01/23/2024
On Édouard Manet's birth anniversary Mia Feigelson Gallery
Édouard Manet, French modernist painter, one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism (1832-1883)
Édouard Manet: A Child of our Age
Considered the progenitor of the Impressionists and the father of modern painting, Manet astonished his contemporaries with his radical simplification of form and application of pure, luminous colour.
Manet's paintings were considered atypical by those accustomed to the glazed, academic compositions shown at the annual Salon, so many perspicacious critics or friends were prompted to come to his defence.
"One's first impression of a picture by Édouard Manet is that it is a trifle 'hard'. One is not accustomed to seeing reproductions of reality so simplified and so sincere... I cannot repeat too often that, in order to understand and savour his talent, we must forget a thousand things. It is not a question, here, of seeking for an 'absolute' of beauty. The artist is neither painting history nor his soul.
What is termed 'composition' does not exist for him, and he has not set himself the task of representing some abstract idea or some historical episode. And it is because of this that he should neither be judged as a moralist nor as a literary man.
.. Don't expect anything of him except a truthful and literal interpretation. He neither sings nor philosophizes. He knows how to paint and that is all. He has his own personal gift, which is to appreciate the delicacy of the dominant tones and to model objects and people in simplified masses. He is a child of our age." ― Émile Zola, Édouard Manet, R***e du XX Siècle, 1867
'Édouard Manet tried to find his own way and see for himself. He spoke in a language full of harshness and grace which thoroughly alarmed the public. I do not claim that it was an entirely new language and that it did not contain some Spanish turns of phrase... But judging by the forcefulness and truth of certain pictures, it was clear that an artist had been born to us.
He spoke a language which he had made his own, and which henceforth belonged entirely to him. This is how I explain the birth of a true artist, Édouard Manet, for example.
Feeling that he was making no progress by copying the masters, or by painting Nature as seen through the eyes of individuals who differed in character from himself, he came to understand, quite naturally, one fine day, that it only remained to him to see Nature as it really is, without looking at the works or studying the opinions of others.
From the moment he conceived this idea, he took some object, person or thing, placed it at the end of his studio and began to reproduce it on his canvas in accordance with his own outlook and understanding. He made an effort to forget everything he had learned in museums; he tried to forget all the advice that he had been given and all the paintings that he had ever seen. All that remained was a singular gifted intelligence in the presence of Nature, translating it in its own manner.
Thus the artist produced an oeuvre which was his own flesh and blood. Certainly, this work was linked with the great family of works already created by mankind; it resembled, more or less, certain among them. But it had in a high degree its own 'beauty - I should say vitality and personal quality.
The different components, taken perhaps from here and there, of which it was composed, combined to produce a completely new flavour and personal point of view; and this combination, created for the first time, was an aspect of things hitherto unknown to human genius.
From then onwards Manet found his direction; or to put it better, he had found himself. He was seeing things with his own eyes, and in each of his canvases he was able to give us a translation of Nature in that original language which he had just found in himself.' — Émile Zola, 'A New Manner in Painting: Édouard Manet' (1866)
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Édouard Manet, French modernist painter, one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism (1832-1883)
Édouard Manet: A Child of our Age
Considered the progenitor of the Impressionists and the father of modern painting, Manet astonished his contemporaries with his radical simplification of form and application of pure, luminous colour.
Manet's paintings were considered atypical by those accustomed to the glazed, academic compositions shown at the annual Salon, so many perspicacious critics or friends were prompted to come to his defence.
"One's first impression of a picture by Édouard Manet is that it is a trifle 'hard'. One is not accustomed to seeing reproductions of reality so simplified and so sincere... I cannot repeat too often that, in order to understand and savour his talent, we must forget a thousand things. It is not a question, here, of seeking for an 'absolute' of beauty. The artist is neither painting history nor his soul.
What is termed 'composition' does not exist for him, and he has not set himself the task of representing some abstract idea or some historical episode. And it is because of this that he should neither be judged as a moralist nor as a literary man.
.. Don't expect anything of him except a truthful and literal interpretation. He neither sings nor philosophizes. He knows how to paint and that is all. He has his own personal gift, which is to appreciate the delicacy of the dominant tones and to model objects and people in simplified masses. He is a child of our age." ― Émile Zola, Édouard Manet, R***e du XX Siècle, 1867
'Édouard Manet tried to find his own way and see for himself. He spoke in a language full of harshness and grace which thoroughly alarmed the public. I do not claim that it was an entirely new language and that it did not contain some Spanish turns of phrase... But judging by the forcefulness and truth of certain pictures, it was clear that an artist had been born to us.
He spoke a language which he had made his own, and which henceforth belonged entirely to him. This is how I explain the birth of a true artist, Édouard Manet, for example.
