Manet and the French impressionists: Pissarro, Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Moriset, Cézanne, Guillaumin
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Manet and the French impressionists: Pissarro, Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Moriset, Cézanne, Guillaumin. Translated by J.E. Crawford FlitchMANET AND THE
CEZANNE GUILLAUMIN
ILLUSTRATED WITH FOUR ETCHINGS
REPRODUCTIONS IN HALF-TONE
LONDON GRANT RICHARDS
ND
INTRODUCTION PAINTING in France in the nineteenth century followed a course
parallel with that of the intellectual life of the country ; it adapted itself to the various changes in modes of thought ; it took upon itself a succession of forms corresponding to those which were
evolved in literature.
At the beginning of the century, under the Empire, painting was classical. It was primarily engaged in rendering scenes
borrowed from the antique world of Greece and Rome, and sub-
jects derived from fable and mythology. Historical painting formed the essence of high art. It was based upon the nude,
treated according to the classical model. Two masters David
and Ingres were the representatives of this form of French art,
and gave it its loftiest expression. After them, classical art was
continued in an enfeebled condition by painters of only secondary
importance. The new spirit of romanticism, however, which had arisen in
literature, also made its appearance in painting. Delacroix was the
master in whom it found its most complete expression. The tones
of classical art, sober, restrained, and often cold, gave place in his
work to warm and brilliant coloration. For the nicely balanced
scenes of classical antiquity, he substituted compositions tumul-
tuous with movement. Romanticism developed freedom of action
and expressiveness of pose to their utmost limits.
Painting was then conquered by realism, which had also in-
vaded literature. Courbet was its great initiator. He painted the life that he saw round about him in a direct, robust manner.
He also painted landscape with a truthfulness that was informed
by a powerful emotion. At the same time, Rousseau and Corot
had also brought landscape painting into close touch with nature.
vi INTRODUCTION
They had re-discovered its soul and its charm. Finally, crowning
as it were the work of their predecessors, came Manet and the
Impressionists. Manet was the painter of real life. He waged a long and
ultimately victorious warfare with the men who clung to the
belated and exhausted classical tradition. Together with a new
and individual vision, he introduced into painting the bright tones
and the luminous brilliance, which were adopted by the Impres-
sionists, who were originally formed by him. These qualities they
afterwards extended and developed, particularly in applying them
to the painting of landscape in the open air.
It is the history of Manet and the Impressionists which we
propose to deal with in this book.
CONTENTS
III. EARLY WORKS .
V. THE OLYMPIA .
VII. FROM 1868 TO 1871 45
VIII. LE BON BOCK 6l
IX. THE OPEN AIR ?I
X. ENGRAVINGS AND DRAWINGS . . .
XIII. PISSARRO I26 vii
viii CONTENTS CHAP. "'AGE
XIV. CLAUDE MONET 137
BAIGNEUSE (RENOIR) 114
WOOD ENGRAVINGS
LA PARISIENNE 98
DANSEUSE 122
LES PORTEUSES DE FAGOTS 134
Drawn by CAMILLE PisSARRO, engraved by LUCIEN PissARRO.
HALF-TONE ENGRAVINGS
LE GUITARERO (MANET) 14
Municipal Gallery, Dublin. "' b
LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE (MANET) 20
Music des Arts Dicoratifs, Paris.
OLYMPIA (MANET) 26
Music du Louvre.
Collection of Mrs. Sears , Boston.
UNE JEUNE FEMME (MANET) 46
Metropolitan Museum, New York.
EVA GONZALES (MANET) 5
Music du Luxembourg.
Collection ofMr.J. J. Johnson, Philadelphia.
LE BON BOCK (MANET) 64
Collection Arnhold, Berlin.
ROUTE A LOUVECIENNES (PisSARRO) 128
SYDENHAM ROAD (PISSARROX . , 130
. . . .140
WATERLOO BRIDGE (CLAUDE MONET) 148
LA SEINE A BOUGIVAL (SiSLEY) 152
THE SERPENTINE, LONDON (SiSLEV) 154
LES MOULINS DE MORET (SiSLEY) 156
BAIGNEUSE (RENOIR) l6o
MADAME CHAR PENTIER ET SES DEUX FILLES (RENOIR) . . . .164 Metropolitan Museum, New York.
