Édouard Manet was born in Paris in 1832. He was a French painter who had a great influence on the early Impressionist artists. His first contact with art came during his school years, through his maternal uncle, who accompanied him to his drawing classes at the Louvre Museum. Manet completed his training by traveling through various European countries, such as Spain. On the other hand, he maintained excellent relationships with impressionist painters
Claude Monet and
Camille Pissarro.
Édouard Manet, however, refused to identify himself with this movement. He limited himself to painting modern life in the city, representing them without any kind of concealment. Despite his talent and placing painting on a modern foundation, Manet was insecure about his artistic direction and vulnerable to criticism, and this is 10 paintings famous works of him.
1. MUSIC IN THE TUILERIES
Decades before Monet, Degas, and Renoir, Edouard Manet's painting ‘Music in the Tuileries’ from 1862 is seen by many as a declaration of the artist’s desire to paint modern life. His radical style, showcased in this piece, is considered to be one of the earliest examples of modernist painting.
2. THE LUNCH ON THE GRASS
Manet’s ‘Lunch on the Grass’, painted in 1863, is one of his most famous works and the piece that established him as one of the most controversial painters of his time. This particular work is a clear example of Manet’s realist style.
3. OLYMPIA
Olympia’s gaze is penetrating, like that of all great masters, its pureness is betrayed by the light-hearted expression in her expression. Much like ‘Déjeuner sur l’Herbe’, Manet’s ‘Olympia’ is a powerful statement that contradicts the firmly held conventions of art in the 19th century.
4. THE RAILWAY
‘The Railway’, accepted to the Paris Salon of 1874, was critiqued for its unfinished appearance. The other area of dissatisfaction was in the painting’s title: the railway mentioned is not visible in the work, just a cloud of smoke indicates that the setting is a railway station.
5. THE EXECUTION OF MAXIMILIAN
Edouard Manet was a renowned French painter in the nineteenth century. In 1867-68, he portrayed the execution of Austrian archduke Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico, in a painting. Five of the artist's paintings were compiled in 1992 for an exhibition in London and Mannheim, and again in 2006 for the exhibition Manet and The Execution of Maximilian presented by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
6. A BAR AT THE FOLIES BERGERE
This A bar at the Folies Bergere, painted by Édouard Manet in 1882, is a wonderful example of the artistic interest that Manet had in the cafés and cabarets of Paris at the end of the 19th century. But some critics have argued that he used that subject matter to experiment with new painting techniques. It is now show in the Courtauld Gallery in London.
7. ON THE BEACH
Here we see a painting from 1873 that was somehow an inspiration for Manet's masterpiece, Breakfast on the Grass. Note that "was somehow linked" is non-restrictive. The man in both of Manet's on "
On the beach" paintings is the artist's brother, who also appears on the other canvas. But here the artist already has a defined style, so he no longer seeks to provoke with shocking imagery as much as to recreate his work in familiar situations.
8. CLAUDE MONET PAINTING IN HIS STUDIO
Claude Monet Painting in his Studio or
Monet in his Boat is an 1874. Although we have already mentioned that
Manet did not want to be considered an impressionist painter, this does not mean that he had no contact with these painters. The paintings on canvas that he uses is this image of
Monet while he's painting in his boat in the town of Argenteuil. This place where both artists met from time to time in order to work.
9. THE FIFE
The Fife is a landscape depiction by
Édouard Manet in 1866. It is currently kept at the
Musée d'Orsay in Paris. While the painting is finished, it was controversial at the time because it avoided using line or color to define its image, some critics argued that it was unfinished. However, this is another of his great works, which also reveals great influence of Spanish painting, a subject on which he had done many studies.
10. THE BALCONY
Likewise, this paintings of
Manet's "
The Balcony" in 1868 is indebted to his knowledge of Spanish painters, and he had studied in depth from his trips to the Prado Museum. In this paintings, his influence was Spanish painter
Francisco de Goya, since the scene of
The Balcony recalls a very similar painting by the Aragonese artist, entitled
Majas on a Balcony. Later in 1869, he submitted this work to the Paris Salon.
