WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 Okay, let's dive in. We're tackling a figure 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:05.120 today who is, well, incredibly important, often 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:07.259 controversial, and really foundational. We're 00:00:07.259 --> 00:00:09.759 doing a deep dive into Edouard Manet. That's 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:12.839 right, a French modernist painter. Born 1832, 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:16.859 died quite young in 1883. And his work didn't 00:00:16.859 --> 00:00:19.079 just challenge the 19th century art world. I 00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:21.460 mean, it arguably blew it wide open. Well, it's 00:00:21.460 --> 00:00:23.420 paving the way for, well, pretty much everything 00:00:23.420 --> 00:00:25.620 we think of as modern art. He's this essential 00:00:25.620 --> 00:00:27.859 bridge figure, isn't he? He's standing right 00:00:27.859 --> 00:00:30.679 there on that fault line between academic realism, 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:34.520 the old way, and then boom. Impressionism bursts 00:00:34.520 --> 00:00:36.920 onto the scene. So our mission today for you 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:39.520 listening is to really unpack how he navigated 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.039 that transition. Why are his paintings, especially 00:00:42.039 --> 00:00:44.039 those early controversial ones, seen as these 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:46.479 critical watershed moments? Yeah, what makes 00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:49.299 them mark the definitive start of modern art? 00:00:49.549 --> 00:00:51.450 It's a big claim. And when we say watershed, 00:00:51.609 --> 00:00:54.409 we really mean scandal, don't we? Pure, unadulterated 00:00:54.409 --> 00:00:57.329 outrage. Manet almost seemed to court provocation. 00:00:57.469 --> 00:01:00.950 He absolutely did. His whole identity as this 00:01:00.950 --> 00:01:04.010 modernist pioneer is completely tied up with 00:01:04.010 --> 00:01:08.069 the intense fury that followed his early masterpieces. 00:01:08.109 --> 00:01:10.870 We're talking The Luncheon on the Grass. Le Déjeuner 00:01:10.870 --> 00:01:15.349 sur l 'Air. And Olympia, premiering 1863 -1865. 00:01:16.590 --> 00:01:18.689 These weren't gentle suggestions for change. 00:01:18.909 --> 00:01:21.269 No, these were like cultural bombs going off 00:01:21.269 --> 00:01:23.930 in the Paris salon, instantly condemned by the 00:01:23.930 --> 00:01:26.069 establishment critics, the gatekeepers. So just 00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:28.209 as instantly hailed by the younger progressive 00:01:28.209 --> 00:01:31.230 artists, they saw it immediately. This was something 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:33.569 new, something revolutionary. That audacity just 00:01:33.569 --> 00:01:36.430 made him notorious overnight. It really is fascinating 00:01:36.430 --> 00:01:39.129 when you trace his career arc, isn't it? That 00:01:39.129 --> 00:01:42.030 is an artist who is so, so harshly judged. I 00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:43.569 mean, wasn't there that famous critique about 00:01:43.569 --> 00:01:45.849 his brushwork? Oh, yeah. The infamous floor mop 00:01:45.849 --> 00:01:48.150 comment that it looked like his painting was 00:01:48.150 --> 00:01:50.609 done with a floor mop. Unbelievable hostility. 00:01:50.609 --> 00:01:52.930 And yet the same artist comes to be universally 00:01:52.930 --> 00:01:55.709 seen as the father of modernism. It's quite the 00:01:55.709 --> 00:01:57.590 journey. And he just kept working through it 00:01:57.590 --> 00:02:00.010 all. The condemnation didn't stop him. His productivity 00:02:00.010 --> 00:02:02.890 was actually immense. If you look at the numbers, 00:02:02.969 --> 00:02:06.689 we're talking about 430 oil paintings, nearly 00:02:06.689 --> 00:02:10.580 90 pastels, over 400 works on paper. He worked 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:12.479 with incredible speed, incredible persistence. 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:15.639 And it's precisely that controversial output, 00:02:15.740 --> 00:02:18.020 that constant pushing that opened the door for 00:02:18.020 --> 00:02:20.099 basically every major art movement that followed. 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:22.879 So who was this guy? This rebel in a frock coat, 00:02:22.979 --> 00:02:26.000 as some call him. He definitely wasn't the stereotypical 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:28.060 starving artist in a garret. Not at all. He came 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:30.139 from serious money, serious status in Paris. 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:33.039 A true bourgeois revolutionary, if you like. 00:02:33.180 --> 00:02:37.159 Born January 23rd, 1832. Grew up in an ancestral 00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:40.729 mansion right in Paris. affluent, extremely well 00:02:40.729 --> 00:02:42.930 -connected family. His father, Auguste Manet, 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:44.889 was a high -ranking official in the Ministry 00:02:44.889 --> 00:02:48.050 of Justice, a respected judge, and he had very 00:02:48.050 --> 00:02:51.569 firm ideas about his son's future. Law. That 00:02:51.569 --> 00:02:53.810 was the expected path. A safe, respectable career. 00:02:54.050 --> 00:02:56.930 And his mother, Eugenie Desiree Fournier, also 00:02:56.930 --> 00:02:59.490 quite connected. Very much so. Her father was 00:02:59.490 --> 00:03:02.189 a diplomat, and interestingly, she was the goddaughter 00:03:02.189 --> 00:03:04.689 of the Swedish Crown Prince, Charles Bernadotte. 00:03:04.789 --> 00:03:08.000 So... You know, not exactly humble origins. That's 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.580 an almost crushing level of societal expectation, 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:14.860 surely. Immense pressure. But Manet just wasn't 00:03:14.860 --> 00:03:17.099 having it. He apparently showed little interest 00:03:17.099 --> 00:03:19.439 or aptitude for his studies at the College Roland. 00:03:19.659 --> 00:03:22.259 He was, by all accounts, bored stiff by convention. 00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:25.439 So the law was out. What did he try next? Well, 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:28.139 to sort of appease his father, he tried the Navy. 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:30.300 He sailed on a training ship to Rio de Janeiro 00:03:30.300 --> 00:03:33.360 in 1848. But when he got back, he failed the 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:36.990 entrance exam. twice. Hmm. Was it failure maybe? 00:03:37.810 --> 00:03:40.710 Convenient? A way out? One wonders. Yeah. Whether 00:03:40.710 --> 00:03:43.069 it was strategic or genuine failure, it worked. 00:03:43.210 --> 00:03:45.750 His father finally, maybe reluctantly, gave in 00:03:45.750 --> 00:03:48.009 and agreed to let him pursue art. Okay, so his 00:03:48.009 --> 00:03:51.490 formal training begins 1850 to 1856. He studies 00:03:51.490 --> 00:03:54.500 under Thomas Couture. An academic painter. That 00:03:54.500 --> 00:03:56.360 seems like a contradiction right there. It is. 00:03:56.460 --> 00:03:58.780 And that contradiction is absolutely key to understanding 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:01.180 how Manet later subverted everything. Couture 00:04:01.180 --> 00:04:02.500 was actually considered somewhat progressive 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:05.379 for his time. He encouraged his students to paint 00:04:05.379 --> 00:04:07.939 contemporary life, to look at the world around 00:04:07.939 --> 00:04:10.680 them, not just classical myths or history. Which 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:13.699 sounds great. But? But the relationship soured 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:16.660 because Manet took that advice very literally. 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:19.240 And he applied it to subjects that Couture found, 00:04:19.459 --> 00:04:23.180 well, disgusting. Like what sort of subjects? 00:04:23.399 --> 00:04:26.500 Couture was apparently horrified by Manet's choices. 00:04:26.819 --> 00:04:29.459 He started painting lower class figures, the 00:04:29.459 --> 00:04:32.319 disenfranchised, subjects considered degenerate 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:35.180 at the time. Think of the absent drinker, painted 00:04:35.180 --> 00:04:38.379 around 1858 -59. Ah, right. So Manet soaking 00:04:38.379 --> 00:04:40.800 up all this classical technique. Exactly. Learning 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:43.199 the craft, the draftsmanship. Only to point it 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.040 directly at the gritty, unsanitized reality of 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:48.439 modern city life and poverty. That must have 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:51.560 caused friction. Huge friction. Meanwhile, though, 00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:53.500 he was doing his homework as a serious student, 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:56.899 traveling Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and 00:04:56.899 --> 00:04:59.600 crucially, spending hours in the Louvre copying 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:02.060 the old masters. Who specifically? Figures like 00:05:02.060 --> 00:05:04.759 Diego Velasquez, the Spanish master. Titian. 