TETE DE JEUNE FILLE (RENOIR) . . !66
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
Music du Luxembourg.
NATURE MORTE (CEZANNE) , 82
LES PARAPLUIES (RENOIR) .
PART I
tiDOUARD MANET
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
I^DOUARD MANET was born in Paris on the 23rd of January 1832, at No. 5 Rue des Petits-Augustins (now Rue Bonaparte), and was baptized on the following 2nd of February at the Church of St.
Germain-des-Pres. He was the eldest of three brothers. Their father was a magistrate, and a man of means, a member of that venerable and prosperous bourgeoisie which flourished and became powerful during the reign of Louis Philippe. Their mother, whose maiden name was Fournier, belonged to the same class.'
Her father was in the diplomatic service, and had taken a part in the negotiations which resulted in the elevation of Marshal Bernadotte to the throne of Sweden. She had a brother in the
army, who rose to the rank of colonel. The bourgeoisie, before the revolution of 1848, which robbed it of its power, and the advent of universal suffrage, which fused it more or less with the people, formed a really distinct class. After having fought and conquered the old nobility, it was itself in turn deprived of its pride of place. The legal families belonging to it, from whom the bench and the bar were recruited, preserved customs and traditions of their own, handed down from the ancient park- merits. They breathed the atmosphere of a particular kind of culture ; they were carefully trained in classics, and in the rhetoric which obtained at the Palais. In this circle, the men who rose to positions in the magistracy assumed a sort of ascendency, and were held in considerable esteem. At this time the magis- stracy still formed a kind of priesthood. It was jealous of the dignity of its office
; it commanded general respect in the world at large. The father of Edouard Manet, a judge of the Tribunal of the Seine, personified in himself all the characteristics of the
4 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS
class to which he belonged, the bourgeoisie, and also of his own
particular world within that class, the magistracy.
Manet, therefore, may be said to have been born almost in the
purple. He grew up in an atmosphere of ancient tradition. The
characteristics, social and moral, which he had inherited remained
as firmly planted in him throughout his life as his innate artistic
instinct. Essentially he remained a man of the world, refined,
courteous, polished, taking pleasure in society, fond of frequenting
salons, where he was remarked and admired for his verve and
his flashing wit.
In a man brought up in this atmosphere, the impulse towards
the life of an artist must have been very strong to have dominated
all his other tendencies. It may be said of Manet that he was
indeed formed by nature to be a painter ; his gift of vision and
sensation made it inevitable that he should find his life's work
in devoting himself to painting. Naturally his vocation was
bound to show itself early, and was certain to result in a rupture with his family. His family had planned a career for him at the
bar or the bench, or in the civil service. He would go through the classical curriculum, which, in the days of university mono-
poly, was given in the State colleges ; he would take his degree of Bachelier es lettres, would then study law, and would pass the
examination qualifying him for a call to the bar.
But Manet showed no desire to follow the traditional path which was marked out for him. In his very early youth he was
put under the charge of the Abbe" Poiloup, who then kept a school
at Vaugirard. From there he was sent to continue his studies
at the College Rollin. His maternal uncle, Colonel Fournier, used
to spend his leisure time in drawing, and it was from him that
Manet, while still quite young, acquired that taste for drawing and painting which circumstances developed into an overmaster-
ing passion. It was at about the age of sixteen that he felt his
vocation caUing him so strongly, that he announced his wish of
becoming an artist.
At that time, the decision of an eldest son to become a
painter was enough to drive a family of old and respectable traditions to despair. To become an artist was to lose caste
EARLY YEARS 5
and to go astray. Manet was urged to change his mind, but as
usually happens when a natural instinct is thwarted, he broke out
into open revolt. He was so refractory, that his parents found
it impossible to force their will upon him, and yet it never entered
their thoughts to give way to his wishes. Their determination
that he should not be an artist, and the boy's refusal to study
law, resulted in an impasse ; accordingly, hot-headed and anxious
to solve the difficulty, he said he would be a sailor. His parents
preferred to let him go to sea rather than to a studio. His
father accompanied him to Le Havre, where he embarked as
an apprentice on La Guadeloupe, a merchant vessel bound for
Rio de Janeiro.
