Edouard Manet (1832-1883) was a French painter whose work opened up new possibilities in art in several ways.

    For one thing, Manet painted modern life. Before him, many artists concentrated on scenes from the Bible, or from classical stories like Greek or Roman mythology. Others focused on landscapes (paintings of scenery) or still lifes (arrangements of items on a table, including flowers, food, dead animals, books, tableware, and so on).

    Manet, on the other hand, painted people in modern clothing, drinking and dining in bars and cafes, boating on lakes, and strolling in the city, in addition to more traditional subjects. He often did sketches on the spot, returning to his studio to produce painted canvases.

    His café paintings were especially notable, showing people reading, flirting, or just waiting for friends. In his “At the Café” (1878), a number of people are seated at a bar. One woman is looking directly at the artist (or viewer). Others are waiting to be served. The style of these paintings is casual, reflecting the night life in Paris.

    His painting “The Luncheon on the Grass” was considered shocking because it showed a modern woman nude with two clothed men, having a picnic. Nudity was all right in classical paintings, and even Biblical scenes like the ones showing Adam and Eve, but real people weren’t to be shown that way!

    Another aspect of Manet’s painting that made it new and different was the way he applied the paint to the canvas. Before him, most artists made an effort to show things as realistically as possible, a technique called “realism.” Manet used his paint more freely, leading toward a style that would be called “impressionism.”

    However, he did not try to show his paintings with the other impressionists. Instead, he wanted to exhibit in the Salon, the official exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts (Académie des Beaux-Arts) in Paris. He felt that impressionist work should have the same respect as realism, and not be put in a lesser category.

    A bit older than the other impressionists, Edouard Manet led the way for the major movement that was to follow.

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. a fast or incomplete drawing

    2. stories about the gods

    3. talking with a person of the opposite sex, sometimes in order to get a date

    4. walking around in a relaxed way

    5. not formal, relaxed

    6. without clothes

    7. the material on which a painter paints

    8. not as important