Édouard Manet was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Paintings by Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (French: Un bar aux Folies Bergère) is a painting by Édouard Manet, considered to be his last major work. It was painted in 1882 and exhibited at the Paris Salon of that year. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris. The painting originally belonged to the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, a close friend of Manet, and hung over his piano. It is now in the Courtauld Gallery in London.
The painting exemplifies Manet's commitment to realism in its detailed representation of a contemporary scene. Many features have puzzled critics but almost all of them have been shown to have a rationale, and the painting has been the subject of numerous popular and scholarly articles.
Olympia (Manet) (1863)
Olympia is an 1863 oil painting by Édouard Manet, depicting a nude white woman ("Olympia") lying on a bed being attended to by a black maid. The French government acquired the painting in 1890 after a public subscription organized by Claude Monet. The painting is now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
The figure of Olympia was modeled by 19 year-old Victorine Meurent, and that of her servant by Laure. Olympia's confrontational gaze caused shock and controversy when the painting was first exhibited at the 1865 Paris Salon, especially because a number of details in the picture identified her as a prostitute.
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863)
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (French: [lə deʒœne syʁ lɛʁb, -ʒøn-]; The Luncheon on the Grass) – originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863.
It depicts a nude woman and a scantily dressed bathing woman on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, where the painting sparked public notoriety and controversy. The work increased Manet's fame; in spite of this it failed to sell at its debut.
The Balcony (Manet) (1868)
The Balcony (French: Le balcon) is an 1868–69 oil painting by the French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts four figures on a balcony, one of whom is sitting: the painter Berthe Morisot, who married Manet's brother Eugène in 1874. In the centre is the painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is Fanny Claus, a violinist. The fourth figure, partially obscured in the interior's background, is possibly Léon Leenhoff, Manet's son.
It was exhibited at the 1869 Paris Salon, and then kept by Manet until his death in 1883. It was sold to the painter Gustave Caillebotte in 1884, who left it to the French state in 1894. It is currently held at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Music in the Tuileries (1862)
Music in the Tuileries is an 1862 oil-on-canvas painting by Édouard Manet. It is owned by the National Gallery, London and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin as part of the shared Lane Bequest.
The work is an early example of Manet's painterly style, inspired by Frans Hals and Diego Velázquez, and it is a harbinger of his lifelong interest in the subject of leisure. The painting influenced Manet's contemporaries – such as Monet, Renoir and Bazille – to paint similar large groups of people.
The Fifer (1866)
The Fifer or Young Flautist is a painting by French painter Édouard Manet, made in 1866. It is usually kept in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
On a trip to Spain in 1865, Édouard Manet visited the Prado, where the art of Diego Velázquez was a revelation. Upon his return to Paris in 1866, he began work on a new painting, depicting an anonymous regimental fifer of the Spanish army. In this picture, Manet presents the uniformed boy, in a manner that imitates and inverts the formula of Vélazquez's court portraits, against a barely inflected, flattened background of neutral tone, thus frustrating attempts to assess the figure's true size and, by extension, importance.
The Railway (1873)
The Railway (French: Le Chemin de fer), widely known as Gare Saint-Lazare, is an 1873 painting by Édouard Manet. It is the last painting by Manet of his favourite model, the fellow painter Victorine Meurent, who was also the model for Olympia and the Luncheon on the Grass, among other paintings by Manet. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1874 and donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1956.
Meurent is depicted sitting to the left side of the frame, in front of an iron fence near the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The pensive subject is wearing a dark hat and sombre deep blue dress with white details, and is looking towards the viewer, while a sleeping puppy, a fan and an open book rest in her lap. Next to her is a little girl, modelled by the daughter of Manet's neighbour Alphonse Hirsch, a contrasting figure wearing a white dress with large blue bow, standing her back to the viewer, watching through the railings as a train passes beneath them. The black band in the girl's hair echoes the black band around the neck of the woman. Instead of choosing the traditional natural view as background for an outdoor scene, Manet opted for the iron grating which "stretches across the canvas." The only evidence of the train is its white cloud of steam. Modern apartment buildings can be seen in the background – including the house on the Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, near the Place de l'Europe, where Manet had rented a studio since July 1872 — and also a signal box and the Pont de l'Europe.