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:06.779 You also see the clear influence of Dutch painters 00:05:06.779 --> 00:05:09.899 like Frans Hals and definitely Goya. And that 00:05:09.899 --> 00:05:12.500 deep dive into the classics, that intimate knowledge 00:05:12.500 --> 00:05:15.040 of the canon, is what allowed him to then break 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:17.379 away. Precisely. It gave him the foundation to 00:05:17.379 --> 00:05:19.939 build his own distinct style when he opened his 00:05:19.939 --> 00:05:23.600 own studio in 1856. He starts developing this 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.199 technique that visibly moves away from the highly 00:05:26.199 --> 00:05:28.980 polished, almost invisible brushwork favored 00:05:28.980 --> 00:05:31.199 by the salon. How did it look different? Much 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.600 looser brush strokes, more visible paint, a simplification 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:38.000 of details, and critically, the suppression of 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.319 transitional tones. Okay, what does suppression 00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:42.680 of transitional tones mean for someone looking 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:44.819 at the painting? It means he started getting 00:05:44.819 --> 00:05:47.660 rid of those subtle, gradual shifts in shading, 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.220 the chiaroscuro, that creates the illusion of 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:53.399 smooth, rounded, three -dimensional form. Think 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:55.839 of how Renaissance masters modeled a face or 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:58.319 a body. Right, lots of layers, smooth blending. 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:01.310 Manet started ditching that. using larger blocks 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:04.089 of often quite flat, opaque color placed right 00:06:04.089 --> 00:06:06.329 next to each other. It creates this visually 00:06:06.329 --> 00:06:09.069 startling flatness. Figures can look almost like 00:06:09.069 --> 00:06:10.769 cutouts sometimes, rather than fully rounded 00:06:10.769 --> 00:06:13.769 bodies in deep space. And subject -wise. He fully 00:06:13.769 --> 00:06:16.350 embraced the realism championed by Gustave Courbet, 00:06:16.509 --> 00:06:19.670 focusing strictly on contemporary, everyday subjects. 00:06:20.329 --> 00:06:23.189 Beggars, singers, Romani people, folks in cafes, 00:06:23.569 --> 00:06:25.850 bullfights. He made a very conscious choice. 00:06:26.970 --> 00:06:29.050 After this point, he almost never paints religious, 00:06:29.290 --> 00:06:32.050 mythological, or historical scenes again. It's 00:06:32.050 --> 00:06:34.610 all about the now. So his first real moment at 00:06:34.610 --> 00:06:37.930 the salon, 1861, The Spanish Singer. That must 00:06:37.930 --> 00:06:39.689 have given people a taste of this new approach. 00:06:39.930 --> 00:06:42.550 It did. It was accepted, which was a win. It 00:06:42.550 --> 00:06:44.730 was even admired by the influential critic Théophile 00:06:44.730 --> 00:06:46.810 Gaultier and got a good spot in the wall. So 00:06:46.810 --> 00:06:50.209 a success. Yes, but a success that already hinted 00:06:50.209 --> 00:06:52.930 at trouble. While the establishment found it 00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:55.230 acceptable enough, the younger, more adventurous 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:57.889 artists really noticed the technique. The sources 00:06:57.889 --> 00:07:00.290 say its style looked slightly slapdash compared 00:07:00.290 --> 00:07:02.230 to the super meticulous paintings all around 00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:05.910 it. Slapdash meaning unfinished. Kind of. Loose. 00:07:06.209 --> 00:07:08.709 Immediate. Painted in a strange new fashion. 00:07:09.089 --> 00:07:11.269 One contemporary observer apparently said it 00:07:11.269 --> 00:07:13.329 caused many painters' eyes to open and their 00:07:13.329 --> 00:07:16.649 jaws to drop. Wow. So that mix of intrigue and 00:07:16.649 --> 00:07:19.470 maybe slight technical offense, the feeling that 00:07:19.470 --> 00:07:21.529 he was daring to submit something so direct. 00:07:21.810 --> 00:07:24.449 Exactly. That's the seed of what he would soon 00:07:24.449 --> 00:07:28.069 amplify into. full -blown, career -defining controversy. 00:07:28.490 --> 00:07:31.790 And that initial intrigue just explodes, doesn't 00:07:31.790 --> 00:07:34.509 it, into what we're calling the three great provocations, 00:07:34.509 --> 00:07:37.129 works that really kick -started modern art. Let's 00:07:37.129 --> 00:07:39.269 take them chronologically, starting with 1862, 00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:42.449 music in the Tuileries. Right. This is one of 00:07:42.449 --> 00:07:45.269 his first major masterpieces focusing purely 00:07:45.269 --> 00:07:48.810 on modern leisure, the Parisian bourgeoisie enjoying 00:07:48.810 --> 00:07:51.670 themselves outdoors. It's a crowd scene in the 00:07:51.670 --> 00:07:53.970 Jardin des Tuileries. And it includes recognizable 00:07:53.970 --> 00:07:57.500 faces. Yes. Portraits of people in Manet's own 00:07:57.500 --> 00:07:59.399 social circle. You can spot the poet Charles 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:01.860 Baudelaire, the composer Jacques Offenbach. Manet 00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:03.500 even tucked a little self -portrait in there. 00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:06.120 Now, for us today, a painting of people chilling 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:09.600 in a park seems completely harmless. Why on earth 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:12.160 was the reaction so vicious? The sources say 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:14.259 the attention was substantial, but most of it 00:08:14.259 --> 00:08:18.100 negative. It boiled down to execution and subject 00:08:18.100 --> 00:08:21.480 hierarchy. The audience back then was just conditioned 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:25.079 to expect smooth, invisible brushwork. especially 00:08:25.079 --> 00:08:28.600 in paintings aspiring to high art. Manet's brushstrokes 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:31.620 are thick, visible, almost blocky in places. 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:35.179 So it looked crude, unfinished. Exactly. To them, 00:08:35.179 --> 00:08:37.559 it looked negligent, like a sketch blown up large. 00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:40.840 And then there was the subject itself. By painting 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:44.070 his specific friends... intellectuals dandies 00:08:44.070 --> 00:08:47.830 modern city folk relaxing rather than say roman 00:08:47.830 --> 00:08:50.509 senators or greek gods he was challenging what 00:08:50.509 --> 00:08:52.909 was considered important enough to paint precisely 00:08:52.909 --> 00:08:55.850 he was implicitly saying my friends hanging out 00:08:55.850 --> 00:08:58.169 on a tuesday are as valid a subject for serious 00:08:58.169 --> 00:09:00.309 art as any scene from the bible or mythology 00:09:00.309 --> 00:09:02.830 that was a radical statement in itself and the 00:09:02.830 --> 00:09:04.320 reality The reaction wasn't just verbal critique, 00:09:04.460 --> 00:09:06.460 was it? People apparently threatened the painting 00:09:06.460 --> 00:09:09.299 itself. That's the report, yes. That some visitors 00:09:09.299 --> 00:09:11.559 were so offended by the crudeness, they actually 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:13.279 threatened to destroy the painting right there 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:15.919 on the wall. It's a staggering reaction to visible 00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:18.019 paint and a modern scene. But it put them on 00:09:18.019 --> 00:09:20.539 the map. Oh, absolutely. It achieved that first 00:09:20.539 --> 00:09:24.370 major goal. Notoriety. Eugene Delacroix, the 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:26.450 established master painter, was actually one 00:09:26.450 --> 00:09:29.070 of the few who defended it. The controversy made 00:09:29.070 --> 00:09:31.090 Manet a household name in Parisian art circles, 00:09:31.269 --> 00:09:33.570 even if it was for scandalous reasons. And the 00:09:33.570 --> 00:09:36.110 notoriety just snowballed the very next year, 00:09:36.169 --> 00:09:39.309 1863, with Luncheon on the Grass, Le Déjeuner 00:09:39.309 --> 00:09:42.110 sur l 'herbe. This one wasn't even accepted by 00:09:42.110 --> 00:09:44.070 the official salon. Correct. It was rejected. 00:09:44.289 --> 00:09:47.830 But 1863 was a year of massive rejections by 00:09:47.830 --> 00:09:50.629 the salon jury. There was such a public outcry. 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:53.980 from artists and their supporters that Emperor 00:09:53.980 --> 00:09:56.820 Napoleon III himself stepped in. And created 00:09:56.820 --> 00:09:59.740 the Salon des Refusés, the Salon of the Rejected. 00:09:59.740 --> 00:10:02.460 Exactly. A parallel exhibition specifically for 00:10:02.460 --> 00:10:05.519 the rejected works. And this, ironically, gave 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:08.120 Manet the perfect high -profile stage for his 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:10.080 revolution. And the painting itself, the subject 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.000 matter is just legendary for its shock value. 