Like Courbet,
Edouard
Manet (1832-83)
was strongly
influenced by
Spanish painters,
whose works had
become more easily
accessible to
artists when a large
collection belonging
to the Orléans
family was
confiscated by the
state in 1848.
Unlike Courbet,
though, he never saw
himself as a
socialist or indeed
as a rebel or
avant-garde painter,
yet his technique
and interpretation
of themes was quite
new and shocked as
many people as it
inspired. Manet used
bold contrasts of
light and very dark
colours, giving his
paintings a
forcefulness that
critics often took
for a lack of
sophistication. And
his detractors saw
much to decry in his
reworking of an old
subject originally
treated by the
sixteenth-century
Venetian painter,
Giorgione,
Le Déjeuner
sur l'Herbe .
Manet's version was
shocking because he
placed naked and
dressed figures
together, and
because the men were
dressed in the
costume of the day,
implying a pleasure
party too
specifically
contemporary to be
"respectable".
Manet was not
interested in
painting moral
lessons, however,
and some of his most
successful pictures
are reflections of
ordinary life in
bars and public
places, where
respectability, as
understood by the
late
nineteenth-century
bourgeoisie, was
certainly lacking.
To Manet, painting
was to be enjoyed
for its own sake and
not as a tool for
moral instruction -
in itself an outlook
on the role of art
that was quite new,
not to say
revolutionary, and
marked a definite
break with the
paintings of the
past. With Manet,
the basis of our
present expectations
and understanding of
modern art was
established.
From the 1870s,
Manet began to adopt
the Impressionist
techniques of
painting
out-of-doors, and
his work became
lighter and freer.
Although it is
doubtful whether
Manet either wanted
or expected to
assume the role of
leader, he found
himself a
much-admired member
of that group of
painters, one of
whom was Claude
Monet
(1840-1926). Born in
Le Havre, Monet came
in contact with Eugène
Boudin
(1824-98), whose
colourful beach
scenes anticipated
the way the
Impressionists
approached colour.
He then went to
Paris to study under
Charles Gleyre, a
respected teacher in
whose studio he met
many of the people
with whom he
formulated his
ideas. Monet soon
discovered that, for
him, light and the
way in which it
builds up forms and
creates an infinity
of colours was the
element that
governed all
representations.
Under the impact of
Manet's bright hues
and his
unconventional
attitude, ("art
for art's
sake"), Monet
soon began using
pure colours side by
side, blended
together to create
areas of brightness
and shade.
In 1874, a group
of some thirty
artists exhibited
together for the
first time. Among
them were some of
the best-known names
of this period of
French art: Degas,
Monet, Renoir,
Pissarro. One of
Monet's paintings
was entitled Impression:
Sun Rising , a
title that was
singled out by the
critics to ridicule
the colourful, loose
and unacademic style
of these young
artists. Overnight
they became,
derisively, the
"Impressionists".
Camille
Pissarro
(1830-1903) was
slightly older than
most of them and
seems to have played
the part of an
encouraging
father-figure,
always keenly aware
of any new
development or new
talent. Not a great
innovator himself,
Pissarro was a very
gifted artist whose
use of Impressionist
technique was
supplemented by a
lyrical feeling for
nature and its
seasonal changes.
But it was really
with Monet
that Impressionist
theory ran its full
course: he studied
endlessly the impact
of light on objects
and the way in which
it reveals colours.
To understand this
phenomenon better,
Monet painted the
same motif again and
again under
different conditions
of light, at
different times of
the day, and in
different seasons,
producing whole
series of paintings
such as Grain
Stacks, Poplars
and, much later, his
Waterlilies .
In the late 1870s
and the early 1880s
many other artists
helped formulate the
new style, though
few remained true to
its principles for
very long.
Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919), who
started life as a
painter of
porcelain, was swept
up by Monet's ideas
for a while, but
soon felt the need
to look again at the
old masters and to
emphasize the
importance of
drawing to the
detriment of colour.
Renoir regarded the
representation of
the female nude as
the most taxing and
rewarding subject
that an artist could
tackle. Like Boucher
in the eighteenth
century, Renoir's
nudes are luscious,
but rarely, if ever,
erotic. They have a
healthy,
uncomplicated
quality that was, in
his later paintings,
to become cloyingly,
almost
overpoweringly,
sickly and sweet.
Better were his
portraits of women
fully clothed, both
for their obvious
and innate sympathy
and for their keen
sense of design.
Edgar Degas
(1834-1917) was yet
another artist who,
although he
exhibited with the
Impresssionists, did
not follow their
precepts very
closely. The son of
a rich banker, he
was trained in the
tradition of Ingres:
design and drawing
were an integral
part of his art,
and, whereas Monet
was fascinated
mainly by light,
Degas wanted to
express movement in
all its forms. His
pictures are vivid
expressions of the
body in action,
usually straining
under fairly
exacting
circumstances -
dancers and circus
artistes were among
his favourite
subjects, as well as
more mundane
depictions of
laundresses and
other working women.
Like so many
artists of the day,
Degas had his
imagination fired by
the discovery of Japanese
prints , which
could for the first
time be seen in
quantity. These
provided him with
new ideas of
composition, not
least in their
asymmetry of design
and the use of large
areas of unbroken
colour. Photography
, too, had an
impact, if only
because it finally
liberated artists
from the task of
producing accurate,
exacting
descriptions of the
world.
Degas'
extraordinary gift
as a draughtsman was
matched only by that
of the Provençal
aristocrat Henri
de Toulouse-Lautrec
(1864-1901).
Toulouse-Lautrec,
who had broken both
his legs as a child,
was unusually small,
a physical deformity
that made him
particularly
sensitive to free
and vivacious
movements. A great
admirer of Degas, he
chose similar
themes: people in
cafés and theatres,
working women and
variety dancers all
figured large in his
work. But, unlike
Degas,
Toulouse-Lautrec
looked beyond the
body, and his work
is scattered with
social comment,
sometimes sardonic
and bitter. In his
portrayal of Paris
prostitutes, there
is sympathy and
kindness; to study
them better he lived
in a brothel,
revealing in his
paintings the
weariness and
sometimes gentleness
of these women.
