EDOUARD MANET  

    The history of Impressionism could not be written without Edouard Manet (1832 - 1883).

    Edouard Manet is regarded as the inventor of modern art and the godfather of Impressionism. He is also the last figure of the great classical art. He wasn't the Impressionist but young painters adopted his dynamic style of painting, sharp natural lighting and bold colouring.

     In his time, Manet was considered the leaderof this avant-garde group even though his work is scarcely representative of Impressionism. Manet had a profound influence on his own and later generations of artists with his fresh immediacy and the vibrancy of his color.

    Manet rejected traditional, academic style of painting and conventional themes. His famous work - Le dejeuner sur l'herbe evoked a scandal. The subject of the picture threw many of those who saw it. The painter was alluding to the masterpiece of Renaissance - Giorgione's Country Concert. Manet's painting brought younger artists flocking to him. In their admiring eyes he was a confident force to the new. Following the scandal of the Le dejeuner sur l'herbe, Manet prompted an even more violent controversy with Olympia, quoting Titian's famed Venus of Urbino.

    Manet's friendship with Claude Monet (1840-1926), Renoir, Degas and Bazille was mutually fruitful and they revered him as an innovator and liberator from convention.