically new, flattened, more
subjective lens. But today we see it as this
incredibly insightful symbol of modernity. So
while Manet's building this public persona as
the defiant painter of modern Paris, his personal
life gets really tangled up with the art world,
especially with the Impressionists, even though
he never quite joined their club officially.
Right. He was always sort of their reluctant
hero. But first, there's some significant personal
intrigue, particularly around his marriage. In
1863, shortly after his rather imposing father
died, Manet married Suzanne Leenhoff. She was
a Dutch piano teacher a couple of years older
than him, and they'd been involved for quite
a while. Yes, romantically involved for about
10 years before the marriage. But the backstory
is complicated. Suzanne was originally hired
by Manet's father, Auguste, to give piano lessons
to Edouard and his brothers. And there's speculation,
isn't there, that she might have actually been
Auguste Manet's mistress. There is persistent
speculation about that, yes. Adding to the complexity,
Suzanne had a son. Leon Coelho -Leanhoff, born
out of wedlock in 1852. And the big question
mark is, who was Leon's father? Was it Auguste,
the father, or Edouard, the son? Exactly. That
question seems to have remained ambiguous, perhaps
deliberately so, throughout their lives. Leon
was acknowledged and lived with them, and Manet
painted him, frequently think of boy carrying
a sword. But the secrecy surrounding his paternity
points to a complex, perhaps difficult, private
reality. It's fascinating, isn't it? This acceptance
of ambiguity and maybe hidden truths in his private
life seems to run parallel to his art paintings
that often have these layered, hidden, sometimes
provocative meanings beneath a seemingly straightforward
surface. Absolutely. He seems to have lived with
a certain duality which perhaps informed the
duality in his work. And this personal complexity
existed alongside the incredibly important artistic
friendships he was forming. He became central
to that circle of artists who would become the
Impressionists. Yes. He formed really crucial
bonds with figures like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet,
Pierre -Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne,
Camille Pissarro. They became known as the Batignolles
group, named after the area in Paris where Manet
lived and where they often met in cafes, like
the Café Guerbois, to talk, argue, and shape
the future of painting. And he had powerful allies
in the literary world, too. Definitely. Writers
like Emile Zola became fierce champions, defending
him against the critics. Stéphane Mallarmé, the
symbolist poet, was a close friend. Manet even
created lithographs to illustrate Mallarmé's
French translation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.
And of course, Charles Baudelaire, the poet of
modern life, was an early supporter and friend.
These connections gave his art intellectual weight.
One particularly important and perhaps personally
charged relationship. was with Bertha Morisot.
Ah, yes, Bertha Morisot, a brilliant painter
in her own right, a core member of the Impressionist
group. Manet met her in 1868. They became close
friends and colleagues. And she later married
his younger brother, Eugene, in 1874, making
her Manet's sister -in -law. And she influenced
his painting style. Significantly. She's often
credited with pushing Manet to try plain air
painting outdoors, directly from nature, which
was central to the Impressionist approach. Manet,
in turn, influenced her. He adopted some of her
lighter palette and looser brushwork into his
paintings in the 1870s. It was a real artistic
exchange. But there's also speculation about
their personal relationship. Manet painted her
many times. He did. Some incredibly striking
and intense portraits. Because of the intensity
of these portraits and their close bond, biographers
often speculate about a potential repressed love
between them, a deep connection that couldn't
be fully expressed, especially after she married
his brother. Whether true or not, there's certainly
a unique psychological charge in his paintings
of her. So, despite these close ties, why is
he called the reluctant impressionist? Why didn't
he just join their group exhibitions? It came
down to strategy and ambition, really. Manet
despite being their inspiration in many ways,
held on to a more traditional belief. He felt
that true success, true revolution, meant conquering
the official Paris salon from within. He wanted
to force the establishment to accept his modern
vision. Whereas the core Impressionists, like
Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, decided to bypass
the salon entirely and hold their own independent
exhibitions starting in 1874. Exactly. Manet
disagreed with that strategy. He thought they
were marginalizing themselves. He wanted the
official recognition, the medals, the state purchases
that came with Salon's success. Although when
he was rejected, he wasn't afraid to go his own
way, like in 1867. Right. When he was excluded
from the big international exhibition that year,
he did rebel, but in his own style. He funded
and set up his own massive independent pavilion
right near the official exhibition to showcase
his work. It cost him a fortune, apparently so
much of his inheritance that his mother was seriously
worried about his finances. But that independent
show, even though financially draining, was important
for connecting with other artists. Yes, it was
actually where he made his first significant
contacts with several of the artists who become
the core Impressionist group, including Degas.
So, ironically, his act of solo rebellion helped
forge the group he refused to formally join.
So he was influenced by them, especially Monet
and Morisot, using lighter colors later on. Yes,
his palette definitely brightened in the 1870s
under their influence. But he always kept something
distinct. That use of black. That's crucial.
