French artist who captured the heyday of the French Second Empire with his innovative realist style. Impressionists who followed Manet considered him a genius, while art historians call him “the first modern painter;” his influence on 19th and 20th century art was profound. In the beginning, he challenged the French Academic Salon traditions with his masterpieces, “Dejeuner sur l’Herbe,” 1863 and “Olympia,” 1865. By the 1870s, the Academy came around to accepting his innovations and giving way to celebrating his achievements in French art giving him the Legion of Honor, 1881.
Manet was the son of Auguste Manet, a Parisian judge and magistrate, and Eugenie-Desiree Fournier, a woman of sophistication. He was the eldest of three sons with brother Eugene born in 1833, and his brother Gustave in 1835. His father had plans for his son to enter the law profession and follow in his footsteps. As a boy, Manet preferred his sketchbook and art supplies to academic coursework. He was influenced by his Uncle Charles Fournier as the two would visit the Lourve Museum.
After school, Manet went into the merchant marines. In 1850, he dedicated himself to becoming an artist by enrolling in the studio of academic painter Thomas Couture to learn artistic technique. He finished his studies in 1856. His first works, “The Absinthe Drinker,” 1858, and “Old Musician,” 1862 displayed his concern of portraying contemporary subjects rather than celebrating the past glories in costume drama motifs. Velasquez and Goya were his inspirations but he wanted to use their color techniques while capturing the vast new modern age of the revitalization of Paris. His fellow artists continued to work in the restrained atmosphere of the French academic traditions. Large, costume historical paintings were still considered the highest achievement in the pecking order of subjects while genre, portrait, and still life paintings hovered around the bottom. Manet sought acceptance from the art establishment and won a place in the 1862 Salon with the “Spanish Guitar Player.” However, his standings within the community changed in 1863 when his painting “Dejeuner sur l’Herbe” was rejected for that year’s Salon exhibition. Manet was not alone. In 1863 over 2800 artists were excluded from the government and art establishment exhibition. Napoleon III, aware of the artistic conflicts, urged the Salon to display the refused paintings in a special exhibition called the “Salon des Refuses.”
On 5/15/1863, people crowded into the new exhibition and were shocked to see Manet’s “Dejeuner sur l’Herbe.” Female nudity beside fully-attired men wearing contemporary clothing was an assault on Second Empire propriety. In 1865, his painting, “Olympia,” of a woman assumed to be a waiting-for-her-client prostitute lying nude on her bed was far bolder and brazen to the crowds and art critics of the day. Manet did have supporters in Paris such as Emile Zola and Stephane Mallarme who wrote passionate letters and articles of praise for the courage and fortitude of Manet’s works. In 1866, Zola heralded his friend as the outsider who would revitalize French art.
In 1867-1871, during the Franco-Prussian war, Manet stayed in Paris working on “Execution of Maximilian,” 1868, and signed on as a gunner in the National Guard. He wrote his friends and family about his hatred for the war and his experiences with the horror and brutality around Paris. In 1874, Manet entertained his admirers Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Pissaro, and Fantin-LaTour at the Cafe Guerbois near his studio. The Impressionists enjoyed talking to the man they felt epitomized the new avant-garde. Manet enjoyed discussions on the technique of art but loathed to be considered the Impressionists ringleader. He refused to participate in the Impressionists’ eight exhibitions, preferring to continue to show his works in the annual Salons. In his 40’s, Manet preferred to remain within the art establishment. In accepting his Legion of Honor at the age of 47, Manet joined the ranks of a group of predominately conservative artists whose techniques and theories of French painting he was able to change in his lifetime. While he was guarded in his attachment to the Impressionists, he still admired their new technique of reflected light on the canvas. His “Bar at the Follies-Bergere” was his last great masterpiece and exhibited at the Salon of 1882.
Suzanne Leenhoff, a plump, blonde Dutch pianist served as the Manet family’s piano teacher. In 1850, Suzanne Leenhoff and Edouard Manet were living together. She went away to Holland and returned with an infant she introduced as her younger brother Leon Koella. The boy lived with the Manet family and raised with kindness, but he was never treated as a son nor grandson. In 1863, Manet and Suzanne were wed and they continued to treat Koella as her younger brother. Manet was blond with fine-features and fashionably well built figure. He enjoyed appearing as a dandy, gloved, hatted and impeccably attired at all the fashionable and chic gatherings.
In a vain attempt to stop gangrene his leg was amputated but Manet died on 4/30/1883 in Paris. His brother Eugene and sister-in-law Berthe Morisot bought his gravesite at the Passy cemetery in Paris.
Link to Wikipedia biography