Edouard Manet
THE ART OF EDOUARD MANET, due to the teaching of David ; but, being greatly
BY ANTON IN PROUST. attracted by the Italian method of technique, he
failed in this first picture to suggest that sensa-
Four years ago I wrote for a French tion of light which is so remarkable in his later
magazine, with the assistance of notes taken in efforts, notably the Remise des Chevreuils, wherein
the course of a long and intimate friendship, the shadows are the more limpid by reason of the
which ceased only with the death of my friend, a fierce glow of the sunshine.
series of articles entitled " Souvenirs de Manet." At this precise moment Manet makes his appear-
In these articles I avoided anything in the nature ance, " adding/' as Paul Maury so truly remarks,
of a personal appreciation, for I wished these " a fresh colour to the palette of the times ; that is
" Souvenirs " to preserve a phonographic form. to say, a sort of flower not unknown, but too little
The Studio now invites me to write a study of remembered. Compared with the dull tones then
the chief of the Impressionist school—an invitation in vogue, his tone had the delicate freshness of a
I accept the more readily because Manet's work is rose of Bengal."
but little known in England. From the first he had eschewed the preparatory
Edouard Manet was born in Paris in the month work in black advised by his master, Couture.
of April, 1832. At twenty years of age—that is, in On the white canvas he drew with the tip of his
1852—he was already re-
garded as a Master in the
studios. His comrades—
all, indeed, who interested
themselves in the art move-
ment, at that period in a
very active state—watched
attentively the work of this
young man, whose dream
it was to entice French
painting — which had
strayed into artificiality—
back to the observation of
the life around us.
Our landscapists, under
the influence of the Eng-
lish school, working here
and there throughout the
country, far away from the
official laboratories, had be-
come fascinated, in Rous-
seau's phrase, " by the gold
of the broom and the purple
heather." Courbet, who had
come somewhat tardily
from his native Franc-
comte, was striving to effect
in figure-painting the same
transformation as had
taken place in landscape.
In painting his Enterrement
a Ornans, exhibited in
1852 at the annual Salon
then held in the Palais
Royal, his object was to
bring into contrast the real
with the mannered style edouard manet from the portrait by fantin-latour
XXI. No. 94.—January, 1901. 227
THE ART OF EDOUARD MANET, due to the teaching of David ; but, being greatly
BY ANTON IN PROUST. attracted by the Italian method of technique, he
failed in this first picture to suggest that sensa-
Four years ago I wrote for a French tion of light which is so remarkable in his later
magazine, with the assistance of notes taken in efforts, notably the Remise des Chevreuils, wherein
the course of a long and intimate friendship, the shadows are the more limpid by reason of the
which ceased only with the death of my friend, a fierce glow of the sunshine.
series of articles entitled " Souvenirs de Manet." At this precise moment Manet makes his appear-
In these articles I avoided anything in the nature ance, " adding/' as Paul Maury so truly remarks,
of a personal appreciation, for I wished these " a fresh colour to the palette of the times ; that is
" Souvenirs " to preserve a phonographic form. to say, a sort of flower not unknown, but too little
The Studio now invites me to write a study of remembered. Compared with the dull tones then
the chief of the Impressionist school—an invitation in vogue, his tone had the delicate freshness of a
I accept the more readily because Manet's work is rose of Bengal."
but little known in England. From the first he had eschewed the preparatory
Edouard Manet was born in Paris in the month work in black advised by his master, Couture.
of April, 1832. At twenty years of age—that is, in On the white canvas he drew with the tip of his
1852—he was already re-
garded as a Master in the
studios. His comrades—
all, indeed, who interested
themselves in the art move-
ment, at that period in a
very active state—watched
attentively the work of this
young man, whose dream
it was to entice French
painting — which had
strayed into artificiality—
back to the observation of
the life around us.
Our landscapists, under
the influence of the Eng-
lish school, working here
and there throughout the
country, far away from the
official laboratories, had be-
come fascinated, in Rous-
seau's phrase, " by the gold
of the broom and the purple
heather." Courbet, who had
come somewhat tardily
from his native Franc-
comte, was striving to effect
in figure-painting the same
transformation as had
taken place in landscape.
In painting his Enterrement
a Ornans, exhibited in
1852 at the annual Salon
then held in the Palais
Royal, his object was to
bring into contrast the real
with the mannered style edouard manet from the portrait by fantin-latour
XXI. No. 94.—January, 1901. 227