Thus he made the voyage to Brazil and back. The only adventure that happened to him was an opportunity which he
had of putting into practice, for the first time, his talent as a
painter. The ship's cargo included a number of Dutch cheeses,
which had been somewhat discoloured by the action of the salt
water. The captain, knowing the gift of the young apprentice, chose him in preference to the others to put the matter right.
Manet was fond of telling how, armed with a brush and a pot of paint of the right colour, he painted the cheeses so as to give the fullest satisfaction !
On his return from Brazil, his parents, who had expected that
the voyage would have made him docile, and that they would be able to bring him to their own way of thinking, found him as stubborn as before. They therefore resigned themselves to
the inevitable, and allowed him to embrace the career of an artist.
CHAPTER II
HAVING overcome the opposition of his family and obtained per-
mission to follow his own vocation, Manet chose Thomas Couture
for his master, with his father's acquiescence, and entered his studio.
No painter ever strove harder to acquire a mastery of his craft
than Manet. Finding himself at last inside a studio, he set himself
to work diligently, and, at the beginning, at all events, endeavoured
to make the most of the teaching that was to be had there. But
Manet was possessed of a strong sense of individuality, and was
dominated by the impulse which urges all men of original character
to follow an independent course. The very effort which he made to give his own latent talent expression, rendered him a somewhat
refractory pupil, perpetually at loggerheads with his master. The two were of entirely different character. M. Antonin Proust,
who was Manet's friend at the College Rollin, and afterwards his
fellow-pupil in Couture's studio, has given some account in the
Revue Blanche of the relations that existed between master and
pupil. It is a long story of constant collisions, of quarrels followed
by reconciliations, but, as the dissensions sprung from a fundamen-
tal difference, they inevitably broke out again and ended in a
definite hostility. Indeed, the youth whom Couture had taken
into his studio was destined to be the man who, more than any other, was to undermine that conventional art of which Couture
was one of the chief apostles. In taking Manet into his studio,
he had let the wolf into the sheepfold. A final rupture between
the two men was inevitable, for the one instinctively attacked
what the other defended ; and as his judgment matured and became conscious of itself, Manet devoted himself to undoing his
master's work.
About 1850, at the time when Manet entered his studio,
Couture was already famous. He held a distinguished place
among the masters of historical painting, then regarded as forming the essence of what was called le grand art. His system of
aesthetics was governed by a regard for certain definite traditions,
devotion to fixed principles, and observance of a transmitted
routine. Like the majority of the artists of his time, he believed
in the excellence of a fixed ideal, as opposed to what was spoken of with horror as " realism." Certain subjects alone were then
thought to be worthy of art. Preference was given to scenes drawn
from classical antiquity, and to the portrayal of the Greeks and
Romans, as being of a nature noble in themselves. On the other
hand, men of the modern age, with their frock - coats and
everyday clothes, were to be avoided as offering realistic themes,
destructive of true art. Religious subjects still formed a part of
this grand art, but its fount and origin was above all to be
found in the nude. Then, on a lower but still respectable plane, came compositions which were derived from those countries which
the imagination had invested with a certain superior prestige,
the Orient for example. An Egyptian landscape was in itself a
subject worthy of art ; an artist devoted to the ideal was permitted to paint the sands of the desert, but he would have degraded him-
self and fallen into the abyss of realism if he painted a Normandy pasture with its cows and apple-trees. Couture was a fervent
upholder of the traditions of this grand art. He had brought himself notably before the public eye by a picture of large
dimensions, exhibited in the Salon of 1847, which had had a
signal success Les Romains de la decadence. The picture is now in the Louvre. An examination of it serves to reveal the precise
value of this grand art as practised by Couture and his con-
temporaries. The decline of Rome ! truly a subject to stimulate thought
and give wing to the imagination. But this decline, which was
really the passing of a society from one civilisation to another,
Couture has conceived simply under the form of a physical deterioration. His Romans of the decadence are pale, emasculated
creatures, wasted by excess. Let it be accepted that after all an
8 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS
artist is not required to view history from the historian's stand-
point. Nevertheless what we cannot forgive in him, what prevents us from admiring his work, is that his Romans are in no way men of the antique mould, whether it be intended to recreate by a
faithful study of the sculptured monuments the exact type of the
ancient Roman, or whether to show forth the image of antiquity
by evoking imaginatively forms different from those of our own time.
