Claude Monet and Édouard Manet were both prominent figures in the art world of the late 19th century. Both are from Paris and have very similar names. Both caused ripples of shock among conservative Parisian audiences, but for very different reasons. Manet was a realist who painted a shocking new type of woman, while Monet's flustered, fast brushstrokes were the epitome of Impressionism. Take a closer look at the art and ideas of these very different rebels who tore up traditions and changed the course of art history. Manet was a realist.
Manet was a realist painter who, along with Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Miller, painted gritty scenes from real, ordinary life. Their art is an act of rebellion against the Paris Salon and its emphasis on idealized, romantic or mythological scenes. Manet portrays frank, direct and confrontational themes in modern life as a powerful social commentary. These range from shootings to battle scenes and career women. The Paris Art Gallery even refused to exhibit some of his works because they were too vulgar. Manet said: I paint what I see, not what others like to see. The 9th-century French painter Manet is famous for his daring representations of women around him.
Manet, sometimes considered the father of Impressionism, was not suitable. He chose contemporary themes to depict Parisian life in the 19th century, like other Impressionists. Nevertheless, while the Impressionists focused on light and color, Manet sometimes showed a clear attention to detail in a realistic way.
In 1860, Manet painted a portrait of a man dressed in traditional Spanish costume and playing a guitar. The painting was accepted at the Paris Salon of 1861. French writers and poets Charles Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier admired Manet's paintings very much. Delacroix enthusiastically promoted his work. The Spanish singer is typical of Manet's Spanish period. The young Manet lived in Paris in the 19th century. Together with his uncle, Captain Edouard Fournier, he discovered art. The captain repeatedly invited him and his brother Eugène to visit the Louvre Museum, especially the Spanish Gallery. Manet received an artistic education from the famous Academé painter Thomas Courtour. This academic education laid the foundation for Manet's search for other ways of painting. He was fascinated by the realism of Spanish painters, preferring it to academic art in the antique Italian style. Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya greatly influenced Manet's early works.
Manet made his first trip to Spain in 1865. Before that, he had already painted several Spanish themes, such as bullfighting scenes and costumed figures. The French painter kept Spanish costumes in his painting studio, which he used to paint Spanish singers from models in his studio. Unlike the Impressionists of the past, who painted outdoors, Manet openly admitted to painting in the studio. Observers found that left-handed guitarists replaced right-handed guitars with guitars, exemplifying the small mistakes that come with studio painting with props. Music in the Tuileries Garden.
Manet's family was a wealthy Parisian bourgeoisie, and Manet was a sociable man who liked the company of the aristocracy. Manet had a group of close friends described as a playboy in a top hat. They meet every afternoon at the Tuileries Garden in the heart of Paris, right next to the Louvre Museum. "On the banks of the Herbe"
A year after Manet created his masterpiece Lunch on the Grass in 1862, this large-scale painting was exhibited at the first Salon of Rejection. The painting caused an extremely negative reaction from the public. A picnic scene in the woods is shown. A woman has lunch with two well-dressed men while another woman in a light-colored dress bathes in the background. Manet's painting style distanced itself further from the academic school. However, this is not what makes the public very critical. Instead, the woman in the center of the scene elicited a strong reaction. The artist used to depict, but modestly and reminiscent of mythological scenes. In Manet's paintings, what is shocking is the carelessness of the woman and the neatly dressed men beside her, the strong connotation. The French painter used sharp contrasts instead of color gradients and specks of paint. Manet defies established conventions, the absence of depth of field and biased perspective, visible brushstrokes. Despite its innovation, it is still reminiscent of historical masterpieces. Raphael's subsequent prints of the Trial of Paris and Titian's Pastoral Concert greatly inspired Manet's work.
While traditional artists following the style of the Collège de Paris had the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Salon, the Refusal Salon was created for artists banned by modernity. The French word "refuse" means rejection. The first rejection of the salon occurred in 1863, when the official salon rejected 3,000 out of 5,000 applications. Manet exhibited three paintings in 1863, including De Jeanne on the Meadow.
Manet's masterpieces inspired many other artists, including Claude Monet, who painted his Song of the Herbs based on Manet's paintings. Paul Cézanne painted another Song of the Herbs in 1876, and Pablo Picasso created dozens of paintings, engravings and drawings after Manet's work. Manet painted another masterpiece, Olympia, in 1863. However, he chose not to present it to the public at the first rejection salon. Manet's protagonist is a half-mundan, an educated fancy man pursued by rich men and lying in bed. The place is reminiscent of a harem. A servant stood next to her, holding a bouquet of flowers, which must have been sent by one of her clients. As in Song of the Prairie, Olympia's work makes more reference to the works of the ancient masters. The connection with Titian's Venus of Urbino and Giorgione's Sleeping Venus is obvious. The personalized woman looked directly at us. Her defiant gaze directly involved the audience observing the scene in shame. This gazing woman also references Goya's painting Maya. The few accessories worn by Olympia further accentuate her body, making it a scene. In 1884, a year after Manet's death, his widow Suzanne Manet acquired Olympia. In 1889, Claude Monet wanted to raise money to buy Olympia from Manet's widow and offer it to the Louvre Museum. However, the museum's board rejected the proposal to display Olympia on its walls. After lengthy negotiations and Monet's insistence, the Louvre finally agreed to accept the gift and promised to exhibit the painting in the museum. Olympia was originally kept in the Luxembourg Museum and then in the Louvre, where it can now be seen in the Musée d'Orsay. Manet painted The Railway in 1873. In this painting he shows his favorite model, Victorine Moriente. Morant was only 18 years old when he met Manet in the 1860s. She became his favorite model for more than a decade. Victorine has already posed for several artists. Manet valued her figure because the shape of the red-haired fair-skinned model admirably captured the light.
