Richard Manet Research Paper

It has long been recorded that Manet was the “Father of Impressionism.” But can there be a contradiction in the new academic research or writings of impressionistic art? There tends to be more influence between these four artists than just Manet’s single effect. Manet “did create a new language of paint and painting, a system of casual shorthand notations, relying upon the active mind to close the gap between a code and a recreation of that which is rendered.” But the Impressionists would respond to his method in a variety of ways. Claude Monet would adopt the broken brushwork of plein air painting. Gustave Caillibotte responded quite radically from Manet with his dry, tight rendering that seemed to belong more with the regressive painters of the Salon, rather than Impressionism. Edgar Degas, who was also considered a founding father of Impressionism, exhibited with the Impressionist but his realism set him apart.

Although Manet studied under the Dutch Masters and the Spanish Masters, the painter declared, “The eye should forget all else it has seen…and the hand becomes guided only by the will, oblivious of all previous training.” Manet refused to take part in the First Impressionist Exhibition, in Paris, in 1874, with Monet, Caillibotte, and Degas because he considered himself a different kind of modernist. Yet, critics of the time accused him of being an uneven artist, clumsy, inconsistent, and forgettable. Manet had many supporters though. One in particular was Emile Zola, a writer of naturalism, who was interested in artists that were rejected by official critics. Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe is one such painting that critics considered vulgar and lacking in execution, yet was a favorite of Zola’s. The critics that were not fond of paintings such as Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe, were receptive to his still-lifes of flowers and fruits, and fish and vegetables which were Salon