Édouard Manet

I am influenced by everbody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there.

Conciseness in art is essential.The concise man makes one think.

Édouard Manet (23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French painter. One of the first nineteenth century artists to approach modern-life subjects, his art bridged the divide between Realism and Impressionism.

This artist article is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it.

Sourced[edit]

I never imagined that France could be represented by such doddering old fools, not excepting that little twit Thiers...
- Letter to Félix Bracquemond (18 March 1871), published in Manet by Himself (1995) by Julliet Wilson-Bareau

Only party hacks and the ambitious, the Henrys of this world following on the heels of the Milliéres, the grotesque imitators of the Commune of 1793... What an encouragement all these bloodthirsty caperings are for the arts! But there is at least one consolation in our misfortunes: that we're not politicians and have no desire to be elected as deputies.
- Letter to Félix Bracquemond (21 March 1871), published in Manet by Himself (1995) by Julliet Wilson-Bareau

One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.
- As quoted in Encyclopedia of Artists (2000) by William Vaughan and Christopher Ackroyd, p. 28

I am influenced by everbody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there.
- As quoted by Willem de Kooning in Willem De Kooning, 1904-1997 : Content as a Glimpse (2004) by Barbara Hess

Quotes from La Grande Revue (10 August 1907) by Georges Jeanniot, as translated in Manet and His Contemporaries (1983); also in "Jeanniot's Visit to Manet's Studio, January 1882"

Conciseness in art is essential and a refinement. The concise man makes one think; the verbose bores. Always work towards conciseness.

In a face, look for the main light and the main shadow; the rest will come naturally — it's often not important. And then you must cultivate your memory, because Nature will only provide you with references. Nature is like a warden in a lunatic asylum. It stops you from becoming banal.

You must always remain master of the situation and do what you please. No school tasks, ah, no! no tasks!

The leader, the hero of Realism, is now Manet. His partisans are frenzied and his detractors timid. It would seem that, if one refuses to accept Manet, one must fear being taken for a philistine, a bourgeois , a Joseph Prudhomme [JP, created by caricaturist Henri Monnier, was a personification of the vulgar self satisfied bourgeois who grew up under the July Monarchy], an idiot who cares for nothing but miniatures and painted porcelain[-]one examines oneself with a sort of horror[-]to discover whether one has become obese or bald, incapable of understanding the audacities of youth.
- Théophile Gautier, writing in Le Moniteur universel.

Wikipedia has an article about:

Édouard Manet

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Édouard Manet