Édouard Manet and Impressionism

• Édouard Manet (1832-1883) was painting in the second half of the 19th century. His position in the history of art is very important. We have already seen the beginning of the modernist tradition in Western art with the work of Courbet - Modern in the choice of subject matter, new formal priorities and new audiences. Manet painted contemporary subjects. The choice of subject matter was controversial, intended to shock the bourgeoisie. They were also painted on a large scale in order to compete with the History Paintings.

• Manet engaged with modernity, not finding refuge in Apollo, the muses, Jonah, Abraham etc. His formal qualities were modern too, he didn't bother painting tonal passages but painted with large brush strokes, with patches of colour - Taches. A style of painting that presents itself with a much more rhetorical and immediate way.

• These paintings were modern in the way in which they relate with the public and with society. They were shocking in terms of their content and in terms of their form. Artists wanted to create a point of rapture, and positioned themselves as avant-garde.

• This obsession of the artist being an outsider starts with Courbet and Manet - Courbet creating his own exhibition, him vs. the real taste. These artists were not portraying what the public wanted them to see, the avant-garde weren't looking to become court painters.

Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877, Art Institute of Chicago, USA

• Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) was a typical Parisian bourgeois and a friend of Courbet. He is often paired with the Impressionists but he was in fact a generation earlier. His great period of activity was between 1860 and 1870. He considered himself a realist following in the footsteps of Courbet.

• In the 19th century, there were three great capitals: Paris - London - Vienna.

• Paris was the cultural capital of the 19th century; it was a city in transformation. A civil servant, Baron Haussmann was the brains behind the transformation. 

Paris before Haussmann

Paris after Haussmann

• What changed in terms of the geography of the city was crucial to understand Courbet and Impressionism. Haussmann produced a boulevard system creating a monumental city with perspective focal points. The opposite of a Medieval city. Paris had become a city that was organised by rational principles. Until 1851-53, the face of Paris was completely different - Gothic, Neoclassical, Renaissance, but with a Medieval structure. Haussmann created the city of uniform facades, of perspective. Modern Paris completely obliterated the Medieval Paris. 

• These new urban, bustling boulevards became a popular subject of the 19th century. The new city also allowed for the booming of the bourgeoisie, as great building infrastructure generates great wealth. Restaurants, cafes, concert halls etc. became very popular. Painters that were interested in new opportunities had lots of new things to paint. In this context, we have a generation that witnessed the transformation. 

"The pageant of fashionable life and the thousands of floating existences - criminals and kept women - which drift about in the underworld of a great city ... all prove to  us that we have only to open our eyes to recognise our heroism..."

Charles Baudelaire, 1846

• Charles Baudelaire was the greatest French poet of the 19th century, he was also a sharp art critic and a close friend of Courbet and Manet. It was of his belief that artists, rather than carrying on depicting the old world, should instead search for new heroes in contemporary life. This was exactly the mission of Courbet onwards. 

Manet, The Absinthe Drinker, 1858-59, Copenhagen

Manet, The Spanish Singer, 1860, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• The early painting by Manet are very much scenes of contemporary life. The Absinthe Drinker illustrates a man with absinthe, which was a very addictive, hypnotic beverage in the 19th century. Subjects such as The Spanish Singer was also painted, showing the activities of the underworld of Paris.

Manet, Dead Toreador, c. 1864-65, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Unidentified Italian painter (formerly attributed to Velazquez), A Dead Soldier, c. 1630, National Gallery, London

• Manet's master was Thomas Couture, the famous history painter, however Manet left his tutelage to go in a different direction. His early works were copies of paintings in the Louvre. He loved the school of the Venetians and the Spaniards. Especially the works of Velazquez of the 17th century, many of Manet's early works had Spanish subject matters and were in a way completely abstract. 

