Édouard Manet, artist. Creativity: photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

At first glance, the biography of Edouard Manet seems quite rosy and shows us the artist's darling of fate. Born into a we althy respected family, having received an excellent education, he rotated in the highest secular circles, traveled and did his favorite thing - painting. What else does a person need in order to consider himself happy? But no! Not everything is so simple…

Edouard Manet. Biography

Born on January 23, 1832. Father is a lawyer, mother is the daughter of an ambassador.

Manet's character was intelligent and rebellious. When exercising pressure on him, trying to impose their will on him, his parents did not meet any obvious resistance from him. Not linking his future with any professions other than artistic craft, the guy secretly stood his ground. "Be a lawyer like your father." "Of course, mother, it's an honor for me." Then "suddenly" fails the entrance exams. This is his characteristic way of dealing with attempts to break his will.

After a quarrel with his parents, he gets a job as a cabin boy on a sailboat and, realizing his old dream of Rio de Janeiro, sets sail.

Upon returngets a job as an apprentice to the artist of the scandalous reputation Thomas Couture, the author of the sensational painting "The Romans of the Decline", depicting an orgy. Relations between Couture and Manet are nasty, but, nevertheless, the young artist is patiently trained by the master to the end.

Communicating with famous artists, poets, writers and drawing inspiration from their work, Edouard Manet develops his own individual style of painting. Among his friends and inspirers: Charles Baudelaire, Emile Zola, Renoir, Monet and others.

Despite the rejection of his works by critics, he was a widely known artist, accepted both among the Impressionists and among masters of other areas of painting.

Manet's talent is recognized at the very end of his life. In 1881, he was awarded the medal of the Salon, and after some time, the Order of the Legion of Honor. At that time, Edgar Manet no longer paints, paralyzed due to ataxia of the brain. On April 30, 1883, the artist leaves the sinful earth without undergoing an operation to amputate his leg, being at the age of 51.

Artist's work

Edouard Manet shows no attempts to innovate from his first independent works. But with the death of his father and the receipt of an inheritance, the flight of his thoughts is liberated, not burdened by financial dependence on painting pictures. The creative freedom of the artist in 1863 shows the world the first of his scandalous masterpieces - "Breakfast on the Grass", depicting a naked female nature in the company of dressed men. Made a daring challengepublic morality, the picture lends itself to a ban in showing the official salon. She is recognized as indecent, and Edouard Manet himself is reproached for immorality for writing it.

The further work of Edouard Manet does not change its direction and continues its line. 1865 is the year of the birth of Olympia, which caused even more merciless criticism and misunderstanding from fans of the fine arts. Edouard Manet dares to depict a naked woman on it in a modern interior, and not in the classical style of antiquity, adopted among French artists. This was seen by critics as unheard of hypocrisy. The poor beauty depicted on the canvas immediately acquired the unflattering epithets of "a slut who imagines herself a queen" and "a shameless girl who came out from under Manet's brush."

Moreover, "Olympia" was painted on a large-scale canvas, which is acceptable only for historical paintings, which also added fuel to the fire of indignation of critics. The picture gathers a mass of people around it only to be ridiculed and cursed.

And now Edouard Manet, whose biography is pure of fornication and debauchery, who has loved only one woman all his life - Suzanne Leenhoff, is gaining an extremely bad reputation. Tired of such rumors, the artist Edouard Manet leaves his homeland for a while. But upon his return, he continues to work in his own manner, without giving up. This is what angers the critics the most.

Contribution to the development of art

Manet carried out a kind of revolution in understanding the fine arts of those times. continuousexperimenting with color and form, he laid the foundation for the development of many new trends in French painting. He questioned the inviolability of painting styles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: classicism, realism, impressionism. An example of audacity and novelty in the plots of paintings inspired many young artists to look for new ways to reveal images.

Edouard Manet did not dwell on certain themes of his works, he alternated landscape with portrait, still life with scenes from life. Color preference was also subjected to constant experimentation: dark, thick, contrasting colors were replaced by lighter, lighter ones.

Artist recognition

As often happens, he never heard the epithets "brilliant artist", "great Manet" and other flattering reviews during his lifetime. The real fame came to his works many years after his death, and it was the same “Olympia” that laid the foundation for it - “tasteless” and “vulgar”.

Now Manet's paintings are estimated at millions of pounds sterling: from seven to fifty-six.

Edouard Manet: paintings with titles of no less scandalous reputation

"The Surprised Nymph". The picture, the plot of which reveals to the viewer the frightened look of a nymph bandaging her knee, amazes connoisseurs of painting even now. At the beginning of the last century, critics perceived the original plot of this painting as a spit in the face of classical painting.

"Suicide". Due to the sharpness of the plot, the canvas was not recognized as worthy of being shown inNational Salon and gathered dust in the artist's studio for many years. The work is currently in the private collection of Emil Georg Bührle in Zurich.

The masterpiece "Bathers on the Seine", made in oil, was also subject to bans on presentation to the public in the official Salon, exhibited only in the Salon of the Rejected. Atypical for that time, the manner of execution of the painting prompted the public to treat it with prejudice.

A similar fate haunts many artists and their work. Only after years, and sometimes centuries, they are recognized as brilliant.