Nicolas Poussin has executed a work of this order L'Enleve-
ment des Sabims. He has truly evoked a moment of the
past ; he has created a certain breed of men, who possibly are
quite unlike the real, primitive Roman, but who are, however, the product of an original conception, and transport us into
an imaginary world, different from our own. The Romans of
Couture offer nothing similar; they give no hint of an effort
towards reconstruction ; they are men of the nineteenth century,
ordinary models whom the artist has posed, whose features he has
reproduced, without being able to transform them. Moreover,
they are arranged according to traditional rules and accepted con-
ventions : a central group in full light, then accessory groups on the right and left, one figure balancing or contrasting with another,
the lights and shadows unreal and artificial. There is no motive to bind the figures together in a common action ; they remain
isolated ; the effort which has disposed them side by side is too
perceptible. Above all, this immense canvas suggests no emotion.
Returning to the Enlcvement des Sabines, one sees that Poussin on the contrary has succeeded in compelling each figure to contri-
bute to building up the effect of the whole. The crowd moves with a sudden animation ; life, interest, terror, spring out of the
action itself. Though small in scale the figures give a real sensa-
tion of strength and mass, that is altogether lacking in the men whose proportions Couture has magnified in vain. The fact is that
the true historical painter must belong to a certain age ; in order to recreate antiquity convincingly he must live, as in the seven- teenth century, at a time when thought moves naturally in the circle of literary traditions, and, in addition, like Nicolas Poussin, he must have genius. But, when the conditions have entirely
IN COUTURE'S STUDIO 9
changed, the attempt to perpetuate the original inventive impulse
by means of the formulas of a school, results only in mediocre
works, lacking the breath of life. Despite all his effort. Couture
never reached the goal. Of its kind, his work is manifestly better
than that of others. After all, even the imperfect management of
such a vast composition demanded talent ; incontestibly the man who achieved it possessed some of the qualities of the painter.
But in an unpropitious age, and in the absence of creative genius,
all Couture's labour and pains were unable to realise the desired
vision of the ancient world.
The tradition-made art of which Couture was one of the fore-
most exponents had at this time fallen into decrepitude ; the
study of his own works and those of contemporaries reveals its
exhaustion. At the moment when Manet appeared there was
therefore a conflict between the artists of established repute,
stubbornly determined to continue an outworn tradition, and
those students who were groping after reality and seeking to
create forms of art more suited to new requirements. Couture
held with those who wished to prolong indefinitely the formulas of
the past ; Manet was in the foremost rank of the young men in
whom the ferment of the innovating temper was at work. The collision and friction between master and pupil was only the mani-
festation, in the form of a personal combat, of the vaster strife
which was being waged between conflicting modes of thought and
antagonistic conceptions of art.
The memoirs of M. Antonin Proust show that Manet became filled with an increasingly lively aversion from the genre of histori-
cal painting, which his master practised and wished him to culti-
vate, and that, the more he became conscious of his own ability,
the more he was drawn towards the observation of real life.
Couture discovered that his pupil was escaping from his tutelage,
and was moving towards what he himself abhorred and designated
by the contemptuous name of realism. In so doing, he believed
that Manet was ruining his career, and one day he said to him :
" Go on, my boy, you'll never be anything more than the Daumier of your time." That disparagement should be implied by a com-
parison with Daumier causes no little astonishment nowadays.