Manet, The Old Musician, 1862, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Velazquez, The Triumph of Bacchus, 1626-28, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

• Manet's The Old Musician is clearly influenced by Velazquez. This generation looked to the past to find what they were looking for, e.g. Manet was inspired by the Venetian loose brush stroke. 

Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863, (Salon des Refusés, 1863).

• Manet painted Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe in 1863, this painting generated the most hostile reaction from the public, journalists and the establishment. It was the painting of scandal in the 19th century. All his life Manet wanted to exhibit at the Salon, because if you want to provoke and become a name you have to be like Courbet. He was refused by the Salon, however so many paintings were refused in 1863 that Emperor Napoleon III opened the Salon des Refusés, the Salon of the Rejected Paintings.

• One of the most famous journalists in the 19th century said that Manet needed to stop choosing subject matter to create scandal. Taste is corrupted with infatuation of the bizarre. 

• Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe depicts a modern nude in a contemporary setting, with two fully dressed bourgeois men. The painting is rough and unfiltered. The subject in itself was considered to be a scandal. The most important aspect of a History Painting is it's example of virtue, however there is no meaning behind this painting - What does it mean? Unclear subject, Manet is freeing painting from the necessity of telling a story. 

• Many critics announced that Manet will show talent when he learns drawing and perspective, the woman in the background of this painting has incorrect perspective. If you were separate the figures, the landscapes and the still life of this painting, it is clear that they are all on different plains and are all very flat. For the educated public of the time, this was absolutely inconceivable. Not only are there large masses of colour, but the nude looks out of the painting directly at the viewer - very impactful, the huge body in the background, the large brush strokes, clearly no intention of realism, clear brushstrokes in the still life. 

• What Manet has done here is oppose all the qualities of an academy painting. For example, the large brushstrokes of Manet, are very different to the precise minuscule strokes of the academy painters, progressively applying layer after layer of paint to create a perfect finish. The academy technique takes a long time, unlike Manet's quick technique. 

• The Old Masters used the palette to mix the colours, where as Manet and the Impressionists applied single patches of colour (TACHES) directly onto the canvas, to create a sense of immediacy. This new style also saw the elimination of tonal passages from light (chiaro) to dark (scuro). Again achieving a more immediate effect. This technique was not necessarily a new one, for example it was used by Caravaggio in the 17th century. This technique was called ALLA PRIMA, meaning painting directly onto the canvas with no preparatory drawings. This technique often resulted in PENTIMENTI - a change of opinion/mind, when paintings are x-rayed and changes can be seen. Preparatory drawings are the modelling of the form, a consequence of this is of course pentimenti. 

• From an iconographical and stylistic point of view, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe was a total shock for the public. They recognised the general shape of the painting being based on a classical prototype. For example: 

Raimondi after Raphael, Judgement of Paris (detail), c. 1515

The Judgement of Paris, Roman-Hellenistic relief c. 2nd century AD, Villa Medici, Rome

• The engraving by Raimondi was of a drawing by Raphael of detail of the Roman sarcophagus relief on the facade of the Medici Villa. These pieces influenced Manet, giving them a new life in a totally different context.

Giorgione/Titian, Pastoral Concert, c. 1509-10, Louvre, Paris

• Another prototype that was recognised through Manet's painting was Pastoral Concert by Giorgione/Titian. POESIE was invented by Giorgione and Titian. Here too, unlike typical history paintings, there is no clear subject; it presents an obscure mythological subject.

• Similarly works such as Courbet's Girls on the banks of the Seine (Summer), also caused great scandal.

• This is interesting, as works such as Cabanal's The Birth of Venus, a nude reclining on the ocean, was widely praised - this was because of his perfect execution of Venus in a metaphorical place and time. In terms of nudes, it is more explicit than Manet's, but it reveals the culture.