00:10:12.259 --> 00:10:14.600 It really is. You've got two fully dressed... 00:10:14.759 --> 00:10:17.139 Obviously contemporary, sophisticated men. They're 00:10:17.139 --> 00:10:19.580 lounging in a woodland setting. And next to them 00:10:19.580 --> 00:10:22.220 is a woman who is completely nude, stark naked, 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:24.879 staring directly out at the viewer. While another 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:27.820 woman, partly dressed, bathes in the background. 00:10:28.500 --> 00:10:30.860 It's the sheer lack of justification that got 00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:33.720 people right. Absolutely. The salon regularly 00:10:33.720 --> 00:10:37.240 showed nude figures, tons of them. But they always 00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:40.700 had an excuse. They were Venus or a nymph or 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:42.799 an allegory of truth or something. They were 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.580 safely in the realm of myth or history. But Manet's 00:10:45.580 --> 00:10:47.759 nude. She was clearly a woman of their time, 00:10:47.820 --> 00:10:50.899 a modern Parisian. And her nudity wasn't explained 00:10:50.899 --> 00:10:54.019 away by mythology. It just was. It strongly suggested 00:10:54.019 --> 00:10:56.399 a contemporary picnic, maybe something illicit 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:59.899 interrupted. Her gaze is so direct, so unashamed. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.519 And again, the style fueled the fire. Oh, definitely. 00:11:03.049 --> 00:11:05.509 Critics were absolutely infuriated by the handling. 00:11:05.629 --> 00:11:07.710 They called it abbreviated, sketch -like. It 00:11:07.710 --> 00:11:09.809 lacked that traditional, smooth, illusionistic 00:11:09.809 --> 00:11:13.009 depth. They threw words like ugly, vulgar. And 00:11:13.009 --> 00:11:14.669 of course, that was the painting that got the 00:11:14.669 --> 00:11:17.690 infamous floor mob critique. But here's the brilliant 00:11:17.690 --> 00:11:20.659 twist, the intellectual punch. Manet wasn't just 00:11:20.659 --> 00:11:23.659 being provocative for its own sake. He was deliberately 00:11:23.659 --> 00:11:26.259 referencing and messing with the old masters. 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:28.919 Exactly. This is where his deep study comes in. 00:11:29.019 --> 00:11:32.580 He knew his art history inside out. The actual 00:11:32.580 --> 00:11:34.919 arrangement of the main figures, the two men 00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:37.299 and the nude woman, is taken almost directly 00:11:37.299 --> 00:11:40.179 from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi. Which 00:11:40.179 --> 00:11:43.700 was based on a drawing by Raphael of The Judgment 00:11:43.700 --> 00:11:47.120 of Paris. Correct. And there are also clear compositional 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:50.759 echoes of Giorgione's or Titian's Pastoral Concert, 00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:53.259 another famous Renaissance painting with clothed 00:11:53.259 --> 00:11:55.820 men and nude women in a landscape. So he's using 00:11:55.820 --> 00:11:58.080 the visual language they respected. But applying 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:01.080 it to a modern, confrontational, arguably vulgar 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:03.820 scene. He's basically saying to the critics, 00:12:03.980 --> 00:12:06.120 you know this composition. I've just swapped 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:08.620 out your goddesses for maybe a prostitute on 00:12:08.620 --> 00:12:11.440 her day off. It was incredibly clever and deeply 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:13.600 subversive. And it worked in terms of impact. 00:12:13.940 --> 00:12:15.980 Le Déjeuner and Whistler's Symphony in White, 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:18.559 number one, became the defining works of the 00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:20.919 Salon des Refusés. It made that exhibition legendary. 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:23.279 Absolutely. One of the most famous exhibitions 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:26.340 ever, really. We know the writer Emil Zola was... 00:12:27.280 --> 00:12:29.159 Profoundly affected by it, he even based the 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:31.720 pivotal painting in his novel Louvre on Manet's 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:35.440 work. So Manet became utterly notorious, famous 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:38.559 or infamous. But did it help him sell paintings? 00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:41.860 Not really, no. He gained notoriety, but still 00:12:41.860 --> 00:12:44.299 struggled to sell his work. He was still largely 00:12:44.299 --> 00:12:46.299 living off his family inheritance at this point. 00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:49.100 The fame didn't immediately translate into financial 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:52.500 success. Which brings us to 1865 and the painting 00:12:52.500 --> 00:12:54.620 that perhaps caused the biggest scandal of all. 00:12:55.350 --> 00:12:58.409 If luncheon was a shock, Olympia was an earthquake. 00:12:59.210 --> 00:13:02.330 Manet consciously decided to double down. He'd 00:13:02.330 --> 00:13:04.509 apparently accepted a kind of challenge to give 00:13:04.509 --> 00:13:07.149 the official salon a major nude painting they 00:13:07.149 --> 00:13:09.789 couldn't ignore. And he delivered, again referencing 00:13:09.789 --> 00:13:12.190 a Renaissance masterpiece. Yes, this time it's 00:13:12.190 --> 00:13:14.389 a direct, almost confrontational paraphrase of 00:13:14.389 --> 00:13:16.970 Titian's Venus of Urbino. Yeah. But also maybe 00:13:16.970 --> 00:13:19.450 Goya's Nude Magia. He takes that reclining female 00:13:19.450 --> 00:13:21.889 nude pose. And strips it of all idealization. 00:13:21.929 --> 00:13:25.190 This is no goddess of love. Absolutely not. This 00:13:25.190 --> 00:13:27.929 is a frank, quite stark depiction of a self -assured 00:13:27.929 --> 00:13:30.690 contemporary Parisian prostitute. And the scandal 00:13:30.690 --> 00:13:33.549 it caused at the 1865 Salon was so intense, they 00:13:33.549 --> 00:13:35.409 literally had to post guards near the painting. 00:13:35.529 --> 00:13:38.230 Just stop people from damaging it. Yes. There 00:13:38.230 --> 00:13:41.230 were real fears of vandalism from outraged viewers. 00:13:41.830 --> 00:13:45.090 What was it about Olympia specifically that provoked 00:13:45.090 --> 00:13:48.870 such fury? Beyond just the subject. So many things. 00:13:49.289 --> 00:13:53.230 First, the realism. She's thin, pale, not the 00:13:53.230 --> 00:13:56.350 voluptuous, idealized nude of tradition. Her 00:13:56.350 --> 00:13:58.950 body type ran completely counter to the prevailing 00:13:58.950 --> 00:14:02.169 classical standards. She looks family. Bony. 00:14:02.429 --> 00:14:06.470 Angular. And her gaze? Utterly direct. Unabashedly 00:14:06.470 --> 00:14:08.730 confrontational. She's propped up on her pillows, 00:14:08.809 --> 00:14:10.769 looking straight out at us, the viewers, who 00:14:10.769 --> 00:14:12.710 were implicitly cast in the role of her client. 00:14:13.100 --> 00:14:15.139 Her servant is bringing flowers, presumably from 00:14:15.139 --> 00:14:17.899 another admirer. The whole scene implies a transaction. 00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:20.299 The details reinforce this, too, don't they? 00:14:20.379 --> 00:14:23.019 The small items of clothing she is wearing. Exactly. 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:25.480 They're very specific and contemporary. The orchid 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:27.480 in her hair, the bracelet, that black ribbon 00:14:27.480 --> 00:14:29.720 tied around her neck, the fancy mule slippers 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:31.899 just falling off her feet. These aren't classical 00:14:31.899 --> 00:14:33.720 draperies. They're markers of a specific kind 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:36.419 of 19th century femininity linked to courtesans 00:14:36.419 --> 00:14:38.679 and fashion. They accentuate her profession. 