Manet — Selected Works

Boy with Pitcher (La Régalade)

Édouard Manet — 1862

X-radiographs have revealed that this painting is a fragment of Les Gitanos , a large portrait of an itinerant family that Édouard Manet exhibited in 1863 and 1867. Apparently dissatisfied with the composition, he cut the painting into sections, which he reconceived as individual works of art. Two of these sections, Bohémien and Still Life with Bag and Garlic , are in the collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi; the final section, Bohémienne , is lost. To make this portion a standalone work, Manet painted over the head of the woman, which was originally under the boy’s shoulder, and replaced the blue sky with a dark background. He then renamed the painting La Régalade , which means to pour liquid from a bottle down the throat without touching the lips. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Fish (Still Life)

Édouard Manet — 1864

Although still-life ensembles were an important element in many of the major paintings of the avant-garde artist Édouard Manet, his most sustained interest in the genre itself was from 1864 to 1865, when Fish was painted. Manet’s focus on still lifes coincided with the gradual reacceptance of the genre during the nineteenth century, due in part to the growth of the middle class, whose tastes ran to intimate, moderately priced works. This painting, like many of Manet’s still-life compositions, recalls seventeenth-century Dutch models. The directness of execution, bold brushwork, and immediacy of vision displayed in the canvas, however, suggest why the public found Manet’s work so unorthodox and confrontational. While Fish is indeed an image of “dead nature” ( nature morte is the French term for still life), there is nothing still about the work: the produce seems fresh and the handling of paint vigorous. Further enlivening the composition is the placement of the carp, which offsets the strong diagonal of the other elements. Manet never submitted his still lifes to the official French Salon but rather sold them through the burgeoning network of art galleries in Paris and gave them to friends. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Sea View, Calm Weather (Vue de mer, temps calme)

Édouard Manet — 1864

Although boldly brushed and almost calligraphic in form, the vessels in this composition remain identifiable as specific types. To the right of center, a side-wheel packet steamer heads up the English Channel, leaving slower sailing boats in its wake. This is one of Édouard Manet’s earliest paintings of the sea, a subject to which he returned repeatedly. He painted it in Paris along with two or three other works based on sketches he made on a vacation with his family in the northern French port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers

Édouard Manet — 1865

Throughout his career Édouard Manet managed to shock and confound the public with his bold technique and unorthodox approach to subject matter. The most startling feature of this painting is that he painted it at all. Following the advent of the Realist movement, which grounded art in the here and now, avant-garde artists in France did not pursue religious themes. While Manet was primarily a painter of secular subjects, he was also interested in art history, which led him on at least two occasions to depict the biblical narratives that had compelled artists for many centuries. This work might also have been inspired by the popular 1863 biography Vie de Jésus (Life of Jesus) by the French philosopher and historian Joseph-Ernest Renan, a controversial work that emphasized Christ’s humanity. Here, Manet depicted Jesus at the end of his life, beaten and awaiting crucifixion. The Roman soldiers force him to don a crown of thorns and proffer a reed “scepter” and purple cloak, all intended to ridicule him as “King of the Jews,” a title bestowed ironically by his tormenters. Manet transformed this sacred narrative into a gritty drama that marries realism with theatricality. He presented Jesus frontally, emphasizing his vulnerability and human physicality. Jesus seems exhausted and limp. The canvas’s visible brushstrokes and color palette create a sense of materiality that further evokes a palpable, unidealized Christ, who notably lacks a halo. Is he a holy being emanating divine light or a real man posing under a studio spotlight? The painting caused a scandal in its own time for precisely this ambiguity. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Beggar with a Duffle Coat (Philosopher)

Édouard Manet — 1865

This painting and Beggar with Oysters were conceived as companion pieces. Édouard Manet exhibited them together in 1872 alongside paintings of an absinthe drinker and a ragpicker (a collector and reseller of discarded fabric and other refuse) under the collective title The Philosophers . When Manet made the paintings, these “beggars,” as they were then referred to, were being pushed to the physical and social margins of Paris as the city rapidly redeveloped to make way for more bourgeois neighborhoods. Although he was born into an upper-class family, Manet was an outsider to the established French art circles and likely identified with these alienated subjects. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Bullfight

Édouard Manet — 1865

In the fall of 1865, Édouard Manet traveled to Spain for about ten days. This brief trip had a profound impact on his art of this period. In a letter to poet Charles Baudelaire, he described a bullfight he attended in Madrid as “one of the finest, most curious, and most terrifying sights to be seen.” The quick sketches he made as he watched the fights informed several later canvases, including this one. Here, he underscored the tension of the moment—the crowd in the background blends together in a blur while the bullfighter and bull stand off in sharper focus. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Beggar with Oysters (Philosopher)

Édouard Manet — 1865

Along with Beggar with a Duffle Coat , Beggar with Oysters formed part of a series of four paintings collectively called The Philosophers . The title refers to traditional representations of the ancient stoic philosophers, whose poverty was associated with wisdom. The anonymous men in these paintings would have been recognizable to Édouard Manet’s contemporary audience as urban types—social outcasts populating the streets of Paris. By depicting them at such a large scale and set against empty, dark backgrounds, Manet subverted expectations for paint-ing at the time, granting his figures a portrait-like, even heroic presence typically reserved for noble, historical, or religious subjects. Through his format and series title, the artist encouraged viewers to see these often-disregarded people as possessing rare insight. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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The Races

Édouard Manet — 1865

The Races is based on Manet's painting The Races at Longchamp . The lithograph, however, conveys the excitement of horse racing even more than the painting. Energy and movement are suggested by bold, quickly drawn lines and by rapid, curving smudges. The unrestrained, spontaneous use of the lithographic crayon foreshadows the expressiveness of 20th-century printmaking.

Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0 · Source image ↗

The Races at Longchamp

Édouard Manet — 1866

This freely executed painting captures the thrilling conclusion of a horse race at Longchamp, located at the Bois de Boulogne on the western edge of Paris. Here, Édouard Manet radically departed from conventional representations of the sport, in which races were shown from the side with the horses in profile. Instead, the competitors gallop thunderously toward the viewer, raising a cloud of turf, their pace underlined by the sweeping diagonals of the racetrack fences. In France, horse racing became an important form of popular entertainment during the nineteenth century. Imported from England, the racetrack—with its speed, spectacle, and luxury—was a quintessentially modern space. In Manet’s painting, a throng of fashionably dressed men and women press against the fences to witness the event—one man, at the upper left, uses binoculars to better observe the race. Unlike his friend Edgar Degas , for whom the racetrack was a constant source of inspiration, Manet produced only two paintings on the theme. Originally a much larger composition, this canvas was cut down to its present scale by the artist. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Portrait of a Woman with a Black Fichu

Édouard Manet — 1873

Using just a few brushstrokes, Manet gave a full sense of this unidentified sitter’s jovial personality. Her amused half-smile may speak to a pleasant exchange between artist and model. This painting offers valuable insight into Manet’s working process. He initially blocked out the figure with dark, painted lines and then moved on to short, precise strokes in the costume and face. Finally, he applied a thinned green wash that was likely the first step toward patterned background, left unfinished. The woman’s coiffure, a pile of blue-black hair with curly bangs, helps date this work to the late 1870s. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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At the Café

Édouard Manet — 1874

This print by Édouard Manet depicts the Café Guerbois, a gathering place for Impressionist artists in 19th-century Paris. Although best known for his paintings, the artist was an avid printmaker throughout his entire career. Here, he experimented with gillotage —a new technique at the time—to suggest the quick, sketchy lines of drawing, making the image appear as if it had been created quickly and spontaneously.

Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0 · Source image ↗

Portrait of Berthe Morisot with a Fan

Édouard Manet — 1874

Édouard Manet represented his close friend artist Berthe Morisot twelve times between 1868 and 1874 in etching, lithography, oil paint, and watercolor. In this watercolor Manet used a limited palette and a combination of techniques to depict Morisot against a blue-green background. He worked wet-into-wet for her dress, applying wet pigment onto an already wet surface before it had time to dry, which allowed the marks to bleed and blend into one another. Then Manet used a dry-brush technique to emphasize the texture of the fabric of her dress and the ribbon in her hair. Both these textures contrast with the relative flatness of the muted background, making the sitter stand out. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

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Perched upon a Bust of Pallas

Édouard Manet — 1875

Edouard Manet created this lithograph for his friend Stephane Mallarmé’s 1875 French translation of American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “The Raven” (1845) about a man mourning his deceased love who is visited by a raven that repeatedly cries, “Nevermore.” Mallarmé’s edition is considered one of the first modern livres d’artistes —books created specifically as works of visual art. Manet created four full-page illustrations, including the scene in which the raven stares at the narrator from the top of the bust of the goddess Athena, and a raven head design used on the book’s cover and on its advertising poster.

Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0 · Source image ↗

Claire Campbell

Édouard Manet — 1876

During the late 1870s, Edouard Manet began to experience health problems that made it difficult for him to work in oil painting. Instead, he began to draw using pastel, a powdery medium that allowed him to render line and color with each stroke. This work is one of numerous portraits that Manet created around this time with the medium. It depicts Claire Campbell, a fashionable young British woman whose father published The Daily Telegraph , a British newspaper. Manet used the velvety texture of pastel to render the subject's skin and hair, limiting his palette to mostly neutral tones such as white, gray, and black.

Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0 · Source image ↗

Woman Reading

Édouard Manet — 1880

During the late nineteenth century, Parisian cafés were the gathering places of artists and writers and were ideal locations for observing the urban scene. Many Impressionist paintings depict the Café Nouvelle-Athènes on the rue Pigalle, where two tables were reserved for Édouard Manet and his circle—a group that included the painters Edgar Degas , Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro , and Pierre-Auguste Renoir , and the writers Charles Baudelaire and Émile Zola . At first glance, this fashionably dressed young woman appears to have been captured sitting at a favorite café: the marble tabletop, beer mug, and magazine attached to a wooden bar suggest such a setting, and her heavy clothing and kid gloves indicate that she is at an outdoor table and that the weather is cool. However, the floral background is actually one of Manet's paintings and the café a re-creation in his studio. Woman Reading is one of the most Impressionist of Manet’s images; the quick, free brushstrokes and light colors are characteristic of his technique late in his career. Painted only a few years before his death, this work admirably captures a fleeting moment, the sense of modern life that Manet and his contemporaries sought to represent. Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0

Collection: The Art Institute of Chicago · CC0 · Source image ↗