Manet, Edouard

(1867-1947)

Manet, Edouard (1832-1883) Although his well-to-do bourgeois father
reluctantly allowed him to study art, Manet reacted very strongly against
academic history painting and began his career as an artistic rebel. His
brilliant technique was founded on painting directly from the model with
intense immediacy and on a restricted palette in which black was extremely
important. His early works include many Spanish subjects inspired by troupes of
dancers visiting Paris. These works were frequently rejected and, if hung, were
ill-received by critics. Eventually he adopted the Impressionist technique and
palette, abandoning the use of black and his genius for analysis and synthesis,
for a lighter, sweeter color and a freer handling. He also tended more to
sentimental subjects, lacking the sober gravity of his earlier works. He always
longed for official recognition and refused to take part in the Impressionist
exhibitions, bitterly resenting being coupled with them in newspaper
criticisms: "Manet's gang." At the end of his life he was given the Legion of
Honour and the vilification of his works abated. The tragedy of his life was
that he was the perfect academic painter, unrecognized and rejected by the body
whose dying traditions he alone could have revivified.

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