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:42.450 And the symbolism. The black cat instead of Titian's 00:14:42.450 --> 00:14:45.710 sleeping dog. Right. Titian's little dog often 00:14:45.710 --> 00:14:49.350 symbolizes fidelity or domesticity. Manet replaces 00:14:49.350 --> 00:14:53.570 it with this alert, arch -backed black cat, a 00:14:53.570 --> 00:14:55.850 symbol often associated with witchcraft, independence, 00:14:56.129 --> 00:14:59.470 or overt sexuality and promiscuity. It adds to 00:14:59.470 --> 00:15:02.340 the unsettling. modern vibe and the servant the 00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:04.080 inclusion of the fully dressed black servant 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:06.940 was also provocative some contemporary theory 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:09.200 suggested it played on racial stereotypes about 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:11.860 hypersexuality adding another layer of sexual 00:15:11.860 --> 00:15:14.919 tension and emphasizing the private transactional 00:15:14.919 --> 00:15:17.470 nature of the scene and technically How did he 00:15:17.470 --> 00:15:20.090 make her look so stark? Again, it's that suppression 00:15:20.090 --> 00:15:23.009 of transitional tones pushed even further. He 00:15:23.009 --> 00:15:25.110 uses strong outlines and relatively flat areas 00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:27.029 of color. This creates a lack of traditional 00:15:27.029 --> 00:15:29.389 modeling and depth, making her look almost pasted 00:15:29.389 --> 00:15:31.669 onto the background. Inspired by Japanese woodblock 00:15:31.669 --> 00:15:34.190 prints, perhaps? Very likely. Those prints were 00:15:34.190 --> 00:15:36.269 becoming fashionable in Paris, and their flatness, 00:15:36.389 --> 00:15:38.629 bold outlines, and unusual compositions definitely 00:15:38.629 --> 00:15:41.389 influenced Manet and the Impressionists. It made 00:15:41.389 --> 00:15:43.490 Olympia feel less like a window onto a realistic 00:15:43.490 --> 00:15:46.889 scene and more like, well, a painting. A constructed 00:15:46.889 --> 00:15:49.789 image, more disturbingly present and human. The 00:15:49.789 --> 00:15:52.230 critics hated it, obviously. They attacked her 00:15:52.230 --> 00:15:55.529 dirty hands, her shamelessly flexed left hand 00:15:55.529 --> 00:15:58.049 covering herself. They saw that gesture not as 00:15:58.049 --> 00:16:02.509 modesty, but as a vulgar, knowing wink. A mockery 00:16:02.509 --> 00:16:05.210 of classical poses. But the emerging avant -garde 00:16:05.210 --> 00:16:09.129 artists, Courbet, Cezanne, Monet, later Gauguin, 00:16:09.230 --> 00:16:12.289 they saw its power. They championed it. Yes, 00:16:12.330 --> 00:16:16.100 they recognized its honesty, its modernity. Olympia 00:16:16.100 --> 00:16:18.799 forced uncomfortable conversations about prostitution, 00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:21.399 about class, about the roles and representation 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:24.139 of women in modern France. It was a truly pivotal 00:16:24.139 --> 00:16:27.539 work. Okay, so with these massive scandals, Manet 00:16:27.539 --> 00:16:30.139 cemented his reputation as the great provocateur, 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:32.980 the revolutionary. But he then really leaned 00:16:32.980 --> 00:16:35.460 into becoming the visual chronicler of everyday 00:16:35.460 --> 00:16:38.600 modern Parisian life. He truly became the painter 00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:42.000 as Flaneur. Absolutely. That term flaneur, the 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.279 detached but passionate observer, the stroller 00:16:44.279 --> 00:16:46.000 who wanders through the city streets, soaking 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:48.279 it all in it, was being defined by writers like 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.659 Baudelaire, who was Manet's friend. And Manet 00:16:50.659 --> 00:16:53.299 gave that literary idea its definitive visual 00:16:53.299 --> 00:16:55.700 form. He wasn't just painting scenes of the city, 00:16:55.740 --> 00:16:57.720 he was painting the experience of being in the 00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:01.600 modern city, observing, sketching. Yes, with 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:05.059 almost a sociologist's eye for detail, but an 00:17:05.059 --> 00:17:07.619 artist's hand. Capturing those fleeting moments 00:17:07.619 --> 00:17:09.859 of interaction or non -interaction in cafes, 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:13.509 bars, parks, train stations He elevated this 00:17:13.509 --> 00:17:16.089 kind of urban observation into a subject worthy 00:17:16.089 --> 00:17:19.170 of high art. And his café scenes are just perfect 00:17:19.170 --> 00:17:21.609 examples of this, aren't they? They feel so immediate 00:17:21.609 --> 00:17:24.369 and not staged at all. Places like the Brasserie 00:17:24.369 --> 00:17:26.990 Reichshafen, which inspired paintings like at 00:17:26.990 --> 00:17:29.950 the café or the café concert. They're like painted 00:17:29.950 --> 00:17:32.690 snapshots. You see people drinking beer, maybe 00:17:32.690 --> 00:17:34.769 listening to music, flirting, reading newspapers, 00:17:35.150 --> 00:17:37.730 or sometimes just looking bored, waiting. He 00:17:37.730 --> 00:17:40.130 uses that loose, quick style, referencing painters 00:17:40.130 --> 00:17:42.759 like Halls and Velazquez to... capture the atmosphere. 00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:45.400 And the social mix? That's key too. You often 00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:47.619 see the urban working class right alongside the 00:17:47.619 --> 00:17:50.039 well -dressed bourgeoisie. They occupy the same 00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:52.720 space, breathe the same air, even if they don't 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:54.940 interact. Like in the cafe concert, you have 00:17:54.940 --> 00:17:57.500 that sophisticated gentleman in his top hat looking 00:17:57.500 --> 00:17:59.819 maybe a bit world -weary, and then right nearby, 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:02.000 the waitress standing quite resolutely, maybe 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.720 taking a quick sip of her own drink. The class 00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:07.410 lines are visible, but the space is shared. Exactly. 00:18:07.509 --> 00:18:10.390 Or think of a portrait like Le Bon Boc from 1873. 00:18:10.690 --> 00:18:13.109 It's just this incredibly present, cheerful, 00:18:13.369 --> 00:18:16.170 bearded man, pipe in hand, glass of beer in front 00:18:16.170 --> 00:18:18.309 of him, looking straight out at you. It feels 00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:22.349 so warm, so immediate. He uses those dark Velazquez 00:18:22.349 --> 00:18:25.289 -like tones, but the subject is completely contemporary 00:18:25.289 --> 00:18:28.279 and relatable. But he wasn't only painting bohemian 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:31.000 cafes and bars. He also documented the more formal 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:33.299 activities of the upper classes. Oh, yes. He 00:18:33.299 --> 00:18:35.759 moved across the social spectrum. Think of Masked 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:38.319 Ball at the opera. It's this swirling, vibrant 00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:41.779 crowd scene. Men in formal black top hats and 00:18:41.779 --> 00:18:44.980 coats, women in masks, colorful costumes. And 00:18:44.980 --> 00:18:47.319 again, he includes portraits of his actual friends 00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:49.750 within the crowd. Making it both a genre scene 00:18:49.750 --> 00:18:52.450 and a kind of social document. Right. Or look 00:18:52.450 --> 00:18:54.490 at the races at Longchamp. It's all about capturing 00:18:54.490 --> 00:18:57.349 motion and energy. He uses this really unusual 00:18:57.349 --> 00:18:59.869 dramatic perspective. The horses are thundering 00:18:59.869 --> 00:19:01.829 almost directly towards the viewer. You feel 00:19:01.829 --> 00:19:05.109 that furious energy, as the sources put it. Even 00:19:05.109 --> 00:19:07.410 his paintings of big public events seem to capture 00:19:07.410 --> 00:19:09.910 a cross -section of the city. Paris was changing 00:19:09.910 --> 00:19:12.670 so rapidly then, with Baron Haussmann's massive 00:19:12.670 --> 00:19:15.799 urban renewal projects. Absolutely. Look at his 00:19:15.799 --> 00:19:17.839 view of the international exhibition. It's like 00:19:17.839 --> 00:19:20.380 a slice of Parisian life spread out before you. 00:19:20.440 --> 00:19:22.740 You see soldiers relaxing, prosperous looking 00:19:22.740 --> 00:19:25.619 couples chatting, a gardener at work, a boy with 00:19:25.619 --> 00:19:28.299 a dog. It represents a whole sample of classes 00:19:28.299 --> 00:19:31.119 and ages all mingling in this newly designed 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:34.259 modern public space. Manet also took on current 00:19:34.259 --> 00:19:36.660 events, particularly war, using them to kind 00:19:36.660 --> 00:19:39.480 of update the grand old genre of history painting. 00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:41.980 Yes, he moved history painting firmly into the 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.420 present day. His first major example was the 00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:47.619 Battle of the Cure Sarge and the Alabama in 1864. 00:19:48.299 --> 00:19:50.460 It depicts a naval skirmish from the American 00:19:50.460 --> 00:19:52.380 Civil War that actually happened off the coast 00:19:52.380 --> 00:19:54.380 of France. Manet might have even witnessed it. 00:19:54.599 --> 00:19:57.059 or at least the aftermath. So no Roman legions 00:19:57.059 --> 00:19:59.839 or Greek heroes. Instead, it's immediate contemporary 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:03.700 naval warfare. Smoke, ships, the sea. Exactly. 00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:06.099 But perhaps his most politically charged work 00:20:06.099 --> 00:20:08.660 in this vein was the execution of Emperor Maximilian. 