10 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS
Times have changed ! Despised by the partisans of the historical
school, which reigned supreme in his day, as a mere caricaturist
and realist, Daumier is now admired as one of the great artists of
the past. Couture, on the other hand, obstinately sticking to the
rut of a decrepit form of art, is now condemned and almost
forgotten. Manet's growing aversion from traditional art showed itself in
the contempt which he felt for models, with their studio poses, and
for the study of the nude as it was then carried on. The worship of the antique, or of what the painters of the first half of the
nineteenth century understood as the antique, had…
CEZANNE GUILLAUMIN
ILLUSTRATED WITH FOUR ETCHINGS
REPRODUCTIONS IN HALF-TONE
LONDON GRANT RICHARDS
ND
INTRODUCTION PAINTING in France in the nineteenth century followed a course
parallel with that of the intellectual life of the country ; it adapted itself to the various changes in modes of thought ; it took upon itself a succession of forms corresponding to those which were
evolved in literature.
At the beginning of the century, under the Empire, painting was classical. It was primarily engaged in rendering scenes
borrowed from the antique world of Greece and Rome, and sub-
jects derived from fable and mythology. Historical painting formed the essence of high art. It was based upon the nude,
treated according to the classical model. Two masters David
and Ingres were the representatives of this form of French art,
and gave it its loftiest expression. After them, classical art was
continued in an enfeebled condition by painters of only secondary
importance. The new spirit of romanticism, however, which had arisen in
literature, also made its appearance in painting. Delacroix was the
master in whom it found its most complete expression. The tones
of classical art, sober, restrained, and often cold, gave place in his
work to warm and brilliant coloration. For the nicely balanced
scenes of classical antiquity, he substituted compositions tumul-
tuous with movement. Romanticism developed freedom of action
and expressiveness of pose to their utmost limits.
Painting was then conquered by realism, which had also in-
vaded literature. Courbet was its great initiator. He painted the life that he saw round about him in a direct, robust manner.
He also painted landscape with a truthfulness that was informed
by a powerful emotion. At the same time, Rousseau and Corot
had also brought landscape painting into close touch with nature.
vi INTRODUCTION
They had re-discovered its soul and its charm. Finally, crowning
as it were the work of their predecessors, came Manet and the
Impressionists. Manet was the painter of real life. He waged a long and
ultimately victorious warfare with the men who clung to the
belated and exhausted classical tradition. Together with a new
and individual vision, he introduced into painting the bright tones
and the luminous brilliance, which were adopted by the Impres-
sionists, who were originally formed by him. These qualities they
afterwards extended and developed, particularly in applying them
to the painting of landscape in the open air.
It is the history of Manet and the Impressionists which we
propose to deal with in this book.
CONTENTS
III. EARLY WORKS .
V. THE OLYMPIA .
VII. FROM 1868 TO 1871 45
VIII. LE BON BOCK 6l
IX. THE OPEN AIR ?I
X. ENGRAVINGS AND DRAWINGS . . .
XIII. PISSARRO I26 vii
viii CONTENTS CHAP. "'AGE
XIV. CLAUDE MONET 137
BAIGNEUSE (RENOIR) 114
WOOD ENGRAVINGS
LA PARISIENNE 98
DANSEUSE 122
LES PORTEUSES DE FAGOTS 134
Drawn by CAMILLE PisSARRO, engraved by LUCIEN PissARRO.
HALF-TONE ENGRAVINGS
LE GUITARERO (MANET) 14
Municipal Gallery, Dublin. "' b
LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE (MANET) 20
Music des Arts Dicoratifs, Paris.
OLYMPIA (MANET) 26
Music du Louvre.
Collection of Mrs. Sears , Boston.
UNE JEUNE FEMME (MANET) 46
Metropolitan Museum, New York.
EVA GONZALES (MANET) 5
Music du Luxembourg.
Collection ofMr.J. J. Johnson, Philadelphia.
LE BON BOCK (MANET) 64
Collection Arnhold, Berlin.
ROUTE A LOUVECIENNES (PisSARRO) 128
SYDENHAM ROAD (PISSARROX . , 130
. . . .140
WATERLOO BRIDGE (CLAUDE MONET) 148
LA SEINE A BOUGIVAL (SiSLEY) 152
THE SERPENTINE, LONDON (SiSLEV) 154
LES MOULINS DE MORET (SiSLEY) 156
BAIGNEUSE (RENOIR) l6o
MADAME CHAR PENTIER ET SES DEUX FILLES (RENOIR) . . . .164 Metropolitan Museum, New York.
