The Impressionistic period of art has generated many masterworks and successful artists. The techniques utilized have influenced many other art eras. One of the major figures of this movement was the French painter Édouard Manet. Manet was trained artistically through research on earlier artists and major paintings. He also began creating art through paintings of biblical and historical scenes. After some time, he began developing his own style in order to follow Realist ideas. He began painting lively cafes, parks, and theaters. This is the style known of him today. Manet was born in Paris to an affluent family in 1832. His father had high hopes for Manet and wanted him to study and become a lawyer, but he knew he wanted to be an artist. When he turned 16, Manet pleased his father by training for the Navy. However, he wasn’t fit for it and failed his exams. As a result, his father agreed to let him become an artist. A few years after, Manet began training with Thomas Couture, a gifted artist. From 1853 to 1856, he intensely studied art through his travels to Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. When he arrived back in Paris, he took the realistic style learned and applied a sketchier approach. When he left the conventional techniques used when painting ordinary life, Manet was laughed at. The traditionalistic variation of art required precision and small brush marks, causing lifelike figures and images. Contrarily, Manet painted with spontaneous and loose brushstrokes paired with sketchy color splotches. He decreased the amount of detail and utilized few color hues, giving the flat perspective present in his art. Instead of applying thin layers of paint, Manet placed color where he imagined it, creating his art spontaneously. He captured the amount of light and naturalism seen in the world. This can be seen in his piece created in 1862, Music in the Tuileries Gardens, which was intensely judged by critics. Extremely unique for his time, Manet utilized photographic techniques by cutting off objects at the ends of his pieces, creating imaginary thoughts on how they may continue beyond the frame. This can be seen in the bottles to the right of Manet’s 1882 painting, A Bar at the Folies Bergères. In 1863, Manet shocked critics when he produced The Luncheon on the Grass, which features a large female nude. As a result, the Paris Salon rejected it for exhibition. In 1873, Manet met a fellow Impressionistic, Claude Monet, and they instantly became acquaintances. Monet invited Manet to the first exhibition for Impressionism, which he refuses. By the time 1874 arrived, Manet’s art has inspired other major Impressionistic painters. One French painter, Berthe Morisot, convinced Manet to use an artistic technique known as en plein air, better known as in the open air. This convinced Manet to step out of the studio and he began painting outside. In 1875, Manet created lithographs for The Raven, a well-known piece of literature history by the poet Edgar Allan Poe. In 1881, he was honored by the French state. Throughout Manet’s forties, he suffered from untreated syphilis and rheumatism. These painful illnesses caused partial paralysis from locomotor ataxia in the years before his death. Because he developed gangrene, his left foot was forced to be amputated. Édouard Manet died on April 30, 1883, in Paris, France. Manet’s bridge between realism and impressionism sets him apart from all the other French artists of the period. His journey assisted in the influence of Impressionistic artists throughout the globe.
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