Manet, Olympia, 1863, Museée d'Orsay, Paris

• Manet's Olympia was one of the great icons of the 19th century. It was not displayed in 1863, but accepted in 1865. The jury understood it as a classical nude, although the public reacted in a different way - to the point that the public left the Salon in opposition, one man even tried to destroy the painting with his cane. Although this painting has references to typical nudes and classical antiquity it is undoubtedly more explicit. Olympia is a rich courtesan, looking directly at the viewer, one of her assistants presents her with flower from us. She is in an upper class brothel and so the viewer effectively becomes her next client. It is a provocative and direct subject matter.

• Many satirical cartoons were published in magazines and newspapers reacting to Manet's painting.

Manet, Portrait of Emile Zola, 1868, Museée d'Orsay, Paris

• Emile Zola was one of Manet's first supporters. This period had a culture of strolling around, of encounters, exchange of ideas. The typical product of the 19th century was the Flâneur - who strolled around, looking at the modernist with creative eyes to capture the modern life. Zola was one of the first writers to support Manet. In this portrait, behind Zola, there are manifestations of Manet's work, a print of Olympia, an engraving by Velazquez - who's painterly technique was one of the great sources for the realists and later impressionists. There is also a Japanese print of Sumo Wrestler, these prints were of course one of the most important influences of 19th century art from this moment onwards. Japanese prints were widely circulated from 1853, strong colours, no perspective, uniform colours, no tonal passages, just a few of their characteristics. These prints spoke a completely different language, they were incredibly progressive and had a huge influence.

Manet, The Railway, 1873, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

• The Railway does not have a centred composition. Manet, as Titian and Velazquez had done before him, shows and utilises the brown priming of the canvas, academics would have covered this with layers and layers of paint. Manet however, used the priming for expressive purposes, as part of the composition. He used large brush strokes, unmixed one on top of the other in taches of paint. The principle of memesis is completely abandoned, it speaks its own language as opposed to imitating reality. If you were to look close to the canvas and focus on just one section, the painting would become abstract. 

Manet, The Grand Canal, Venice, 1875, The Shelbourne Museum, Vermont

• Manet becomes more and more impressionistic as his career went on, he was often courted by the Impressionists to become one of them, but he refused. However his technique changes accordingly, his painting style becomes more fragmented. He embraces some of the most advanced formal experimentation.


-- Manet = transitional artist --


First phase of Impressionism: 1860 -1880

Monet, Impressionism, le Soleil Levant, 1874

• What is Impressionism?

• “One does not paint a landscape, a seascape, a figure: one paints the impression of an hour of the day.” Gustave Courbet.

• “He brings back  from the vision he casts on things an impression truly his own. Everything is summed up, in his eyes, in a variant of colouration; each nuance or distinct colour becomes a definite tone, a particular note of the palette.” Théodore Duret of Manet, 1870

• “They are Impressionists in the sense that they render not the landscape but the sensation produced by the landscape.” Nadar, 1874

• There is a shift in the focus of objectives in art, from universal values to the individual. Some of the essential elements of modernism is relativism. It was believed that painting should express your relative vision of reality, not represent it as it is.

• Impressionists don't represent reality as it is, but as a relative representation of reality - painting in the 19th century moves away from reality. The painting that gave the name to this movement was Monet's Impression, le Soleil Levant. The tonal passages from dark to light create the effect of three dimensionality, it is an illusionistic trick.

• The impressionist paintings require intellectual effort from the viewer, as the viewer needs to fill in the gaps to complete the story - evocative abstraction.

• The Impressionists were obsessed with the Venetian, Flemish and Spanish painterly tradition that expresses autonomous.

Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed, 1844, National Gallery, London

• Turner's work can be considered to be impressionistic and his painting style was very progressive and a huge influence to the Impressionists.

• Manet was of course a great example contemporary to them, the Impressionists were inspired by his alla prima technique.

Monet, Women in the Garden, 1866-7, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

• Monet was the great follower and successor of Manet. He started painting in 1860 in a very Manet style. A typical characteristic of his work is that most of his subjects are outside of the studio. They are painted en plein air - outside, in parks, near rivers, people engaging in their daily activities, modern life. The impressionists were the painters of the bourgeoisie. Although most of the paintings look as though they were painted en plein air, they were almost always finished in the studio.