00:20:08.819 --> 00:20:11.099 He actually painted three large versions of this 00:20:11.099 --> 00:20:15.039 between 1867 and 1869. Maximilian, the Austrian 00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:18.259 archduke who Napoleon III had installed as emperor 00:20:18.259 --> 00:20:21.000 of Mexico and who was then captured and executed 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:24.539 by Mexican forces. Right. Manet's depiction is 00:20:24.539 --> 00:20:28.359 this stark, brutal firing squad scene. It's a 00:20:28.359 --> 00:20:31.200 direct, powerful indictment of state -sanctioned 00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:34.539 violence, a formalized slaughter. And it clearly 00:20:34.539 --> 00:20:36.859 looks back to Goya's paintings of the Napoleonic 00:20:36.859 --> 00:20:40.180 Wars, especially the 3rd of May, 1808. And it 00:20:40.180 --> 00:20:42.279 was seen as a critique of French foreign policy. 00:20:42.539 --> 00:20:45.240 Absolutely. Napoleon III's Mexican adventure 00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:48.099 was a disaster and deeply unpopular in France. 00:20:48.700 --> 00:20:50.680 Manet's painting was seen as commenting on that 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:53.279 failure, on the human cost of imperial ambition. 00:20:53.700 --> 00:20:56.420 It anticipates later anti -war masterpieces like 00:20:56.420 --> 00:20:58.519 Picasso's Guernica. And the authorities knew 00:20:58.519 --> 00:21:00.660 it was dangerous. Oh, yes. The subject was so 00:21:00.660 --> 00:21:02.339 politically sensitive that neither the finished 00:21:02.339 --> 00:21:04.740 paintings nor a lithograph Manet made of the 00:21:04.740 --> 00:21:06.940 scene were allowed to be exhibited publicly in 00:21:06.940 --> 00:21:09.240 France during the Second Empire. That tells you 00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:11.359 how potent contemporary history painting could 00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:14.039 be. Manet himself lived through intense historical 00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:16.200 upheaval too, didn't he? The Franco -Prussian 00:21:16.200 --> 00:21:19.000 War and the Paris Commune. He did. He actually 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:20.980 served in the National Guard during the Siege 00:21:20.980 --> 00:21:24.279 of Paris in 1870 -71. It was a brutal experience. 00:21:24.740 --> 00:21:27.579 Later, during the brief, bloody Paris Commune 00:21:27.579 --> 00:21:30.480 uprising in 1871, some of his artist friends 00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:32.240 apparently added his name to the list of the 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:35.680 Commune's Fédération des Artistes. But he wasn't 00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:38.920 actively involved. No. Manet seems to have consciously 00:21:38.920 --> 00:21:41.279 kept his distance from the Commune's extremism 00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:43.819 and violence. He admired the moderate Republican 00:21:43.819 --> 00:21:46.980 leader, Leon Gambetta, but viewed the Communards 00:21:46.980 --> 00:21:50.519 leading the uprising as dangerous radicals. Party 00:21:50.519 --> 00:21:52.759 hacks, as one source puts it. But the violence 00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:54.720 of that period still found its way into his work. 00:21:54.900 --> 00:21:57.720 Yes, most notably in a watercolor and gouache 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:00.200 called The Barricade. It depicts the summary 00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:02.480 execution of communards by the Versailles government 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:05.500 troops after the commune was crushed. It's a 00:22:05.500 --> 00:22:08.079 shocking image, and he directly reused the firing 00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:10.380 squad composition from his earlier Maximilian 00:22:10.380 --> 00:22:12.940 lithograph. It's this raw journalistic depiction 00:22:12.940 --> 00:22:15.390 of contemporary brutality. And perhaps nothing 00:22:15.390 --> 00:22:17.890 blends his focus on modernity, urban structure, 00:22:18.130 --> 00:22:20.809 and challenging composition quite like his 1873 00:22:20.809 --> 00:22:23.710 painting, The Railway, also known sometimes as 00:22:23.710 --> 00:22:26.769 the Guerre Saint -Lazare. Ah, yes. This one is 00:22:26.769 --> 00:22:29.289 fascinatingly deliberately awkward, isn't it? 00:22:29.410 --> 00:22:32.609 It features Victorine Marant, the model from 00:22:32.609 --> 00:22:35.910 Olympia and Luncheon. His notorious muse. Sitting 00:22:35.910 --> 00:22:38.369 on a low wall in front of these imposing black 00:22:38.369 --> 00:22:41.390 iron railings of the Gare Saint -Lazare train 00:22:41.390 --> 00:22:44.789 station. But the train itself is barely visible. 00:22:45.089 --> 00:22:47.789 That's the radical part. Compositionally, Manet 00:22:47.789 --> 00:22:50.130 just throws traditional perspective out the window. 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:53.440 He ignores the convention of creating deep receding 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.140 space. Instead, you have this strong vertical 00:22:56.140 --> 00:22:58.779 and horizontal grid of the iron fence stretched 00:22:58.779 --> 00:23:00.420 right across the middle ground of the canvas. 00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:02.539 It acts like a barrier. It flattens the whole 00:23:02.539 --> 00:23:05.500 picture and behind it, just a big puff of white 00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:07.640 steam where the train should be. Exactly. The 00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:10.119 only real evidence of the railway, the symbol 00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:12.619 of modern industrial progress, is that cloud 00:23:12.619 --> 00:23:15.259 of steam. and a little girl standing with her 00:23:15.259 --> 00:23:17.380 back to us, peering through the railings at it. 00:23:17.460 --> 00:23:19.940 So if he's the painter of modern life, why hide 00:23:19.940 --> 00:23:22.599 the main event, the technological marvel? Critics 00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:24.920 at the time were baffled, weren't they? Completely 00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:28.240 baffled. When it was shown at the 1874 Salon, 00:23:28.299 --> 00:23:30.839 they found the subject confusing, the composition 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:33.839 incoherent, the execution too sketchy. They wanted 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:35.960 a clear depiction of the train, the power, the 00:23:35.960 --> 00:23:38.720 progress. But Manet gives them something else 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:41.319 entirely. It's more about the feeling of modern 00:23:41.319 --> 00:23:44.480 urban space. I think so. It's not about celebrating 00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:46.829 the train itself. It's about the new environment 00:23:46.829 --> 00:23:49.789 the railway creates. The iron architecture, the 00:23:49.789 --> 00:23:52.049 steam, the noise, even though you can't hear 00:23:52.049 --> 00:23:55.049 it, the sense of compressed space, maybe even 00:23:55.049 --> 00:23:57.990 alienation. That fence is like a visual metaphor 00:23:57.990 --> 00:24:00.970 for the barriers and structures of modern life. 00:24:01.210 --> 00:24:03.349 And placing Victorine Marant there, the face 00:24:03.349 --> 00:24:06.069 of his earlier scambles, but now fully clothed, 00:24:06.069 --> 00:24:08.390 holding a book and a puppy, looking directly 00:24:08.390 --> 00:24:11.529 at us. It anchors the scene in his own controversial 00:24:11.529 --> 00:24:14.009 history, but also presents her as part of this 00:24:14.009 --> 00:24:17.720 new... somewhat ambiguous urban landscape. She's 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:19.779 looking out, the child is looking in. There's 00:24:19.779 --> 00:24:21.880 a sense of disconnect, of observing and being 00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:24.140 observed, which is very characteristic of the 00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:26.599 Flanner's perspective. So the critics just didn't 00:24:26.599 --> 00:24:30.339 get his new visual language. Not at all. They 00:24:30.339 --> 00:24:32.819 were still judging by the old rules of clear 00:24:32.819 --> 00:24:36.220 narratives and deep perspective. Manet was showing 00:24:36.220 --> 00:24:38.980 them the fragmented, ambiguous reality of modern 00:24:38.980 --> 00:24:42.079 life through a radically new, flattened, more 00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:45.359 subjective lens. But today we see it as this 00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:48.960 incredibly insightful symbol of modernity. So 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:51.480 while Manet's building this public persona as 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.839 the defiant painter of modern Paris, his personal 00:24:54.839 --> 00:24:56.740 life gets really tangled up with the art world, 00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:58.680 especially with the Impressionists, even though 00:24:58.680 --> 00:25:00.599 he never quite joined their club officially. 