Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

French painter Edouard Manet captured all Parisian life in his shimmering paintings. Although he refused to label his own work, and never took part in an exhibitions of Impressionism, his unique style of painting influenced numerous French Impressionists. Spurned by a French art establishment which was scandalized by the nudity in his 1863 paintings Olympia, and Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, Manet became a father-figure for the young avant-garde generation, and acted as a bridge between the realism of Gustave Courbet and the Impressionist landscape painting of Claude Monet. Best known for his snap shots of Parisian bars, cafes, races and cabarets, he identified both with the joys of the city and the loneliness of urban life. His most notable works include Olympia, 1863; Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863; The Fifer, 1866 and Madame Manet on a Blue Sofa, 1874 (all at the Musee d'Orsay, Paris). Perhaps his best known work is The Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1881 (Courtauld Institute Galleries, London).

Olympia (1863) Musee d'Orsay, based
on Goya's portrait 'The Nude Maja'.

Manet was born in Paris, the son of a Judge. His mother was the goddaughter of the Swedish crown prince. He was expected to go into law, like his father, but his uncle encouraged him to pursue a painting career. In 1845, on the advice of his uncle, Manet enrolled in a drawing course where he met Antonin Proust, who was to eventually become Minister of Fine Arts and a life-long friend.

Between 1850 and 1856 he continued his study of painting under the academic painter Thomas Couture, who specialized in traditional large-scale history painting. During this time he also travelled around Europe and studied Old Masters like Titian, Frans Hals, Francisco de Goya and Diego Velazquez.

Le Déjeuner Sur L'herbe,
Musee d'Orsay (1863).

At the time Manet first started painting, in 1850s Paris, everyday city scenes were not popular subject matters. Artists could only expect to succeed by showcasing their work at the official Academy exhibitions, known as the Salon, whose conservative members favoured a hierarchy of genres, which place historical paintings and polished technique above all else. However, within 25 years the Impressionists would blow apart these old-fashioned concepts of academic art.

While Manet was strongly influenced by the Old Masters, and yearned to be seen as a true successor to their structure and composition, his modernist interpretation made him few friends inside the French Academy of Art. Even so, he was highly regarded by the coming generation of French painters for his style, his subject-matter and fresh approach. He often placed colours side by side, which allowed the eye to optically mix them, rather than using the traditional method of mixing the colours together on the palette. His brushstrokes were loose, which meant parts of the canvas were not always covered completely. This allowed critics to say his work looked 'unfinished'.

Berthe Morisot, Private Collection (1872).

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Manet was determined to show everyday scenes, beggars, street singers, construction workers and fashionable ladies drinking in cafes. He was influenced by the new medium of photography, which is reflected in his paintings where a passer-by occasionally enters a scene, half cut off, as if captured in a random photo. In a Bar in Folies-Bergere, for example, you can see the legs of a trapeze artist reflected in the mirror in the top left corner. This would never happen in a carefully planned academic picture. After his early years, he rarely painted religious or mythological subjects.

Manet's nudes in particular caused a stir and were constantly rejected by the Salon. His Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe scandalised people because the woman was fully naked, surrounded by clothed gentleman and had the audacity to stare directly at the viewer. When his picture Olympia - a nude based on both Goya's 'Nude Maja' and Titian's 'Venus' - was exhibited, critics advised pregnant women to avoid the picture in case the shock should prove too much! This goddess was not cloaked in a mythological aura, she was an ordinary woman, who stared without apology directly at the viewer as her maid arrives with flowers from potential suitors. Manet plays on the sexual innuendoes of the day: the maid is black, and at the time it was thought black people were highly sexed. Yet this maid is fully clothed, it is the white courtesan that is brazenly naked. She was compared to the prostitutes of the dance hall, and viewers found the scene very uncomfortable.

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The scandal attracted other Impressionist painters to him, including Claude Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Cezanne - all of who were influenced by his emphasis of colour and the effects of light. He also became friends with the Impressionist Berthe Morisot, who convinced him to try painting en plein air, to which she had been introduced by her friend Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (she was later to become his sister-in-law). Although Manet's work anticipated the Impressionist style, he resisted becoming involved in their group exhibitions, partly because he did not want to be identified with one group and partly because a traditional part of him still wanted to exhibit at the Salon.

Some of his other best oil paintings include: Surprised Nymph, 1861 (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires); Mlle Victorine Meurent in the Costume of an Espada, 1862 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Lola de Valence, 1862 (Musee d'Orsay); Music in the Tuileries Gardens, 1862 (National Gallery, London); Peonies in a Vase, c.1864 (Musee d'Orsay); Women at the Races, 1864 (Cincinnati Art Museum); King Charles Spaniel, c.1866 (The National Gallery of Art, Washington); The Execution of Maximilian, 1867 (National Gallery, London); Luncheon in the Studio, 1868 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich); The Monet Family in the Garden, 1874 ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Boating, 1874 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Bock Drinkers, 1878 (The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore).

Manet died in Paris at the age of 51, from untreated syphilis which he had contracted in his forties. His foot was amputated because of gangrene, but he died a few days after the operation. He is buried at the Cimetière de Passy, Paris. Although he did not gain significant recognition during his lifetime, after his death, his painting The Bar at the Folies-Bergère was exhibited at the Salon, and his old friend who was Minister for Arts obtained the Legion of Honor for him, to be awarded posthumously. Manet was a prolific painter, and left behind over 400 oil paintings and countless watercolours and pastels. Today, as evidence of his stature in the history of art in the 19th century, his works can fetch over $25 million.

Paintings by Edouard Manet hang in the best art museums across the world, notably the Musee d'Orsay Paris.

• For information about contemporary artists in Ireland, see: Irish Art Encyclopedia.