30 Facts About Manet

Manet was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

The last 20 years of Manet's life saw him form bonds with other great artists of the time; he developed his own simple and direct style that would be heralded as innovative and serve as a major influence for future painters.

Edouard Manet was born in Paris on 23 January 1832, in the ancestral hotel particulier on the Rue des Petits Augustins to an affluent and well-connected family.

In 1845, at the advice of his uncle, Manet enrolled in a special course of drawing where he met Antonin Proust, future Minister of Fine Arts and subsequent lifelong friend.

From 1853 to 1856, Manet visited Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, during which time he was influenced by the Dutch painter Frans Hals and the Spanish artists Diego Velazquez and Francisco Jose de Goya.

Related searches

The Paris Salon rejected it for exhibition in 1863, but Manet agreed to exhibit it at the Salon des Refuses which was a parallel exhibition to the official Salon, as an alternative exhibition in the Palais des Champs-Elysee.

Manet employed model Victorine Meurent, his wife Suzanne, future brother-in-law Ferdinand Leenhoff, and one of his brothers to pose.

Manet embarked on the canvas after being challenged to give the Salon a nude painting to display.

Manet's defiantly looks out as her servant offers flowers from one of her male suitors.

Manet painted his wife in The Reading, among other paintings.

Manet appears as the boy carrying a tray in the background of The Balcony .

Manet became the friend and colleague of Morisot in 1868.

Manet's is credited with convincing Manet to attempt plein air painting, which she had been practicing since she was introduced to it by another friend of hers, Camille Corot.

Unlike the core Impressionist group, Manet maintained that modern artists should seek to exhibit at the Paris Salon rather than abandon it in favor of independent exhibitions.

Nevertheless, when Manet was excluded from the International Exhibition of 1867, he set up his own exhibition.

Manet was influenced by the Impressionists, especially Monet and Morisot.

Manet painted many outdoor pieces, but always returned to what he considered the serious work of the studio.

Manet often visited the Brasserie Reichshoffen on boulevard de Rochechourt, upon which he based At the Cafe in 1878.

Manet sat at the restaurant on the Avenue de Clichy called Pere Lathuille's, which had a garden in addition to the dining area.

Manet painted the upper class enjoying more formal social activities.

Manet's 1868 painting The Luncheon was posed in the dining room of the Manet house.

Interest next was the French intervention in Mexico; from 1867 to 1869 Manet painted three versions of the Execution of Emperor Maximilian, an event which raised concerns regarding French foreign and domestic policy.

Manet depicted many scenes of the streets of Paris in his works.

Boating, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exemplifies in its conciseness the lessons Manet learned from Japanese prints, and the abrupt cropping by the frame of the boat and sail adds to the immediacy of the image.

Manet completed his last major work, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, in 1882, and it hung in the Salon that year.

Related searches

Manet's known extant works, as catalogued in 1975 by Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein, comprise 430 oil paintings, 89 pastels, and more than 400 works on paper.

Roughly painted style and photographic lighting in Manet's paintings was seen as specifically modern, and as a challenge to the Renaissance works he copied or used as source material.

Manet rejected the technique he had learned in the studio of Thomas Couture – in which a painting was constructed using successive layers of paint on a dark-toned ground – in favor of a direct, alla prima method using opaque paint on a light ground.

Manet's work is considered "early modern", partially because of the opaque flatness of his surfaces, the frequent sketch-like passages, and the black outlining of figures, all of which draw attention to the surface of the picture plane and the material quality of paint.

Manet was a pioneer, again with Courbet, in the rejection of humanistic and historical subject-matter, and shared with Degas the establishment of modern urban life as acceptable material for high art.