Edouard Manet - Artist Biography

Edouard Manet was a French painter who lived from 1832-1883. Manet is often credited with single-handedly ushering the art world from Realism to Impressionism with his work. It was Manet's canvas Luncheon on the Grass from 1863 that started the revolution, and the many works he produced in the following years took the tenets of his innovations even farther.

There was a significant philosophical aspect to Manet's work, which was at the heart of the manner in which his technique and ideas about composition diverged from the past. Manet felt strongly that art should represent the present, not the past. So much of the art that preceded Manet focused on myths and figures from history and other cultures. Manet wanted to create art that dealt with and embraced the ideas and events of the present and the country in which he lived.

Some of Manet's work was unflinchingly real in its subject matter. For example, his first painting was The Absinthe Drinker, which presented a drunken and dissolute man in the alleys of the city. In Bar at the Folies-Bergere, we are given a glimpse at both beauty and pain on a barwoman's face.

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