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:02.279 Right. He was always sort of their reluctant 00:25:02.279 --> 00:25:05.200 hero. But first, there's some significant personal 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:07.619 intrigue, particularly around his marriage. In 00:25:07.619 --> 00:25:10.400 1863, shortly after his rather imposing father 00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:13.849 died, Manet married Suzanne Leenhoff. She was 00:25:13.849 --> 00:25:15.609 a Dutch piano teacher a couple of years older 00:25:15.609 --> 00:25:17.190 than him, and they'd been involved for quite 00:25:17.190 --> 00:25:19.210 a while. Yes, romantically involved for about 00:25:19.210 --> 00:25:21.609 10 years before the marriage. But the backstory 00:25:21.609 --> 00:25:24.349 is complicated. Suzanne was originally hired 00:25:24.349 --> 00:25:27.430 by Manet's father, Auguste, to give piano lessons 00:25:27.430 --> 00:25:29.769 to Edouard and his brothers. And there's speculation, 00:25:29.849 --> 00:25:31.650 isn't there, that she might have actually been 00:25:31.650 --> 00:25:34.230 Auguste Manet's mistress. There is persistent 00:25:34.230 --> 00:25:37.369 speculation about that, yes. Adding to the complexity, 00:25:37.750 --> 00:25:41.380 Suzanne had a son. Leon Coelho -Leanhoff, born 00:25:41.380 --> 00:25:44.079 out of wedlock in 1852. And the big question 00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:47.359 mark is, who was Leon's father? Was it Auguste, 00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:51.720 the father, or Edouard, the son? Exactly. That 00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:53.880 question seems to have remained ambiguous, perhaps 00:25:53.880 --> 00:25:56.460 deliberately so, throughout their lives. Leon 00:25:56.460 --> 00:25:58.680 was acknowledged and lived with them, and Manet 00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:01.019 painted him, frequently think of boy carrying 00:26:01.019 --> 00:26:04.339 a sword. But the secrecy surrounding his paternity 00:26:04.339 --> 00:26:07.809 points to a complex, perhaps difficult, private 00:26:07.809 --> 00:26:10.329 reality. It's fascinating, isn't it? This acceptance 00:26:10.329 --> 00:26:13.210 of ambiguity and maybe hidden truths in his private 00:26:13.210 --> 00:26:15.450 life seems to run parallel to his art paintings 00:26:15.450 --> 00:26:17.829 that often have these layered, hidden, sometimes 00:26:17.829 --> 00:26:20.829 provocative meanings beneath a seemingly straightforward 00:26:20.829 --> 00:26:23.750 surface. Absolutely. He seems to have lived with 00:26:23.750 --> 00:26:25.849 a certain duality which perhaps informed the 00:26:25.849 --> 00:26:28.490 duality in his work. And this personal complexity 00:26:28.490 --> 00:26:31.089 existed alongside the incredibly important artistic 00:26:31.089 --> 00:26:33.339 friendships he was forming. He became central 00:26:33.339 --> 00:26:35.539 to that circle of artists who would become the 00:26:35.539 --> 00:26:38.140 Impressionists. Yes. He formed really crucial 00:26:38.140 --> 00:26:41.059 bonds with figures like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, 00:26:41.420 --> 00:26:44.599 Pierre -Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne, 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:47.839 Camille Pissarro. They became known as the Batignolles 00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:50.579 group, named after the area in Paris where Manet 00:26:50.579 --> 00:26:52.720 lived and where they often met in cafes, like 00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:56.019 the Café Guerbois, to talk, argue, and shape 00:26:56.019 --> 00:26:58.500 the future of painting. And he had powerful allies 00:26:58.500 --> 00:27:01.619 in the literary world, too. Definitely. Writers 00:27:01.619 --> 00:27:04.279 like Emile Zola became fierce champions, defending 00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:07.220 him against the critics. Stéphane Mallarmé, the 00:27:07.220 --> 00:27:10.480 symbolist poet, was a close friend. Manet even 00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:12.779 created lithographs to illustrate Mallarmé's 00:27:12.779 --> 00:27:15.440 French translation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. 00:27:15.660 --> 00:27:17.940 And of course, Charles Baudelaire, the poet of 00:27:17.940 --> 00:27:19.960 modern life, was an early supporter and friend. 00:27:20.420 --> 00:27:23.200 These connections gave his art intellectual weight. 00:27:23.380 --> 00:27:25.799 One particularly important and perhaps personally 00:27:25.799 --> 00:27:28.210 charged relationship. was with Bertha Morisot. 00:27:28.349 --> 00:27:30.750 Ah, yes, Bertha Morisot, a brilliant painter 00:27:30.750 --> 00:27:33.109 in her own right, a core member of the Impressionist 00:27:33.109 --> 00:27:35.890 group. Manet met her in 1868. They became close 00:27:35.890 --> 00:27:37.950 friends and colleagues. And she later married 00:27:37.950 --> 00:27:41.190 his younger brother, Eugene, in 1874, making 00:27:41.190 --> 00:27:43.670 her Manet's sister -in -law. And she influenced 00:27:43.670 --> 00:27:46.630 his painting style. Significantly. She's often 00:27:46.630 --> 00:27:49.210 credited with pushing Manet to try plain air 00:27:49.210 --> 00:27:52.589 painting outdoors, directly from nature, which 00:27:52.589 --> 00:27:56.359 was central to the Impressionist approach. Manet, 00:27:56.359 --> 00:27:59.119 in turn, influenced her. He adopted some of her 00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:01.160 lighter palette and looser brushwork into his 00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:04.000 paintings in the 1870s. It was a real artistic 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.519 exchange. But there's also speculation about 00:28:06.519 --> 00:28:09.380 their personal relationship. Manet painted her 00:28:09.380 --> 00:28:12.200 many times. He did. Some incredibly striking 00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:14.839 and intense portraits. Because of the intensity 00:28:14.839 --> 00:28:17.240 of these portraits and their close bond, biographers 00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:19.880 often speculate about a potential repressed love 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:22.240 between them, a deep connection that couldn't 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:24.500 be fully expressed, especially after she married 00:28:24.500 --> 00:28:26.859 his brother. Whether true or not, there's certainly 00:28:26.859 --> 00:28:29.180 a unique psychological charge in his paintings 00:28:29.180 --> 00:28:32.460 of her. So, despite these close ties, why is 00:28:32.460 --> 00:28:34.599 he called the reluctant impressionist? Why didn't 00:28:34.599 --> 00:28:36.960 he just join their group exhibitions? It came 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:40.799 down to strategy and ambition, really. Manet 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:43.319 despite being their inspiration in many ways, 00:28:43.460 --> 00:28:46.500 held on to a more traditional belief. He felt 00:28:46.500 --> 00:28:50.200 that true success, true revolution, meant conquering 00:28:50.200 --> 00:28:53.099 the official Paris salon from within. He wanted 00:28:53.099 --> 00:28:55.279 to force the establishment to accept his modern 00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:57.619 vision. Whereas the core Impressionists, like 00:28:57.619 --> 00:29:00.859 Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, decided to bypass 00:29:00.859 --> 00:29:03.440 the salon entirely and hold their own independent 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:07.799 exhibitions starting in 1874. Exactly. Manet 00:29:07.799 --> 00:29:09.769 disagreed with that strategy. He thought they 00:29:09.769 --> 00:29:11.650 were marginalizing themselves. He wanted the 00:29:11.650 --> 00:29:14.190 official recognition, the medals, the state purchases 00:29:14.190 --> 00:29:16.349 that came with Salon's success. Although when 00:29:16.349 --> 00:29:18.690 he was rejected, he wasn't afraid to go his own 00:29:18.690 --> 00:29:21.650 way, like in 1867. Right. When he was excluded 00:29:21.650 --> 00:29:23.589 from the big international exhibition that year, 00:29:23.630 --> 00:29:26.410 he did rebel, but in his own style. He funded 00:29:26.410 --> 00:29:28.710 and set up his own massive independent pavilion 00:29:28.710 --> 00:29:31.269 right near the official exhibition to showcase 00:29:31.269 --> 00:29:34.329 his work. It cost him a fortune, apparently so 00:29:34.329 --> 00:29:36.650 much of his inheritance that his mother was seriously 00:29:36.650 --> 00:29:38.710 worried about his finances. But that independent 00:29:38.710 --> 00:29:41.410 show, even though financially draining, was important 00:29:41.410 --> 00:29:44.029 for connecting with other artists. Yes, it was 00:29:44.029 --> 00:29:45.769 actually where he made his first significant 00:29:45.769 --> 00:29:48.490 contacts with several of the artists who become 00:29:48.490 --> 00:29:51.109 the core Impressionist group, including Degas. 00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:54.759 So, ironically, his act of solo rebellion helped 00:29:54.759 --> 00:29:57.000 forge the group he refused to formally join. 00:29:57.140 --> 00:29:59.579 So he was influenced by them, especially Monet 00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:02.480 and Morisot, using lighter colors later on. Yes, 00:30:02.579 --> 00:30:05.220 his palette definitely brightened in the 1870s 00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:07.059 under their influence. But he always kept something 00:30:07.059 --> 00:30:09.990 distinct. That use of black. That's crucial. 