TETE DE JEUNE FILLE (RENOIR) . . !66
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
Music du Luxembourg.
NATURE MORTE (CEZANNE) , 82
LES PARAPLUIES (RENOIR) .
PART I
tiDOUARD MANET
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
I^DOUARD MANET was born in Paris on the 23rd of January 1832, at No. 5 Rue des Petits-Augustins (now Rue Bonaparte), and was baptized on the following 2nd of February at the Church of St.
Germain-des-Pres. He was the eldest of three brothers. Their father was a magistrate, and a man of means, a member of that venerable and prosperous bourgeoisie which flourished and became powerful during the reign of Louis Philippe. Their mother, whose maiden name was Fournier, belonged to the same class.'
Her father was in the diplomatic service, and had taken a part in the negotiations which resulted in the elevation of Marshal Bernadotte to the throne of Sweden. She had a brother in the
army, who rose to the rank of colonel. The bourgeoisie, before the revolution of 1848, which robbed it of its power, and the advent of universal suffrage, which fused it more or less with the people, formed a really distinct class. After having fought and conquered the old nobility, it was itself in turn deprived of its pride of place. The legal families belonging to it, from whom the bench and the bar were recruited, preserved customs and traditions of their own, handed down from the ancient park- merits. They breathed the atmosphere of a particular kind of culture ; they were carefully trained in classics, and in the rhetoric which obtained at the Palais. In this circle, the men who rose to positions in the magistracy assumed a sort of ascendency, and were held in considerable esteem. At this time the magis- stracy still formed a kind of priesthood. It was jealous of the dignity of its office
; it commanded general respect in the world at large. The father of Edouard Manet, a judge of the Tribunal of the Seine, personified in himself all the characteristics of the
4 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS
class to which he belonged, the bourgeoisie, and also of his own
particular world within that class, the magistracy.
Manet, therefore, may be said to have been born almost in the
purple. He grew up in an atmosphere of ancient tradition. The
characteristics, social and moral, which he had inherited remained
as firmly planted in him throughout his life as his innate artistic
instinct. Essentially he remained a man of the world, refined,
courteous, polished, taking pleasure in society, fond of frequenting
salons, where he was remarked and admired for his verve and
his flashing wit.
In a man brought up in this atmosphere, the impulse towards
the life of an artist must have been very strong to have dominated
all his other tendencies. It may be said of Manet that he was
indeed formed by nature to be a painter ; his gift of vision and
sensation made it inevitable that he should find his life's work
in devoting himself to painting. Naturally his vocation was
bound to show itself early, and was certain to result in a rupture with his family. His family had planned a career for him at the
bar or the bench, or in the civil service. He would go through the classical curriculum, which, in the days of university mono-
poly, was given in the State colleges ; he would take his degree of Bachelier es lettres, would then study law, and would pass the
examination qualifying him for a call to the bar.
But Manet showed no desire to follow the traditional path which was marked out for him. In his very early youth he was
put under the charge of the Abbe" Poiloup, who then kept a school
at Vaugirard. From there he was sent to continue his studies
at the College Rollin. His maternal uncle, Colonel Fournier, used
to spend his leisure time in drawing, and it was from him that
Manet, while still quite young, acquired that taste for drawing and painting which circumstances developed into an overmaster-
ing passion. It was at about the age of sixteen that he felt his
vocation caUing him so strongly, that he announced his wish of
becoming an artist.
At that time, the decision of an eldest son to become a
painter was enough to drive a family of old and respectable traditions to despair. To become an artist was to lose caste
EARLY YEARS 5
and to go astray. Manet was urged to change his mind, but as
usually happens when a natural instinct is thwarted, he broke out
into open revolt. He was so refractory, that his parents found
it impossible to force their will upon him, and yet it never entered
their thoughts to give way to his wishes. Their determination
that he should not be an artist, and the boy's refusal to study
law, resulted in an impasse ; accordingly, hot-headed and anxious
to solve the difficulty, he said he would be a sailor. His parents
preferred to let him go to sea rather than to a studio. His
father accompanied him to Le Havre, where he embarked as
an apprentice on La Guadeloupe, a merchant vessel bound for
Rio de Janeiro.