The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1987)
The Execution of Emperor Maximilian is a series of paintings by Édouard Manet from 1867 to 1869, depicting the execution by firing squad of Emperor Maximilian I of the short-lived Second Mexican Empire. Manet produced three large oil paintings, a smaller oil sketch and a lithograph of the same subject. All five works were brought together for an exhibition in London and Mannheim in 1992–1993 and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2006.
Maximilian was born in 1832, the second son of Archduke Franz Karl of Austria of the House of Habsburg and Princess Sophie of Bavaria. After a career in the Austrian Navy, he was encouraged by Napoleon III to become Emperor of Mexico following the French intervention in Mexico. Maximilian arrived in Mexico in May 1864. He faced significant opposition from forces loyal to the deposed president Benito Juárez throughout his reign, and the Empire collapsed after Napoleon withdrew French troops in 1866.
Nana (Manet) (1877)
Nana is a painting by French painter Édouard Manet. It was completed in 1877 and was refused at the Salon of Paris the same year. Manet decided to show his painting in the window of a shop on the Boulevard des Capucines, one of Paris’s main streets. The painting gathered attention and crowds during its exhibition, due to Manet's fame in Paris. The work is now at the Kunsthalle Hamburg art museum in Germany.
The painting shows a young and beautiful woman who stands before a mirror with two extinguished candles, her face turned to the spectator. Her dress is incomplete; she wears a white chemise, blue corset, silk stockings and high-heeled footwear. The interior suggests that it is a boudoir. Behind the woman is a sofa with two pillows. An elegantly dressed man, sitting on the sofa, can be partly seen on the right of the painting. On the left side, there is a chair, a table and a flowerpot.
The Old Musician (1862)
The Old Musician is an 1862 oil painting on canvas by French painter Édouard Manet, produced during the period when the artist was influenced by Spanish art. The painting also betrays the influence of Gustave Courbet. This work is one of Manet's largest paintings and is now conserved at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
The painting is composed of seven characters in a landscape. The old musician in the center who is preparing to play the violin is Jean Lagrène, the leader of a local gypsy band. To the left is a young girl standing barefoot with a baby in her arms, as well as two young boys. In the background, the man in the top hat is the rag picker and ironmonger Colardet. At the right, the Oriental man (partly shown) with a turban and a long robe, represents Guéroult, a "wandering Jew". Attitudes and clothes of the characters seem to be inspired by Diego Velázquez or Louis Le Nain.
Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872)
Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (French: Berthe Morisot au bouquet de violettes) is an 1872 oil painting by Édouard Manet. It depicts fellow painter Berthe Morisot dressed in black mourning dress, with a barely visible bouquet of violets. The painting, sometimes known as Portrait of Berthe Morisot, Berthe Morisot in a black hat or Young woman in a black hat, is in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Manet also created an etching and two lithographs of the same composition.
Manet became acquainted with Berthe Morisot in 1868. She was the grand-niece of Fragonard, and also a painter; Morisot and Manet influenced each other's work. He painted her portrait many times, including his earlier work The Balcony. She married Manet's brother Eugène in 1874.
Plum Brandy (1878)
Plum Brandy, also known as The Plum (French: La Prune), is an oil painting by Édouard Manet. It is undated but thought to have been painted about 1877.
The painting measures 73.6 centimetres (29.0 in) by 50.2 centimetres (19.8 in). It depicts a woman seated alone at a table in a cafe, in a lethargic pose similar to that of the woman in Degas' L'Absinthe. The woman may be a prostitute, but unlike the subject of Degas' work she appears more dreamy than depressed. She holds an unlit cigarette and her plum soaked in brandy appears untouched.