00:30:10.289 --> 00:30:13.170 The Impressionists largely banished black from 00:30:13.170 --> 00:30:15.450 their palettes, believing shadows should be composed 00:30:15.450 --> 00:30:18.690 of colors. Manet always retained his powerful, 00:30:18.789 --> 00:30:21.750 dramatic use of black for outlines, for deep 00:30:21.750 --> 00:30:24.789 shadows, for those sharp contrasts. It gave his 00:30:24.789 --> 00:30:27.470 work a graphic strength, a solidity that set 00:30:27.470 --> 00:30:29.970 it apart. He might paint outdoors sometimes, 00:30:30.109 --> 00:30:31.930 but he always returned to what he called the 00:30:31.930 --> 00:30:34.210 serious work of the studio. And his technical 00:30:34.210 --> 00:30:36.890 legacy for them, beyond just inspiration, the 00:30:36.890 --> 00:30:39.740 a la prima method is key here, isn't it? absolutely 00:30:39.740 --> 00:30:42.259 fundamental this is perhaps his single most important 00:30:42.259 --> 00:30:44.440 technical contribution that changed painting 00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:47.259 forever okay let's break that down a la prima 00:30:47.259 --> 00:30:50.619 meaning at first attempt how did it actually 00:30:50.619 --> 00:30:53.660 work and why was it such a big deal so traditional 00:30:53.660 --> 00:30:55.900 academic painting the kind taught by couture 00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:58.619 and practiced for centuries involved building 00:30:58.619 --> 00:31:01.440 up a painting in many thin layers, usually over 00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:03.720 a dark preparatory ground or under painting. 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.579 You'd apply a layer, let it dry completely, which 00:31:06.579 --> 00:31:08.720 could take days or weeks, then apply another 00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:11.559 translucent glaze, and so on. Which creates that 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:14.619 smooth, polished finish, that illusion of depth 00:31:14.619 --> 00:31:17.720 and internal light. Exactly. It's a slow, painstaking 00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:21.269 process. Manet largely rejected this. He adopted 00:31:21.269 --> 00:31:23.650 the alla prima approach, which meant applying 00:31:23.650 --> 00:31:26.089 opaque paint directly onto a light -colored ground, 00:31:26.289 --> 00:31:28.589 often whiter cream, and trying to get the final 00:31:28.589 --> 00:31:30.569 effect in a single session while the paint was 00:31:30.569 --> 00:31:32.750 still wet. Wet -on -wet painting. Precisely. 00:31:33.049 --> 00:31:35.450 finishing it at the first attempt. This meant 00:31:35.450 --> 00:31:37.829 sacrificing some of that deep -layered illusionism. 00:31:37.890 --> 00:31:40.990 But what he gained was incredible speed, spontaneity, 00:31:40.990 --> 00:31:43.470 and freshness. The brush strokes remain visible. 00:31:43.630 --> 00:31:45.970 The paint surface itself feels more active, more 00:31:45.970 --> 00:31:48.470 material. So when critics complained his work 00:31:48.470 --> 00:31:50.950 looked sketchy or unfinished, they were partly 00:31:50.950 --> 00:31:53.630 reacting to the visible evidence of this rapid, 00:31:53.670 --> 00:31:56.210 direct technique. They were used to paintings 00:31:56.210 --> 00:31:58.589 where the artist's labor was concealed. Manet 00:31:58.589 --> 00:32:01.400 made the act of painting visible. He basically 00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:04.119 weaponized speed, linking the technique to the 00:32:04.119 --> 00:32:05.880 fleeting moments of modern life he wanted to 00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:08.420 capture. Beautifully put. It forced the viewer 00:32:08.420 --> 00:32:11.220 to confront the painting as paint on canvas, 00:32:11.319 --> 00:32:14.500 not just an illusion. It was revolutionary. And 00:32:14.500 --> 00:32:16.740 this a la prima method was immediately adopted 00:32:16.740 --> 00:32:19.799 by the Impressionists. It perfectly suited their 00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:22.240 goal of capturing fleeting effects of light and 00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:24.960 atmosphere outdoors. And it essentially became 00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:27.460 the standard technique for oil painting for generations 00:32:27.460 --> 00:32:30.019 to come. Manet's incredible run of groundbreaking 00:32:30.019 --> 00:32:32.880 work really spans from the early 1860s right 00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:36.339 up until his death in 1883. But tragically, in 00:32:36.339 --> 00:32:38.640 his mid -40s, his health started to fail quite 00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:41.799 seriously, a really poignant contrast between 00:32:41.799 --> 00:32:44.460 his public artistic triumphs and his private 00:32:44.460 --> 00:32:48.039 physical suffering. It is. By the late 1870s, 00:32:48.039 --> 00:32:50.359 he began experiencing severe pain and increasing 00:32:50.359 --> 00:32:53.380 difficulty walking, a partial paralysis in his 00:32:53.380 --> 00:32:56.240 legs. He went for hydrotherapy treatments in 00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:59.500 1879, apparently believing or... perhaps hoping 00:32:59.500 --> 00:33:02.000 it was just a circulatory issue. But the diagnosis 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:04.859 was much worse. Yes. The reality was he was suffering 00:33:04.859 --> 00:33:07.940 from locomotor ataxia. We now know this is a 00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:10.440 devastating neurological condition, a common 00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:13.460 and severe tertiary stage of syphilis. Syphilis 00:33:13.460 --> 00:33:15.960 was rampant in 19th century Paris, wasn't it, 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:18.180 affecting many artists and writers? Tragically, 00:33:18.180 --> 00:33:20.769 yes. And from an A, it led to this progressive, 00:33:20.829 --> 00:33:23.509 painful decline. Yet even while dealing with 00:33:23.509 --> 00:33:26.170 this debilitating illness, often needing assistance 00:33:26.170 --> 00:33:29.210 to walk or being confined to a wheelchair, he 00:33:29.210 --> 00:33:31.950 produced one last, absolutely major masterpiece. 00:33:32.410 --> 00:33:35.430 A Bar at the Folies -Bergère, completed in 1882, 00:33:35.690 --> 00:33:37.930 exhibited at the Salon that same year. It's an 00:33:37.930 --> 00:33:40.509 astonishing final statement, a summation of so 00:33:40.509 --> 00:33:42.829 many of his themes. Modern Parisian nightlife, 00:33:42.990 --> 00:33:45.930 ambiguous social interactions, the complex relationship 00:33:45.930 --> 00:33:48.380 between reality and representation. Describe 00:33:48.380 --> 00:33:51.200 the scene for us. It depicts a barmaid, Suzanne, 00:33:51.500 --> 00:33:55.000 standing behind a marble -topped bar. She looks 00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:57.680 directly out at us, the viewer, with a rather 00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:00.700 melancholic, detached expression. Behind her 00:34:00.700 --> 00:34:03.900 is a huge mirror reflecting the entire bustling 00:34:03.900 --> 00:34:07.160 scene of the Filiberger Café concert hall, crowds, 00:34:07.480 --> 00:34:10.420 gaslights, acrobats' legs dangling in the upper 00:34:10.420 --> 00:34:13.719 corner. But the reflection is... Tricky, isn't 00:34:13.719 --> 00:34:15.900 it? It doesn't quite add up spatially. Not at 00:34:15.900 --> 00:34:17.960 all. That's the genius in the deliberate puzzle. 00:34:18.239 --> 00:34:20.539 If you look closely, the reflection of the barmaid 00:34:20.539 --> 00:34:22.460 and the hero seem shifted significantly to the 00:34:22.460 --> 00:34:25.139 right. And in the reflection, she appears to 00:34:25.139 --> 00:34:27.420 be talking quite closely to a male customer in 00:34:27.420 --> 00:34:30.159 a top hat. A customer whose actual figure isn't 00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:32.469 in the real space of the painting. So where is 00:34:32.469 --> 00:34:34.869 he supposed to be, standing where we, the viewers, 00:34:34.949 --> 00:34:37.349 are? That's the most common interpretation. We, 00:34:37.409 --> 00:34:39.030 the viewers, become the client she's reflected 00:34:39.030 --> 00:34:41.210 talking to. It implicates us directly in the 00:34:41.210 --> 00:34:43.550 scene, in the transaction. But the perspective 00:34:43.550 --> 00:34:46.900 is deliberately warped. Impossible. Manet uses 00:34:46.900 --> 00:34:49.739 the mirror not for realistic depth, but to flatten 00:34:49.739 --> 00:34:52.559 the space, create ambiguity, and confuse the 00:34:52.559 --> 00:34:54.579 relationship between the observer and the observed. 00:34:54.860 --> 00:34:58.039 It's like his final brilliant assault on traditional 00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:01.260 perspective and illusionism, highlighting the 00:35:01.260 --> 00:35:03.920 artificiality of the painting itself. And maybe 00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:06.599 the alienation of modern urban life. Exactly. 00:35:06.599 --> 00:35:08.840 It encapsulates that feeling of being in a crowd 00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:11.500 but alone, the surface glitter and the underlying 00:35:11.500 --> 00:35:15.139 melancholy. It's a deeply complex and haunting 00:35:15.139 --> 00:35:18.139 final masterpiece. And after completing this 00:35:18.139 --> 00:35:20.960 huge, complex work, his illness really forced 00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:23.760 him to scale back. Yes. The physical effort of 00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:26.480 large canvases became too much. In his last year 00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:28.500 or two, he limited himself almost entirely to 00:35:28.500 --> 00:35:31.659 smaller formats, particularly still lifes. Flowers, 00:35:31.659 --> 00:35:34.840 fruit. Vegetables. Yes, beautiful, intimate paintings 00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:37.619 like a bunch of asparagus or the lemon. There's 00:35:37.619 --> 00:35:39.619 a real poignancy to this final chapter. This 00:35:39.619 --> 00:35:42.159 revolutionary artist, known for his shocking 00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:44.820 public statements, turns inward to these quiet, 00:35:44.940 --> 00:35:47.079 contemplative subjects. Painted with that same 00:35:47.079 --> 00:35:49.539 directness, that a la prima freshness. Absolutely. 