DOI Heft:
No. 94 (January, 1901)
DOI Artikel:Proust, Antonin: The art of Edouard Manet
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19786#0262
Edouard Manet
unnoticed amid the crowd of "accredited" pro- imitators that when he chose he, too, could tickle
fessors of art. the public fancy. For this the critics applauded
It was reserved for Manet to revive the healthy him ; but the vials of their wrath were once more
national tradition—the love of the rare and the outpoured when he exhibited his Linge and his
unrecognised. But his contemporaries obstinately Chemins de Fer, with its vivid whiteness,
refused to accept his views, and they regarded it as After a number of portraits come Polichinelle,
a blasphemy when he declared that Ingres was the Dans la Serre, another set of etchings, the illus-
master of masters in the present century. trations to Edgar Allan Poe, etc., etc. Life and
The celebrated Olympia, exhibited in the Salon light everywhere. The effect is seen on every
of 1865, and now in the Luxembourg, reveals to all palette. No one can escape his influence, from
capable of examining it calmly Manet's constant Paul Baudry, of the Institute, down to the most
endeavour to give his figures an irreproachable insignificant impressionist. But it was useless for
purity of line. Nothing assuredly was ever better them to borrow Manet's "manner"—it was his
mise en place than this figure of Olympia. In one manner of seeing they lacked, and that was not to
of his chapters in " Mes Haines " Zola gives a be acquired !
masterly description of Manet's Olympia, and dis- Manet cared little for all this, and when they
dainfully dismisses the carping criticisms passed told him he couldn't draw, he would say, with a
upon it. Nevertheless the fact remains that, Theo- shrug of the shoulders, "I don't draw silly lines as
phile Gautier, Paul Maury, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and they are taught in the schools ; but I challenge any
one or two others apart, all
the critics combined to hurl
their thunders at the head
of the creator of Olympia.
Manet, it must be admitted,
was greatly affected by this
solid opposition ; but his con-
victions were so strong and
his courage so high that he
never for a moment lost his
sureness of vision or his
serene judgment.
" Be true "—that was his
formula. At Boulogne, where
he painted his admirable
Femmes de pecheurs au clair
de lime, he was so scrupulous
in this respect that he abso-
lutely refused to touch his
canvas with the brush when
he could not find the scene
exactly as it was the night
before. This was the period
of what has been called his
" third manner." His work
had taken definite shape, and
there was nothing left to give
any reminder of this or that
great master.
From 1869 to 1879 he
produced a long succession of
drawings, pastels, paintings,
and studies, among them
being Le Bon Bock, which
was done just to show his " les bulles de savon " by edouard manet
234
unnoticed amid the crowd of "accredited" pro- imitators that when he chose he, too, could tickle
fessors of art. the public fancy. For this the critics applauded
It was reserved for Manet to revive the healthy him ; but the vials of their wrath were once more
national tradition—the love of the rare and the outpoured when he exhibited his Linge and his
unrecognised. But his contemporaries obstinately Chemins de Fer, with its vivid whiteness,
refused to accept his views, and they regarded it as After a number of portraits come Polichinelle,
a blasphemy when he declared that Ingres was the Dans la Serre, another set of etchings, the illus-
master of masters in the present century. trations to Edgar Allan Poe, etc., etc. Life and
The celebrated Olympia, exhibited in the Salon light everywhere. The effect is seen on every
of 1865, and now in the Luxembourg, reveals to all palette. No one can escape his influence, from
capable of examining it calmly Manet's constant Paul Baudry, of the Institute, down to the most
endeavour to give his figures an irreproachable insignificant impressionist. But it was useless for
purity of line. Nothing assuredly was ever better them to borrow Manet's "manner"—it was his
mise en place than this figure of Olympia. In one manner of seeing they lacked, and that was not to
of his chapters in " Mes Haines " Zola gives a be acquired !
masterly description of Manet's Olympia, and dis- Manet cared little for all this, and when they
dainfully dismisses the carping criticisms passed told him he couldn't draw, he would say, with a
upon it. Nevertheless the fact remains that, Theo- shrug of the shoulders, "I don't draw silly lines as
phile Gautier, Paul Maury, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and they are taught in the schools ; but I challenge any
one or two others apart, all
the critics combined to hurl
their thunders at the head
of the creator of Olympia.
Manet, it must be admitted,
was greatly affected by this
solid opposition ; but his con-
victions were so strong and
his courage so high that he
never for a moment lost his
sureness of vision or his
serene judgment.
" Be true "—that was his
formula. At Boulogne, where
he painted his admirable
Femmes de pecheurs au clair
de lime, he was so scrupulous
in this respect that he abso-
lutely refused to touch his
canvas with the brush when
he could not find the scene
exactly as it was the night
before. This was the period
of what has been called his
" third manner." His work
had taken definite shape, and
there was nothing left to give
any reminder of this or that
great master.
From 1869 to 1879 he
produced a long succession of
drawings, pastels, paintings,
and studies, among them
being Le Bon Bock, which
was done just to show his " les bulles de savon " by edouard manet
234