Thus he made the voyage to Brazil and back. The only adventure that happened to him was an opportunity which he
had of putting into practice, for the first time, his talent as a
painter. The ship's cargo included a number of Dutch cheeses,
which had been somewhat discoloured by the action of the salt
water. The captain, knowing the gift of the young apprentice, chose him in preference to the others to put the matter right.
Manet was fond of telling how, armed with a brush and a pot of paint of the right colour, he painted the cheeses so as to give the fullest satisfaction !
On his return from Brazil, his parents, who had expected that
the voyage would have made him docile, and that they would be able to bring him to their own way of thinking, found him as stubborn as before. They therefore resigned themselves to
the inevitable, and allowed him to embrace the career of an artist.
CHAPTER II
HAVING overcome the opposition of his family and obtained per-
mission to follow his own vocation, Manet chose Thomas Couture
for his master, with his father's acquiescence, and entered his studio.
No painter ever strove harder to acquire a mastery of his craft
than Manet. Finding himself at last inside a studio, he set himself
to work diligently, and, at the beginning, at all events, endeavoured
to make the most of the teaching that was to be had there. But
Manet was possessed of a strong sense of individuality, and was
dominated by the impulse which urges all men of original character
to follow an independent course. The very effort which he made to give his own latent talent expression, rendered him a somewhat
refractory pupil, perpetually at loggerheads with his master. The two were of entirely different character. M. Antonin Proust,
who was Manet's friend at the College Rollin, and afterwards his
fellow-pupil in Couture's studio, has given some account in the
Revue Blanche of the relations that existed between master and
pupil. It is a long story of constant collisions, of quarrels followed
by reconciliations, but, as the dissensions sprung from a fundamen-
tal difference, they inevitably broke out again and ended in a
definite hostility. Indeed, the youth whom Couture had taken
into his studio was destined to be the man who, more than any other, was to undermine that conventional art of which Couture
was one of the chief apostles. In taking Manet into his studio,
he had let the wolf into the sheepfold. A final rupture between
the two men was inevitable, for the one instinctively attacked
what the other defended ; and as his judgment matured and became conscious of itself, Manet devoted himself to undoing his
master's work.
About 1850, at the time when Manet entered his studio,
Couture was already famous. He held a distinguished place
among the masters of historical painting, then regarded as forming the essence of what was called le grand art. His system of
aesthetics was governed by a regard for certain definite traditions,
devotion to fixed principles, and observance of a transmitted
routine. Like the majority of the artists of his time, he believed
in the excellence of a fixed ideal, as opposed to what was spoken of with horror as " realism." Certain subjects alone were then
thought to be worthy of art. Preference was given to scenes drawn
from classical antiquity, and to the portrayal of the Greeks and
Romans, as being of a nature noble in themselves. On the other
hand, men of the modern age, with their frock - coats and
everyday clothes, were to be avoided as offering realistic themes,
destructive of true art. Religious subjects still formed a part of
this grand art, but its fount and origin was above all to be
found in the nude. Then, on a lower but still respectable plane, came compositions which were derived from those countries which
the imagination had invested with a certain superior prestige,
the Orient for example. An Egyptian landscape was in itself a
subject worthy of art ; an artist devoted to the ideal was permitted to paint the sands of the desert, but he would have degraded him-
self and fallen into the abyss of realism if he painted a Normandy pasture with its cows and apple-trees. Couture was a fervent
upholder of the traditions of this grand art. He had brought himself notably before the public eye by a picture of large
dimensions, exhibited in the Salon of 1847, which had had a
signal success Les Romains de la decadence. The picture is now in the Louvre. An examination of it serves to reveal the precise
value of this grand art as practised by Couture and his con-
temporaries. The decline of Rome ! truly a subject to stimulate thought
and give wing to the imagination. But this decline, which was
really the passing of a society from one civilisation to another,
Couture has conceived simply under the form of a physical deterioration. His Romans of the decadence are pale, emasculated
creatures, wasted by excess. Let it be accepted that after all an
8 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS
artist is not required to view history from the historian's stand-
point. Nevertheless what we cannot forgive in him, what prevents us from admiring his work, is that his Romans are in no way men of the antique mould, whether it be intended to recreate by a
faithful study of the sculptured monuments the exact type of the
ancient Roman, or whether to show forth the image of antiquity
by evoking imaginatively forms different from those of our own time.