00:35:49.800 --> 00:35:52.460 They might be small, but they have an incredible 00:35:52.460 --> 00:35:55.730 vibrancy and presence. His very last works were 00:35:55.730 --> 00:35:59.250 a series of about 20 small still lifes depicting 00:35:59.250 --> 00:36:02.030 flowers, often single stems, in simple glass 00:36:02.030 --> 00:36:04.489 vases. The last one was painted just about two 00:36:04.489 --> 00:36:06.500 months before he died. There's that quote attributed 00:36:06.500 --> 00:36:08.579 to him, isn't there? That an artist can say everything 00:36:08.579 --> 00:36:12.199 with flowers, fruit, and clouds. Yes. It suggests 00:36:12.199 --> 00:36:14.940 a kind of late -life realization, perhaps, that 00:36:14.940 --> 00:36:17.199 the power of his revolutionary technique wasn't 00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:19.900 dependent on shocking subjects. He could find 00:36:19.900 --> 00:36:22.820 profound meaning and express his artistic vision 00:36:22.820 --> 00:36:25.860 even in the simplest, most universal forms. There's 00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:28.139 a sense of resolution there. Did he receive any 00:36:28.139 --> 00:36:30.699 official recognition towards the end, after all 00:36:30.699 --> 00:36:34.659 the battles? He did, finally. In 1881, he was 00:36:34.659 --> 00:36:37.000 awarded the Légion d 'honneur, France's highest 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.699 order of merit. Though the sources suggest it 00:36:39.699 --> 00:36:41.579 wasn't easily given, it took considerable lobbying 00:36:41.579 --> 00:36:43.840 from his friend Antonin Proust, who had become 00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:46.059 Minister of Fine Arts. A somewhat belated honor, 00:36:46.179 --> 00:36:49.599 perhaps. A bittersweet one, certainly. His health 00:36:49.599 --> 00:36:52.670 continued to deteriorate rapidly. In early April 00:36:52.670 --> 00:36:56.829 1883, Gangrene set in in his left foot, likely 00:36:56.829 --> 00:36:58.769 due to complications from the syphilis affecting 00:36:58.769 --> 00:37:01.829 his circulation and nerves. Amputation was necessary. 00:37:02.110 --> 00:37:04.530 And he didn't survive the surgery long? No, he 00:37:04.530 --> 00:37:08.289 died just 11 days later, on April 30, 1883. He 00:37:08.289 --> 00:37:11.030 was only 51 years old. He's buried in Passy Cemetery 00:37:11.030 --> 00:37:14.170 in Paris. Such a relatively short life, but an 00:37:14.170 --> 00:37:17.590 absolutely monumental impact. His legacy as the 00:37:17.590 --> 00:37:20.590 father of modernism seems secure. Why is his 00:37:20.590 --> 00:37:23.289 work considered so definitively... early modern. 00:37:23.510 --> 00:37:25.349 It really comes down to those technical innovations 00:37:25.349 --> 00:37:28.469 we've discussed. The flatness, the visible brushwork, 00:37:28.570 --> 00:37:30.550 the suppression of traditional modeling, the 00:37:30.550 --> 00:37:32.690 bold use of black outlines, all these things 00:37:32.690 --> 00:37:35.110 draw your attention to the surface of the painting, 00:37:35.210 --> 00:37:37.510 to the paint itself, rather than letting you 00:37:37.510 --> 00:37:39.409 just look through it as if it were a window onto 00:37:39.409 --> 00:37:41.250 a perfect illusion. He makes you aware you're 00:37:41.250 --> 00:37:44.550 looking at a painting. Precisely. He emphasizes 00:37:44.550 --> 00:37:47.570 the medium. And the art historian Beatrice Farwell 00:37:47.570 --> 00:37:49.969 summarized his key contributions brilliantly. 00:37:50.300 --> 00:37:52.880 She argued he's the father of modernism because, 00:37:52.980 --> 00:37:55.639 first, he took huge risks with the public whose 00:37:55.639 --> 00:37:58.599 approval he actually craved. Second, he made 00:37:58.599 --> 00:38:01.760 alla prima painting the standard. Third, he deliberately 00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:04.119 broke the rules of Renaissance perspective. Fourth, 00:38:04.539 --> 00:38:07.119 Alongside Courbet, he rejected traditional historical 00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:09.639 and mythological subjects in favor of contemporary 00:38:09.639 --> 00:38:12.659 life. He fundamentally helped establish modern 00:38:12.659 --> 00:38:15.500 urban life, the crowds, the cafes, the fleeting 00:38:15.500 --> 00:38:18.039 encounters, the alienation, the excitement as 00:38:18.039 --> 00:38:20.780 legitimate, even essential, subject matter for 00:38:20.780 --> 00:38:23.920 serious high art. He took the everyday, the mundane, 00:38:24.039 --> 00:38:26.360 even the controversial, and gave it monumental 00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:28.739 artistic weight. And that legacy is reflected 00:38:28.739 --> 00:38:31.199 in how his work is valued today. Immensely so. 00:38:31.550 --> 00:38:33.429 The art market has certainly caught up to his 00:38:33.429 --> 00:38:36.329 importance. As a striking example, his late painting 00:38:36.329 --> 00:38:39.309 Le Printemps, Spring from 1881, sold at auction 00:38:39.309 --> 00:38:42.789 in 2014 for over $65 million. That set a new 00:38:42.789 --> 00:38:45.070 record for his work at the time, far exceeding 00:38:45.070 --> 00:38:47.230 the previous record held by one of his self -portraits. 00:38:47.429 --> 00:38:49.949 It shows the enduring power and recognition of 00:38:49.949 --> 00:38:52.230 his vision. Which also explains why there's still 00:38:52.230 --> 00:38:54.170 so much interest in exploring his connections 00:38:54.170 --> 00:38:56.789 and influence, like that recent major exhibition 00:38:56.789 --> 00:38:59.369 at the Met in New York, focusing on his relationship 00:38:59.369 --> 00:39:02.099 with Dega. These artists weren't working in a 00:39:02.099 --> 00:39:04.000 vacuum. They were reacting to and pushing each 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:05.760 other. So if we try to pull it all together, 00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:08.480 Manet's central role really emerges from that 00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:11.239 unique combination. He mastered the tools, the 00:39:11.239 --> 00:39:13.579 visual language of the old masters. He knew his 00:39:13.579 --> 00:39:16.320 Titian, his Velazquez, his Raphael. But then 00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:18.780 he applied that classical toolkit with this shocking 00:39:18.780 --> 00:39:21.599 directness and immediacy to the realities often 00:39:21.599 --> 00:39:24.380 uncomfortable, unflattering realities of 19th 00:39:24.380 --> 00:39:26.619 century Paris. He was this fascinating paradox, 00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:29.820 an insider by birth from a wealthy, powerful... 00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:32.260 family, yet he became the ultimate painter of 00:39:32.260 --> 00:39:35.539 outsiders, of the marginal, the modern. He didn't 00:39:35.539 --> 00:39:38.159 just reject tradition, he used it, twisted it, 00:39:38.260 --> 00:39:41.280 subverted it to forge this path towards modernity, 00:39:41.380 --> 00:39:44.139 fueled by controversy and radical formal innovation. 00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:46.980 His great champion, Emil Zola, captured this 00:39:46.980 --> 00:39:50.360 perfectly way back in 1867. He wrote of Manet's 00:39:50.360 --> 00:39:52.960 work, We are not accustomed to seeing such simple 00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:55.940 and direct translations of reality. It is a truly 00:39:55.940 --> 00:39:58.440 charming experience to contemplate this luminous 00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:00.730 and serious painting, which interprets nature 00:40:00.730 --> 00:40:04.929 with a gentle brutality. Gentle brutality. That 00:40:04.929 --> 00:40:06.989 phrase is so evocative, isn't it? It perfectly 00:40:06.989 --> 00:40:09.250 captures that Manet effect, the sophisticated 00:40:09.250 --> 00:40:11.489 technique, the often beautiful paint handling, 00:40:11.590 --> 00:40:13.809 delivering the sometimes harsh, sometimes awkward, 00:40:13.869 --> 00:40:16.090 but always intensely present truth about modern 00:40:16.090 --> 00:40:18.570 life. He jolted his viewers out of their comfort 00:40:18.570 --> 00:40:21.409 zones. Exactly. He used skill to deliver a punch, 00:40:21.550 --> 00:40:24.170 a punch about what it felt like to be alive right 00:40:24.170 --> 00:40:26.849 then, right there in that rapidly changing world. 00:40:27.159 --> 00:40:30.440 So if Manet, in his final suffering months, felt 00:40:30.440 --> 00:40:32.360 he could say everything he needed to say with 00:40:32.360 --> 00:40:35.260 just flowers, fruit, and clouds, yet still retain 00:40:35.260 --> 00:40:38.320 that gentle brutality, that direct, unflinching 00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:40.559 focus on the material reality of the thing itself, 00:40:42.079 --> 00:40:44.380 Maybe the challenge for you listening today is 00:40:44.380 --> 00:40:46.519 to think about what that gentle brutality might 00:40:46.519 --> 00:40:49.000 look like now. What subjects in our own complex 00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:50.920 modern lives could be depicted with that kind 00:40:50.920 --> 00:40:53.639 of simple, direct, maybe even controversial honesty? 00:40:54.039 --> 00:40:56.400 What can you say, perhaps with unexpected beauty, 00:40:56.559 --> 00:40:58.400 about the world right in front of you?