Edward Manet (Édouard Manet), an artist. Creativity: photo

At first glance, the life of Eduard Manet seems quite bright and shows us the artist's darling of fate. Born in a rich and respected family, he received a great education, he revolved in the highest secular circles, traveled and engaged in the favorite thing - writing pictures. What else does a person need to be happy? But no! Not so simple…

Edward Manet. Biography

Born on 23.01.1832. Father is a lawyer, mother is the daughter of the ambassador.

The character of Manet was intelligent and rebellious. When pressure was exerted on him, attempts to impose his will on him, his parents did not encounter any obvious resistance on his part. Without associating his future with any profession other than artistic craft, the guy secretly stood his ground. "You will be a lawyer, like your father." "Of course, mama, it's an honor for me." After that, "suddenly" fails the entrance exams. This is a characteristic way for him to fight against attempts to break his will.

After a quarrel with his parents, he gets a job as a cabin boy on a sailboat and, embodying his old dream of Rio de Janeiro, goes on a voyage.

On his return, he arranges for the artist of the scandalous reputation of Tom Couture, the author of the acclaimed picture "Romans of the Decade" depicting the orgy. Relations between Couture and Manet are formed by the bad, but, nevertheless, the young artist patiently passes the training from the master to the end.

Communicating with famous artists, poets, writers and drawing inspiration from their work, Eduard Manet develops his own individual style of writing paintings. 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 the masters of other areas of painting.

Recognition of talent Manet occurs at the very end of his life. In 1881 he was awarded the medal of the Salon, and after a while the Order of the Legion of Honor. At that time, Edgar Manet no longer writes paintings paralyzed due to brain ataxia. April 30, 1883, the artist leaves the sinful land, not having transferred the operation to amputate legs, being at the age of 51-year.

Creativity of the artist

Edward Manet does not show any attempts to innovate from his first independent work. But with the death of his father and inheritance, the flight of his thought is liberated, not burdened by financial dependence on writing pictures. 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 a society of dressed men. Having carried out a daring challenge to public morality, the picture lends itself to a ban in the show by the official salon. She is considered indecent, and Edward Manet himself is accused of immorality for writing it.

Further creativity of Edward Manet does not change his direction and continues his line. 1865 is the year of Olimpia's birth, which caused even more merciless criticism and misunderstanding on the part of admirers of the fine arts. Edward Manet dares to depict on it a naked woman in a modern interior, and not in the classical style of antiquity adopted among French artists. This was perceived by critics as an unheard-of hypocrisy. Poor beauty, depicted on the canvas, immediately found unflattering epithets "slut, who imagines herself a queen" and "shameless girl who emerged from under the hand of Manet."

Moreover, Olimpia was written on a large-scale canvas, which is acceptable only for historical paintings, which also poured oil on the fire of the critics' indignation. The picture collects a lot of people around them just to be ridiculed and abused.

And now Edouard Manet, whose biography is clean from fornication and debauchery, who has loved only one woman all her life - Suzanne Leenhoff, has an extremely bad reputation. Tired of such rumors, the artist Edward Manet leaves for a short time his homeland. But on his return he continues to work in his manner, without lowering his hands. This is most annoying critics.

Contribution to the development of art

Manet carried out a kind of revolution in the comprehension of the fine arts of those times. Continuous experiment with color and form, he initiated the development of many new trends in French painting. He questioned the inviolability of the styles of writing pictures of the late 19th - early 20th centuries: classicism, realism, impressionism. An example of daring and novelty in the plots of paintings inspired many young artists in search of new ways to open images.

Edward Manet did not dwell on certain themes of his works, alternated the landscape with a portrait, still life with plots from life. Preference in the color gamut was also subjected to a constant experiment: dark, thick, contrasting were replaced by lighter, light ones.

Recognition of the artist

As is often the case, the epithets "brilliant artist", "great Manet" and other flattering reviews during his life, he never heard. True fame came to his works many years after his death, and her beginning was laid by the same "Olympia" - "tasteless" and "vulgar".

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

Edward Manet: paintings with names of not less scandalous reputation

«Surprised nymph». The picture, the plot of which opens the spectator to the frightened gaze of the knee-dressing nymph, amazes connoisseurs of painting and now. At the beginning of the same century, the original plot of this picture critics perceived as spitting in the face of classical painting.

"Suicide". In view of the severity of the plot, the canvas was not considered worthy of showing in the National Salon and dusted in the artist's workshop for many years. At the moment the work is in the private collection of Emil Georg Bührle in Zurich.

The masterpiece "Bathers on the Seine", made with oil, was also subjected to bans on presentation to the public in the official Salon, exhibited only in the Salon of the Outcast. Atypical for the time manner of execution of the picture prompted the public to treat her prejudice.

A similar fate haunts many artists and their work. Only years later, and sometimes even centuries, they are recognized as genius.