Manet and the Impressionists

Edouard Manet (1832-1883) is said to bridge the gap between Realism and Impressionism, but how much an influence did Manet actually have on the Impressionist movement? Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) were, although slightly younger, contemporaries of Manet and worked alongside him in his later years as an artist. In his earlier career, Manet painted in a realist style, known for his portraits with deep colors and more defined lines. However, when he begins to paint alongside Impressionists like Monet and Renoir, Manet starts to show flares of Impressionism. During the Impressionist movement, artists developed a fascination with gardens, parks, and flowers in the context of the obsession with plants and the evolving political and cultural situation in France. Gardens, simultaneously modern and nostalgic, were a key part of the Impressionists’ discovery of their distinctive plein-air (out-of-doors) style. In the summer of 1874, Manet and Monet lived very close to each other in a northwestern suburbs of Paris, France, called Argenteuil. During this time, Manet begins to paint in a more plein-air style, similar to that of Monet and Renoir: his brushstrokes get looser and his colors get softer. In pieces produced during this summer and the subsequent years, Manet shows the vast influence of the Impressionism he had helped to create.

The Spanish Singer, Édouard Manet, 1860, Oil on canvas, 49.58.2

Manet painted The Spanish Singer 14 years before his summer in Argenteuil, when he was in the
midst of painting portraits as a younger artist. This painting, which reflects the Parisian vogue for
Spanish art and culture during the Second Empire, won Manet his first popular and critical success
in his debut at the Salon of 1861. Though the picture was admired for its realistic detail, Manet did
not disguise the fact that it was composed in a studio using a model and props. This painting is an
example of the style in which Manet was painting before he was exposed to Impressionism at close
quarters.

A Matador, Édouard Manet, 1866–67, Oil on canvas, 29.100.52

The matador in this painting is Cayetano Sanz y Pozas, who Manet saw in action during an 1865 trip
to Spain. This canvas, the first of the full-length figure paintings that Manet completed after studying
the works of Velázquez in Madrid, was made upon his return to France. Manet showed the picture,
along with some twenty others on Spanish themes, at his solo exhibition in a pavilion adjacent to the
1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This painting was created six-seven years after The Spanish Singer,
yet still continues to have more of a realist feel to it. Again, deep colors are used, and although there are
some loose brushstrokes, they are all contained within the rational lines of the body and its surroundings.

The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil, Édouard Manet, 1874, Oil on canvas, 1976.201.14

In July and August of 1874, Manet vacationed at his family’s house in Gennevilliers, just across the
Seine from Monet at Argenteuil. The two painters saw each other often that summer, and on a number
of occasions they were joined by Renoir. This is when Manet began to show signs of Impressionism in
his paintings. Here Manet’s brushstrokes are becoming very loose and fluid and his palette softens and
lightens. No longer are his figures and atmosphere defined by what the eye is supposed to see, but he
begins to paint how he sees the scene.

Madame Monet and Her Son, Auguste Renoir, 1874, Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art,
1970.17.60

Renoir painted this painting at the same time that Manet was painting The Monet Family in Their
Garden at Argenteuil. Both artists are painting in the Impressionist style, yet Renoir is much more
used to painting in that style, while Manet is just beginning to try it out. Similar to Manet’s painting,
and most Impressionist artists at the time, Renoir’s brushstrokes are loose and fluid, his colors soft, and
his subject out-of-doors. This shift in Manet’s paintings to be similar to that of the style of known
Impressionist Renoir portrays the fact that Manet was being influenced by a movement he had started
to create, yet had shied away from his whole life.

The Bridge at Argenteuil, Claude Monet, 1874, Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, 1983.1.24

Monet’s The Bridge at Argenteuil offers another example of the Impressionist style at the time.  The
view of the Seine and the pleasure boats that drew tourists to Argenteuil. Up close, each brush stroke
is distinct, and the scene dissolves into different dabs of paint, with distinct tones of blue, red, green,
yellow. The figure in the sailboat is barely a blue brush stroke, and the women rowing nearby are
indicated very loosely. This painting was painted in the same summer as The Monet Family in Their
Garden at Argenteuil, Madame Monet and Her Son, and Monet in his Studio Boat, and gives another
glimpse into the kind of painting that was surrounding Manet as he began to take on the style of
Impressionism.

Monet in his Studio Boat, Edouard Manet, 1874, Oil on canvas, WikiArt

Manet painted Claude Monet in his Studio Boat in the summer of 1874 at Gennevilliers. Here Manet
has captured Monet and his wife Camille in the boat which Monet used as a floating studio, rowing it
up and down the Seine and stopping whenever he spotted a promising subject. In this painting, Manet
continues to lean away from a more traditional view of painting and take up the idea of painting on the
spot, in the open air. Here Manet’s brushstrokes are again very loose and fluid, his palette softens and
lightens, and he picks up the typical Impressionist fashion of light reflected from water that Monet was
using at the time.