Moriente became a painter himself and exhibited a self-portrait at the Salon of 1876. Ironically, Sharon accepted her paintings, while Manet's were rejected. Victorine is a model for Olympia. In The Railway, Victorine poses in front of the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The French painter witnessed the extensive changes that Barons Haussmann made to the French capital in the 19th century. Claude Monet and other Impressionists were more familiar with contemporary outdoor scenes than Manet. The Railway is one of Manet's last paintings featuring Victorine. Fashionably dressed woman sat next to a young girl with her back to her, looking through an iron fence towards the steam-surrounded train station. The woman holds an open book in her hand and a puppy on her lap. The modernity of the painting comes not only from the choice of subject matter, but also from its approach. In Railroad we can find many different points of view. The woman looks down at the viewer to indicate that she is sitting in a higher position. At the same time, it does not match the train station behind, which is downward from the point of view of the audience. In addition, the majestic fence flattens the foreground. Manet was certainly part of the artistic avant-garde. The Bar of Flisberger, the last painting by Manet.
Manet's last major painting shows the favorite café theme of modern artists. Bars or cafes played a vital role in social life in the 19th century. Artists and writers, as well as politicians, used to meet in cafes to share ideas and opinions. A dazed woman stands behind the bar, while the reflection in the mirror behind her shows a man standing in front but not talking. Manet did not paint it in a café, but in his studio. At that time the French painter was suffering from complications of syphilis. His model, Susson, worked in the famous Paris cabaret show. As in The Railway, Manet shows true modernity in this later work. Su Song's reflection in the mirror seems strange. Her posture does not match the man's posture. The painting aroused the interest of Manet's contemporaries and provoked a fierce debate. While some blame the inaccurate reaction on the painter's inattention or incompetence, others believe in Manet's modernity. A year later, Manet died in 1883. The works of the ancient masters and his academic and artistic upbringing always inspired his works. Nevertheless, Manet managed to get rid of his background, and today Manet is recognized as a pioneer of modern art. Monet was an impressionist.
Monet was almost 10 years younger than Manet, and his art looked very different from that of Manet and the French realists. Drawing inspiration from the Barbizon School painters, Monet painted directly from life (outdoor air) with a unique series of quick brushstrokes, capturing the ephemeral effects of light and weather. Art historians widely recognize Monet's Impression: Sunrise, 1872, as the first Impressionist painting ever made. It was from this work of art that the harsh art critic Louis Leroy invented the pejorative description "Impressionism", and the name was preserved. Monet, the painter of light. Claude Monet, known by some as the father of Impressionism, was a prolific French painter from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. His works are still sold at impressive prices at Christie's and Sotheby's.
He was one of the first few artists to break with the highly refined style of neoclassicism, facing endless criticism and rejection for dabbling in more expressionist styles. Still, he insists on capturing brief glimpses of landscapes and movement, whether sunlight or shadows; An impression of the world around him, forged with paint. Through a series of paintings, he was able to show how light affects individual subjects and how it depicts the passage of time. Monet's mastery of color and light still fascinates audiences today, and his wide range of works testifies to the wonderful beauty of the world.
Oscar-Claude Monet was born in Paris on November 18, 1840. His father, Adolphe Claude Monet, was a businessman and his mother, Louise Aubrey, was a singer before her marriage. Growing up, Monet loved art. This passion was most likely driven by his artistic mother, who herself was a competent artist in all fields. Monet received his first formal art class through Jacques-François Urchar, from where the young and enterprising Monet continued to create charcoal caricatures for his teachers and classmates, which were then sold in a local shop for ten to twenty francs each. He often clashed with his father over his art, who wanted him to focus more on his course and join the family business, while Monet had little interest in ship handling and grocers. When he insisted on selling his paintings, the artworks caught the attention of Eugene Boudin. Boudin was a pioneer of the new art of outdoor painting at the time, and he felt that the young Monet showed great hope. The two became friends. He taught Monet how to use oil paints to capture the landscapes that appeared, rather than spending tedious time from various sketches and memories on delicate landscapes, as he was used to. It was thanks to this period that Monet first began to seriously consider the use of light in his paintings, inspired by the beautiful play of sunlight in Boudin's marine works. However, tragedy struck. Monet's mother died the year after he began painting landscapes. Still having major disagreements with his father about his future, Monet moved out to live with his aunt Le Cadere. Unlike his father, his aunt supported his artistic career and was able to sponsor his advanced art courses in Paris. Monet became friends with several artists who became famous during his studies.