Nicolas Poussin has executed a work of this order L'Enleve-
ment des Sabims. He has truly evoked a moment of the
past ; he has created a certain breed of men, who possibly are
quite unlike the real, primitive Roman, but who are, however, the product of an original conception, and transport us into
an imaginary world, different from our own. The Romans of
Couture offer nothing similar; they give no hint of an effort
towards reconstruction ; they are men of the nineteenth century,
ordinary models whom the artist has posed, whose features he has
reproduced, without being able to transform them. Moreover,
they are arranged according to traditional rules and accepted con-
ventions : a central group in full light, then accessory groups on the right and left, one figure balancing or contrasting with another,
the lights and shadows unreal and artificial. There is no motive to bind the figures together in a common action ; they remain
isolated ; the effort which has disposed them side by side is too
perceptible. Above all, this immense canvas suggests no emotion.
Returning to the Enlcvement des Sabines, one sees that Poussin on the contrary has succeeded in compelling each figure to contri-
bute to building up the effect of the whole. The crowd moves with a sudden animation ; life, interest, terror, spring out of the
action itself. Though small in scale the figures give a real sensa-
tion of strength and mass, that is altogether lacking in the men whose proportions Couture has magnified in vain. The fact is that
the true historical painter must belong to a certain age ; in order to recreate antiquity convincingly he must live, as in the seven- teenth century, at a time when thought moves naturally in the circle of literary traditions, and, in addition, like Nicolas Poussin, he must have genius. But, when the conditions have entirely
IN COUTURE'S STUDIO 9
changed, the attempt to perpetuate the original inventive impulse
by means of the formulas of a school, results only in mediocre
works, lacking the breath of life. Despite all his effort. Couture
never reached the goal. Of its kind, his work is manifestly better
than that of others. After all, even the imperfect management of
such a vast composition demanded talent ; incontestibly the man who achieved it possessed some of the qualities of the painter.
But in an unpropitious age, and in the absence of creative genius,
all Couture's labour and pains were unable to realise the desired
vision of the ancient world.
The tradition-made art of which Couture was one of the fore-
most exponents had at this time fallen into decrepitude ; the
study of his own works and those of contemporaries reveals its
exhaustion. At the moment when Manet appeared there was
therefore a conflict between the artists of established repute,
stubbornly determined to continue an outworn tradition, and
those students who were groping after reality and seeking to
create forms of art more suited to new requirements. Couture
held with those who wished to prolong indefinitely the formulas of
the past ; Manet was in the foremost rank of the young men in
whom the ferment of the innovating temper was at work. The collision and friction between master and pupil was only the mani-
festation, in the form of a personal combat, of the vaster strife
which was being waged between conflicting modes of thought and
antagonistic conceptions of art.
The memoirs of M. Antonin Proust show that Manet became filled with an increasingly lively aversion from the genre of histori-
cal painting, which his master practised and wished him to culti-
vate, and that, the more he became conscious of his own ability,
the more he was drawn towards the observation of real life.
Couture discovered that his pupil was escaping from his tutelage,
and was moving towards what he himself abhorred and designated
by the contemptuous name of realism. In so doing, he believed
that Manet was ruining his career, and one day he said to him :
" Go on, my boy, you'll never be anything more than the Daumier of your time." That disparagement should be implied by a com-
parison with Daumier causes no little astonishment nowadays.
10 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS
Times have changed ! Despised by the partisans of the historical
school, which reigned supreme in his day, as a mere caricaturist
and realist, Daumier is now admired as one of the great artists of
the past. Couture, on the other hand, obstinately sticking to the
rut of a decrepit form of art, is now condemned and almost
forgotten. Manet's growing aversion from traditional art showed itself in
the contempt which he felt for models, with their studio poses, and
for the study of the nude as it was then carried on. The worship of the antique, or of what the painters of the first half of the
nineteenth century understood as the antique, had…
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