The Impressionists largely banished black from
their palettes, believing shadows should be composed
of colors. Manet always retained his powerful,
dramatic use of black for outlines, for deep
shadows, for those sharp contrasts. It gave his
work a graphic strength, a solidity that set
it apart. He might paint outdoors sometimes,
but he always returned to what he called the
serious work of the studio. And his technical
legacy for them, beyond just inspiration, the
a la prima method is key here, isn't it? absolutely
fundamental this is perhaps his single most important
technical contribution that changed painting
forever okay let's break that down a la prima
meaning at first attempt how did it actually
work and why was it such a big deal so traditional
academic painting the kind taught by couture
and practiced for centuries involved building
up a painting in many thin layers, usually over
a dark preparatory ground or under painting.
You'd apply a layer, let it dry completely, which
could take days or weeks, then apply another
translucent glaze, and so on. Which creates that
smooth, polished finish, that illusion of depth
and internal light. Exactly. It's a slow, painstaking
process. Manet largely rejected this. He adopted
the alla prima approach, which meant applying
opaque paint directly onto a light -colored ground,
often whiter cream, and trying to get the final
effect in a single session while the paint was
still wet. Wet -on -wet painting. Precisely.
finishing it at the first attempt. This meant
sacrificing some of that deep -layered illusionism.
But what he gained was incredible speed, spontaneity,
and freshness. The brush strokes remain visible.
The paint surface itself feels more active, more
material. So when critics complained his work
looked sketchy or unfinished, they were partly
reacting to the visible evidence of this rapid,
direct technique. They were used to paintings
where the artist's labor was concealed. Manet
made the act of painting visible. He basically
weaponized speed, linking the technique to the
fleeting moments of modern life he wanted to
capture. Beautifully put. It forced the viewer
to confront the painting as paint on canvas,
not just an illusion. It was revolutionary. And
this a la prima method was immediately adopted
by the Impressionists. It perfectly suited their
goal of capturing fleeting effects of light and
atmosphere outdoors. And it essentially became
the standard technique for oil painting for generations
to come. Manet's incredible run of groundbreaking
work really spans from the early 1860s right
up until his death in 1883. But tragically, in
his mid -40s, his health started to fail quite
seriously, a really poignant contrast between
his public artistic triumphs and his private
physical suffering. It is. By the late 1870s,
he began experiencing severe pain and increasing
difficulty walking, a partial paralysis in his
legs. He went for hydrotherapy treatments in
1879, apparently believing or... perhaps hoping
it was just a circulatory issue. But the diagnosis
was much worse. Yes. The reality was he was suffering
from locomotor ataxia. We now know this is a
devastating neurological condition, a common
and severe tertiary stage of syphilis. Syphilis
was rampant in 19th century Paris, wasn't it,
affecting many artists and writers? Tragically,
yes. And from an A, it led to this progressive,
painful decline. Yet even while dealing with
this debilitating illness, often needing assistance
to walk or being confined to a wheelchair, he
produced one last, absolutely major masterpiece.
A Bar at the Folies -Bergère, completed in 1882,
exhibited at the Salon that same year. It's an
astonishing final statement, a summation of so
many of his themes. Modern Parisian nightlife,
ambiguous social interactions, the complex relationship
between reality and representation. Describe
the scene for us. It depicts a barmaid, Suzanne,
standing behind a marble -topped bar. She looks
directly out at us, the viewer, with a rather
melancholic, detached expression. Behind her
is a huge mirror reflecting the entire bustling
scene of the Filiberger Café concert hall, crowds,
gaslights, acrobats' legs dangling in the upper
corner. But the reflection is... Tricky, isn't
it? It doesn't quite add up spatially. Not at
all. That's the genius in the deliberate puzzle.
If you look closely, the reflection of the barmaid
and the hero seem shifted significantly to the
right. And in the reflection, she appears to
be talking quite closely to a male customer in
a top hat. A customer whose actual figure isn't
in the real space of the painting. So where is
he supposed to be, standing where we, the viewers,
are? That's the most common interpretation. We,
the viewers, become the client she's reflected
talking to. It implicates us directly in the
scene, in the transaction. But the perspective
is deliberately warped. Impossible. Manet uses
the mirror not for realistic depth, but to flatten
the space, create ambiguity, and confuse the
relationship between the observer and the observed.
It's like his final brilliant assault on traditional
perspective and illusionism, highlighting the
artificiality of the painting itself. And maybe
the alienation of modern urban life. Exactly.
It encapsulates that feeling of being in a crowd
but alone, the surface glitter and the underlying
melancholy. It's a deeply complex and haunting
final masterpiece. And after completing this
huge, complex work, his illness really forced
him to scale back. Yes. The physical effort of
large canvases became too much. In his last year
or two, he limited himself almost entirely to
smaller formats, particularly still lifes. Flowers,
fruit. Vegetables. Yes, beautiful, intimate paintings
like a bunch of asparagus or the lemon. There's
a real poignancy to this final chapter. This
revolutionary artist, known for his shocking
public statements, turns inward to these quiet,
contemplative subjects. Painted with that same
directness, that a la prima freshness. Absolutely.
