MANET

Pivotal paintings of modernityLampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter douard Manet (1832`1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism.Manet`s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city`s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Djeuner sur l`herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian`s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal.This richly illustrated book introduces Manet`s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.