Feeling that he was making no progress by copying the masters, or by painting Nature as seen through the eyes of individuals who differed in character from himself, he came to understand, quite naturally, one fine day, that it only remained to him to see Nature as it really is, without looking at the works or studying the opinions of others.
From the moment he conceived this idea, he took some object, person or thing, placed it at the end of his studio and began to reproduce it on his canvas in accordance with his own outlook and understanding. He made an effort to forget everything he had learned in museums; he tried to forget all the advice that he had been given and all the paintings that he had ever seen. All that remained was a singular gifted intelligence in the presence of Nature, translating it in its own manner.
Thus the artist produced an oeuvre which was his own flesh and blood. Certainly, this work was linked with the great family of works already created by mankind; it resembled, more or less, certain among them. But it had in a high degree its own 'beauty - I should say vitality and personal quality.
The different components, taken perhaps from here and there, of which it was composed, combined to produce a completely new flavour and personal point of view; and this combination, created for the first time, was an aspect of things hitherto unknown to human genius.
From then onwards Manet found his direction; or to put it better, he had found himself. He was seeing things with his own eyes, and in each of his canvases he was able to give us a translation of Nature in that original language which he had just found in himself.' — Émile Zola, 'A New Manner in Painting: Édouard Manet' (1866)
Friday, January 4th
— Yes, I am in a consumption, and it progresses. I am ill. No one knows it. But I am feverish every evening. Everything goes wrong, and it bores me to speak of it-
"Saturday, January 5th. — The opening of Manet's exhibition at the École des Beaux- Arts!
I go there with mamma. Manet has not been dead a year. I did not know much about his work The general impression of this exhibition is striking. It is incoherent, childish, and grandiose. Some of his works are perfectly crazy, and yet there are splendid bits.
Given a little more, and he would be one of the great masters of painting. His work is generally ugly, sometimes deformed, but always living.
There are some splendid impressions. And even his worst things have a something which prevents your feeling disgust or lassitude. There is so much aplomb — such appalling self-confidence, joined to an ignorance no less appalling. . . . It's like the childhood of genius. And, agam, copies taken bodily from Titian (the sketch of the woman and the negro), from Velázquez, Courbet, and Goya. But all these painters steal from one another.
What of Molière, by the way? He has taken whole pages, word for word. I have read it, I know." — Chapter XII from "The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff", Translated, With an Introduction, by Mathilde Blind https://bit.ly/3EzqbVM
Édouard Manet, French modernist painter, one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism (1832-1883)
Considerado el Progenitor de los Impresionistas (sin haber abrazado el Impresionismo salvo en escasas ocasiones) y el Padre de la Pintura Moderna, Manet sorprendió a sus contemporáneos a través de la simplificación radical de la forma y la aplicación del color puro y luminoso.
Las pinturas de Manet fueron consideradas atípicas por aquéllos acostumbrados a las composiciones académicas 'pulidas y acabadas' en las que la mera huella o trazo del pincel, eran considerados un 'pecado capital', obras que se exhibían en el Salón anual de París.
Es por este motivo que muchos críticos agudos y perspicaces. así como sus sus amigos y admiradores, se vieron obligados a defenderlo.
El escritor naturalista francés y crítico de arte Émile Zola (1840-1902), amigo de Paul Cézanne, y reverenciado por muchos artistas de su época, sobre todo por Vincent van Gogh, escribió en 1867 un largo y elogioso articulo dedicado a Édouard Manet en la Revista 'del Siglo XX', algunos de cuyos párrafos he traducido para ustedes:
"La primera impresión que recibimos al ver una obra de Édouard Manet es que carece de cierta 'importancia'. Uno no está acostumbrado a ver reproducciones de la realidad tan simplificadas y tan sinceras... No puedo repetir con demasiada frecuencia que, para comprender y disfrutar de su talento, debemos dejar de lado mil cosas. Cuando hablamos de las obras de Manet, no debemos tratar de hallar en ellas el más estricto sentido de la belleza. El artista no pinta ni la historia ni su alma.
Para él no existe tal concepto como el de la 'composición', y no se ha propuesto tampoco representar una idea abstracta o un episodio histórico. Y es por eso que no debe ser juzgado como un moralista ni como un hombre literario.
.. No esperes nada de él excepto una interpretación veraz y literal. Él no canta ni filosofa. Él sabe pintar y eso es todo. Tiene su propio don personal, que es el de apreciar la delicadeza de los tonos dominantes y modelar objetos y personas en masas simplificadas. Es el hijo de nuestro tiempo." - Fuente Émile Zola, Édouard Manet, R***e du XX Siècle, 1867
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