"Colour owes its brightness to force of colours rather to inherent qualities; primary colours look brightest when brought into contrast with complementarities." Claude Monet.

• One of the essential elements in the case of the Impressionists is no contour line. Another is the attention to colour, and the expressive possibilities of colour, rather than drawing. If you assign primary colours to complementary colours, juxtaposed, you will have a strong contrast between them. The Impressionists set out to exploit these potentials.

• Another influential development for the Impressionists was the technical advancement of paint in tubes. This enables artists to take a box complete with paint, paintbrushes and a palette out with them, and allowing to paint en plein air, rather than having to mix the pigments themselves in their studios. This allowed for alla prima on a new scale. These boxes presented artists with primary and complementary colours, as well as intermediaries, ready to use. Much easier and quicker to use, allowing for experimentation.

• The effect is brightness. Impressionist paintings are much brighter than others before them. Until Courbet and Manet, the artists used a brown priming layer, the Impressionists used a white primer to alow for complete brightness.

Renoir, La Grenouillère, 1869, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869, National Gallery, London

• Because they were experimenting in light and colour, some of the earlier subjects of Monet and Renoir is them atmosphere, landscape, and the flickering effect of light on water.

Degas, Young Spartans Exercising, 1860, National Gallery, London

• Degas was an anomaly, he was older than the Impressionists and trained at the academy. Unlike the other Impressionists, Degas retained an obsession for the human form.

Degas, The Orchestra at the Paris Opera, 1868-69, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

• This painting is in many ways more traditional from the way the surface is rendered. One way this is completely revolutionary is the unusual point of view and the cropped composition - dancers heads not painted, no one engages with the viewer. It is a modern subject, with a modern point of view. It is very photographic in its composition. It is the opposite to the traditional way of constructing a painting, there is a rhetoric in the traditional but with Degas, this becomes cropped and the public could not understand this.

• Japanese prints were hugely influential for Degas, as they framed subjects in a completely different way to conventional pieces. In Japanese prints, traditional subjects of classical art, such as people, were delegated to the background, deemed unimportant. Trees were often placed in the foreground obscuring the view. These prints presented new expressive possibilities. In addition, juxtaposition between writing and painting becomes an important subject as well as the obsession with nature and the ephemeral - fully embraced by the Impressionists. The Japanese prints had a fascinating element of no sense of perspective. These prints also influenced the Post-Impressionists.

• The Impressionists were refused by the Salon, by in a way, they wanted to be refused. There were 8 official exhibitions for the Impressionists - The Société Anonyme des Artistes (1874-1886).

Monet, The Road Bridge at Argenteuil, 1874, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

• The most famous decade for the Impressionists was the 1870s. Especially for Monet, who was living and painting in Argenteuil at the time.

Degas, L'Absinthe (The Absinthe Drinker), 1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris 

Degas, The Dance Class, 1871-74, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

• In the 1870s Degas was painting the Bohemian underworld of Paris. These paintings had irregular and unbalanced compositions, and had a very painterly effect on the canvas. Ballerinas were his signature.

Renoir, La Loge, Courtauld Gallery, London

Renoir, La Première Sortie, 1876-7, National Gallery, London

• Renoir was the great painter of the bourgeoisie, the opera, cafes, races, parties - the painter of the urban middle class leisure.

The Impressionists' Dealer, Paul Durand Ruel

• The dealer of the Impressionists was Paul Durand Ruel. If the mainstream Salon started to refuse these paintings, then dealers arrived on the scene. Paul Durand Ruel was the most famous dealer of the 19th century. He also provided spaces for artists to display their paintings. This was smart, if the state-run display is shut off from the Impressionist artists, a new market opportunity had opened up, as well as market supplies for the lack of exhibition space provided by the state.