In his twenties, Monet met his future wife, Camille Doncio, who was a model for a painting he created with his friend Frédéric Bazier. She became his muse and appeared in his paintings. During this period, he submitted several paintings to the Academy of Fine Arts for exhibition at the Paris Salon, hoping to support his new family (Camille gave birth to their first son in 1867), but the conservative Academy did not appreciate him. They consider his paintings to be amateurish and not delicate. Faced with numerous rejections and chronic poverty, Monet attempted suicide in 1868. Fortunately, he survived the attempt and lived to see his fate take a turn. In 1874, finally tired of the shackles of the Academy, he joined a group of artists who held their own exhibitions featuring their avant-garde works. It was in this exhibition that he presented a work entitled "Impressions, Sunrise", which would be lent to future Impressionists. The exhibition was initially not well received by critics. They called the works of these young artists unfinished and unretouched. Textured brushstrokes are considered sloppy, while mud-like smears of paint hang on the canvas. Despite the criticism, the group of artists found patrons who appreciated them and went on to hold several exhibitions in the following years, with greater success. Camille died of tuberculosis in 1879. Monet was devastated. He spent months mourning before he began to paint in earnest. During this time, he entrusted the care of the children to the wife of his friend Alice Hosched, who later became his second wife.
During this period, he began to document landscapes of the French countryside. He moved from village to village, studying the effects of light and color on various subjects. In 1883, he finally settled in the village of Giverny, where he spent the rest of his life. The works he painted would later become the most famous series of his career, such as haystacks and water lilies. Due to the constancy of the theme, it is able to show the infinite changes of weather and atmosphere, capable of depicting how drastically a scene changes from morning to night, from sunny days to gloomy days. Monet fell in love with his home and garden. Over the years, he gradually transformed his residence into a residence, an East Asian-style garden with a Japanese bridge over a large pond filled with beautiful water lilies of various varieties. He was actively involved in the design of the garden, even hiring seven gardeners and turning down most of their jobs. To paint the garden to the best of his ability, he even hired workers to row in the morning to clean the dust from the water lilies before he sat down to work. Claude Monet died at the age of 86, leaving behind an impressive gallery with more than two thousand works.
While his work always makes a splash on the auction floor, Monet's "Molles" sold for an all-time high of $110.7 million at Sotheby's evening auction in May 2019. The painting is one of 25 canvases in his famous haystack series, depicting the beauty of the sun glowing low in the sky, through a row of haystacks. The canvas emphasizes unusual colors in light and shadow, and is an incandescent observation of ordinary scenes.
Part of the Water Lily collection, Fairy Hibiscus sold at Christie's auction in August 2018 for $84.7 million. Before it was sold, it was in the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller in New York. Like the siblings in the series, the theme is water lilies from Monet's famous garden. The piece shows the pond in cool shade, with sky blue and violet dominating the palette while being grounded in warm green. Here and there, white water lilies glow in the canvas.
A lonely haystack is depicted, almost like the embers of a cooling fire in the faint but warm light. It sold for $81.4 million in November 2016.
Sometimes referred to as the Sunshine Coast, the painting depicts Camille Monet walking with their son Jean Monet. The bright blue afternoon light is captured through the filters of the parasol and the translucent veil Camille wears, and multiple reflective colors are reflected in the white of her clothes.
A collection of about 250 paintings in total. The paintings focus on the Asian-style gardens Monet built in Giverny's home. Recurring images in the series include titular water lilies, many of which are exotic species, Japanese bridges across ponds, and weather conditions reflected in the water.
An evocative work depicts a winter scene of magpies resting on a fence, surrounded by snow depicted in various colored tones. This is one of the earliest examples of Monet's use of color in shadows, which would go on to become a hallmark of Impressionist painting. Manet painted a wide variety of subjects throughout his career, but his most famous artwork depicts everyday scenes of modern Parisian people. The artist's most famous artwork depicts young working women with an astonishing degree of honesty. These women often look at us in a confident and direct way, reflecting the increasingly independent presence of Parisian women at the end of the 19th century.
Monet painted landscapes
Like Manet, Monet painted a wide variety of different subjects throughout his long and varied career, but he was primarily a landscape painter. Monet devoted most of his life to depicting the natural world as the time of day changes. He even paints the same theme over and over again at different times of the year, as in his haystack series, his poplar trees, and of course the famous water lilies. These series show how ephemeral our perception of the world around us is. Both were influenced by Japanese printmaking, but in different ways.
Both Monet and Manet were admirers of Japanese art imported to Paris in the late 19th century. But each artist incorporated different ideas of Japanese printmaking into their art and became a pioneer of the Japanese ism that swept Europe. Manet was particularly interested in the flat, black shapes, tight compositions and diagonal symmetry of Japanese art, which we can clearly see in Olympia in 1863. At the same time, Monet introduced Japanese floral motifs, bright colors, and cropped compositions into his most famous artworks, while his water garden in Giverny was an ode to Japanese flora, fauna and architecture.