Manet painter biography
Home / General Biography Information / Manet painter biography
In the artist's day, this flatness may have suggested popular posters or the artifice of painting - as opposed to its realism. Instead of using color scales, he relied more on the use of strong and contrasting tones, which transformed his works into somewhat one-dimensional.
He became friends with the Impressionists Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne and Pissarro through another painter, Berthe Morisot, who was a member of the group and drew Manet into their activities.
Manet's style reflected a free manner of painting where he attempted to create form by using subtle areas of color instead of the blending of tones in a gradual manner. Together with Manet, they shared similar styles that have reinvented that ear's concept of art. However, while some of his friends, like Monet, went to London to escape the Franco-Prussian War, Manet joined the National Guard.
When taken into deeper analysis, the painting showed images of social class. Her gaze confronts the viewer on a sexual level, but through her Manet confronts the public as well, challenging its ethical and aesthetic boundaries.
Oil on canvas - Musée d'Orsay, Paris
1863
Olympia
Representing a lower-class prostitute, Manet's Olympia confronts the bourgeois viewer with a hidden, but well-known, reality.
The Fifer
During one of Manet's trips in the mid 1860s, he was immensely inspired by the paintings of Diego Velasquez. The approach came to be used widely by the Impressionists, who found it perfectly suited to the pressures of capturing effects of light and atmosphere whilst painting outdoors.
However, he experienced lack of support from his father who hoped he would pursue a career as a lawyer or naval officer. Among further accolades, Manet was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1881. His work is considered 'early modern', partially because of the black outlining of figures, which draws attention to the surface of the picture plane and the material quality of paint.
Manet became friends with the Impressionists Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cezanne, and Camille Pissarro, through another painter, Berthe Morisot, who was a member of the group and drew him into their activities.
This affair resulted in a boy born in 1852, Leon, who was passed off to Suzanne's family and, to avoid scandal (from Manet's aristocratic family), was introduced to society as Suzanne's younger brother and Manet's godson. the Salon and École des Beaux Arts - operated, but he did not want them eliminated. She is credited with convincing Manet to attempt plein air painting, which she had been practicing since she had been introduced to it by another friend of hers, Camille Corot.
He was an art enthusiast even at a young age.
Their influence is seen in Manet's use of lighter colors, but he retained his distinctive use of black, uncharacteristic of Impressionist painting.
One of Manet's popular art techniques was the alla prima painting. He was an admirer of the works of Diego Velázquez and the use of dark backgrounds, flat figures, and sharp opposites of light and shade.
He has long been associated with the Impressionists; he was certainly an important influence on them and he learned much from them himself. For instance, there was a rarity of artworks that depicted a typical city life in Paris. This unusual canvas was inspired by text and photographic accounts of the American Civil War battle which occurred off the coast of Cherbourg, where the Union ship Kearsarge sank the Confederate ship Alabama.