They might be small, but they have an incredible
vibrancy and presence. His very last works were
a series of about 20 small still lifes depicting
flowers, often single stems, in simple glass
vases. The last one was painted just about two
months before he died. There's that quote attributed
to him, isn't there? That an artist can say everything
with flowers, fruit, and clouds. Yes. It suggests
a kind of late -life realization, perhaps, that
the power of his revolutionary technique wasn't
dependent on shocking subjects. He could find
profound meaning and express his artistic vision
even in the simplest, most universal forms. There's
a sense of resolution there. Did he receive any
official recognition towards the end, after all
the battles? He did, finally. In 1881, he was
awarded the Légion d 'honneur, France's highest
order of merit. Though the sources suggest it
wasn't easily given, it took considerable lobbying
from his friend Antonin Proust, who had become
Minister of Fine Arts. A somewhat belated honor,
perhaps. A bittersweet one, certainly. His health
continued to deteriorate rapidly. In early April
1883, Gangrene set in in his left foot, likely
due to complications from the syphilis affecting
his circulation and nerves. Amputation was necessary.
And he didn't survive the surgery long? No, he
died just 11 days later, on April 30, 1883. He
was only 51 years old. He's buried in Passy Cemetery
in Paris. Such a relatively short life, but an
absolutely monumental impact. His legacy as the
father of modernism seems secure. Why is his
work considered so definitively... early modern.
It really comes down to those technical innovations
we've discussed. The flatness, the visible brushwork,
the suppression of traditional modeling, the
bold use of black outlines, all these things
draw your attention to the surface of the painting,
to the paint itself, rather than letting you
just look through it as if it were a window onto
a perfect illusion. He makes you aware you're
looking at a painting. Precisely. He emphasizes
the medium. And the art historian Beatrice Farwell
summarized his key contributions brilliantly.
She argued he's the father of modernism because,
first, he took huge risks with the public whose
approval he actually craved. Second, he made
alla prima painting the standard. Third, he deliberately
broke the rules of Renaissance perspective. Fourth,
Alongside Courbet, he rejected traditional historical
and mythological subjects in favor of contemporary
life. He fundamentally helped establish modern
urban life, the crowds, the cafes, the fleeting
encounters, the alienation, the excitement as
legitimate, even essential, subject matter for
serious high art. He took the everyday, the mundane,
even the controversial, and gave it monumental
artistic weight. And that legacy is reflected
in how his work is valued today. Immensely so.
The art market has certainly caught up to his
importance. As a striking example, his late painting
Le Printemps, Spring from 1881, sold at auction
in 2014 for over $65 million. That set a new
record for his work at the time, far exceeding
the previous record held by one of his self -portraits.
It shows the enduring power and recognition of
his vision. Which also explains why there's still
so much interest in exploring his connections
and influence, like that recent major exhibition
at the Met in New York, focusing on his relationship
with Dega. These artists weren't working in a
vacuum. They were reacting to and pushing each
other. So if we try to pull it all together,
Manet's central role really emerges from that
unique combination. He mastered the tools, the
visual language of the old masters. He knew his
Titian, his Velazquez, his Raphael. But then
he applied that classical toolkit with this shocking
directness and immediacy to the realities often
uncomfortable, unflattering realities of 19th
century Paris. He was this fascinating paradox,
an insider by birth from a wealthy, powerful...
family, yet he became the ultimate painter of
outsiders, of the marginal, the modern. He didn't
just reject tradition, he used it, twisted it,
subverted it to forge this path towards modernity,
fueled by controversy and radical formal innovation.
His great champion, Emil Zola, captured this
perfectly way back in 1867. He wrote of Manet's
work, We are not accustomed to seeing such simple
and direct translations of reality. It is a truly
charming experience to contemplate this luminous
and serious painting, which interprets nature
with a gentle brutality. Gentle brutality. That
phrase is so evocative, isn't it? It perfectly
captures that Manet effect, the sophisticated
technique, the often beautiful paint handling,
delivering the sometimes harsh, sometimes awkward,
but always intensely present truth about modern
life. He jolted his viewers out of their comfort
zones. Exactly. He used skill to deliver a punch,
a punch about what it felt like to be alive right
then, right there in that rapidly changing world.
So if Manet, in his final suffering months, felt
he could say everything he needed to say with
just flowers, fruit, and clouds, yet still retain
that gentle brutality, that direct, unflinching
focus on the material reality of the thing itself,
Maybe the challenge for you listening today is
to think about what that gentle brutality might
look like now. What subjects in our own complex
modern lives could be depicted with that kind
of simple, direct, maybe even controversial honesty?
What can you say, perhaps with unexpected beauty,
about the world right in front of you?