Édouard Manet
Claire Campbell, 1882
During the late 1870s, Manet turned increasingly to pastel when ill health prevented him from …
Although ridiculed in his day for inadequate linear perspective, lack of spirituality, and controversial subject matter, Édouard Manet is considered by many art historians to be the father of Modernism. Technically his paintings are remarkable for their loose brushstrokes, nuanced color, unusual cropping, and sense of light. His most famous and oft-satirized painting, Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1861) was rejected from the 1861 Salon for its shocking content: a nude woman enjoying a picnic with two fully clothed men, while a second nearly-nude woman bathes in a stream. In 1865, depressed by Paris’s response to his art, Manet traveled to Spain and studied the art of Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya. Ironically, within a year of his premature death, the École des Beaux-Arts, the officially sanctioned art school in Paris, held a huge exhibition of his paintings, pastels, drawings, and prints.
During the late 1870s, Manet turned increasingly to pastel when ill health prevented him from painting in oil. A confident draftsman, he composed pastels without any reliance on underdrawing; each stroke provided both line and color. The palette here is limited to his favorite colors: blue, white, gray, and black. He …
Although ridiculed in his day for inadequate linear perspective, lack of spirituality, and controversial subject matter, Édouard Manet is considered by many art historians to be the father of Modernism. Technically his paintings are remarkable for their loose brushstrokes, nuanced color, unusual cropping, and sense of light. His most famous and oft-satirized painting, Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1861) was rejected from the 1861 Salon for its shocking content: a nude woman enjoying a picnic with two fully clothed men, while a second nearly-nude woman bathes in a stream. In 1865, depressed by Paris’s response to his art, Manet traveled to Spain and studied the art of Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya. Ironically, within a year of his premature death, the École des Beaux-Arts, the officially sanctioned art school in Paris, held a huge exhibition of his paintings, pastels, drawings, and prints.
![Paul Gauguin, ‘Five Sheep; Head of a Woman and Head of a Bearded Man [recto]’, 1884-1888](https://d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?resize_to=fit&width=400&height=312&quality=80&src=https%3A%2F%2Fd32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net%2FpyVDz3aKL903U77H0E_zdg%2Ftall.jpg "Five Sheep; Head of a Woman and Head of a Bearded Man [recto]")
