Edouard Manet biography, manet was born in Paris and is father was a government official, and although Edouard showed early artistic talent, he was destined for the Navy until he failed the entrance examinations. He began to study art with Thomas Couture whose academic teaching did not satisfy Manet. He studied the works of the Venetian Renaissance masters, the Dutch seventeenth-century artists and of the Spaniard Velázquez. He studied these first in Fountainbleau and then at the Louvre, eventually on his trips abroad to Holland, Germany, Italy and Spain in 1865 he discovered Goya.



 

Manet put great emphasis on acceptance by The Salon. It was in 1863 that Dejeuner sur l'herbe (luncheon on the grass) finally earned him that recognition. The Salon jury of 1863 had been exceptionally brutal and thousands of paintings had been refused. To counter these refusals, the Salon des Refuses was established and it was here that Dejeuner sur l'herbe  was exhibited. Although influenced by Raphael and Giorgione, Dejeuner did not bring Manet praise, It brought him criticism. Critics found Dejuener to be anti-academic and politically suspect and the ensuing storm surrounding this painting has made it a benchmark in academic discussions of modern art. The nude in Manet's painting was no nymph or mythological being...she was a modern Parisian women cast into a contemporary setting with two clothed men and many found this to be shockingly vulgar. The critics also had much to say about Manet's technical abilities, his harsh frontal lighting and elimination of mid tones rocked ideas of traditional academic training. And yet it is also important to understand that not everyone criticized Manet, for it was also Dejeuner which set the stage for the advent of Impressionism
 

When one views a Manet figurative painting or portrait one is immediately aware of the fresh clean brushwork and soft modelling of form. One would think that this was an artist with a great natural gift as both a draftsman and a renderer. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The spontaneity of his work was accomplished through many arduous hours of meticulously drawing and underpainting the subject, often at times cleaning off the canvas with black soap and starting anew. It has been said that he restarted the portrait of Eva Gonzalez some 21 times before he was satisfied. Only when he was satisfied that the drawing and underpainting were exactly as he wanted would he scrape down the canvas and begin the final rendering process.
 

Manet was influenced by the impressionists, especially Monet, and to an extent Berthe Morisot. Their impact is seen in Manet's use of lighter colours, but he retained his distinctive use of blocks of black uncharacteristic of impressionist painting. He painted many outdoor (en plein air) pieces, but always returned to what he considered the serious work of the studio. Throughout his life though resisted by art critics, Manet could number as his champions Émile Zola who supported him publicly in the press, and Stéphane Mallarmé and Charles Baudelaire who challenged him to depict life as it was. Manet, in turn drew or painted each of them.

 

Manet died of untreated syphilis and rheumatism which he contracted in his forties. The disease caused him considerable pain and partial paralysis from locomotor ataxia in the years prior to his death. His left foot was amputated because of gangrene, an operation followed eleven days later by his death. He died at the age of fifty one in Paris in 1883, and is buried in the Cimetire de Passy in the city.

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