Arts
The truth of the matter
John McEwen
Manet, 1832-1883 (Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, till 1 August; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10 September — 27 November)
Edouard Manet died, following the am- putation of a gangrenous leg, 100 years ago this April. Hence the present centenary exhibition; undoubtedly the most glamorous of the year. To anticipate local protests it should, perhaps, be stated at the outset that there was never a snowball's chance of it coming here. Apart from the limitations of time and travel imposed by the preciousness of the work, we simply lacked sufficient Manets with which to barter. Out of 221 items only 5 in the Paris exhibition are from English collections. 'My work must be seen in its entirety, Manet told his longest-standing friend, An- tonin Proust. 'Don't let it be rationed out among public collections, bit by bit. It will be judged badly if that happens.' It did happen, of course, and the present exhibi- tion shows how right he was to be certain that misinterpretation, if not bad judg- ment, would prove the inevitable conse- quence. The most obvious result of this Physical dispersion has been a concomitant fragmentation of academic opinion concer- ning it. 'Is Manet an impressionist or isn't be?' has been one of the stupidest of these debates, and perhaps the most injurious to his reputation. If he is deemed to be an im- pressionist, it limits him; if he is not, then he becomes an awkward, in-between figure hke Courbet. From this division of opinion there follow two equally harmful corollaries, that he is an uneven painter and that he was a master of several styles. Has any painter ever mastered more than one style — his ,°vl? With the possible exception of that black musician of an artist, Picasso, surely ),.1.1ot. And even Picasso shows a thread. Manet proves no exception to this. 'There is only one true thing. To paint spontaneously what one sees' is his most significant piece Of advice, and it is the key to his influence and modernity. Anyone who paints spon- taneously what he sees is bound to be eter- nally of the present, but how few succeed or have even made the attempt — today as in the Past. Early and late, spontaneity is the essence of his art. This guiding principle, lends animates every picture he ever made, lends a remarkable unity to his work, sup- Ported by a no less remarkable high stan- dard of achievement and ambition. There is .no significant sense of early, middle and late in his evolution. After a postponed start, during which he made a show of try- ing to pass his exams into the Naval College for the sake of his parents, he underwent a long academic apprenticeship, from which he emerged, technically and philosophically fully armed, in his mid-twenties. From that moment he was, in his own way, supreme, but so startlingly 'sincere' in 'rendering his impression' (his own words) that he remain- ed as controversial at death as he was in the beginning; but he was doomed to have a career of only 20-odd years. It is this bubbl- ing of inspiration to the end that makes his death, at the not so youthful age of 51, seem so shockingly premature.
Such simplicity of view, such an ap- parently carefree technique, was grounded, needless to say, on unremitting observation and as sustained and privileged an artistic education as money could buy. For all the dandified pleasure in his own wardrobe and taste for the high life, Manet was never without a sketchbook in his pocket; and, apart from six years as a student of Thomas Couture, one of the most fashionable academic painters of the day, his family's wealth afforded him the chance to travel Europe at will, studying the work of the masters at first hand. No painter has been more reviled in his lifetime for betraying the traditional values, and yet none has been more respectful of tradition. Only `sincerity' gave the 'character of protest' to his work, as he complained.
To help him translate most spontaneous- ly what he saw, he naturally studied those artists of the past who had most spon- taneously and successfully translated what they had seen. For him these were the Vene- tians, Frans Hals, Goya, but, most of all, Velasquez. And their influence was sup- plemented and transformed by two for- tuitous events of his own lifetime: the in- vention of photography and the West's for- cible reopening of trade with Japan after 200 years, which in turn introduced Western artists to Japanese art for the first time. Manet's eye for the immediate was sharpened by his own and other people's photographs and the complementary conci- sion and daring of the compositions of the Edo printmakers. He led the way in ex- ploiting both.
Manet's sincerity, his unbending devo- tion to the truth of his own experience, never wavered. He is, above all, the first painter of city life. Even when he paints a still-life it has an air of urbanity. His flowers are as cultivated as his delight in well-polished silver and the latest vogue in women's clothes. He is the first modern man of painting, because he is the first to trumpet individuality. He paints what he sees — not, like almost every other painter of the age, what he has been taught to see — and what he sees is the corresponding in- dividuality of people and things. No wonder there is that look of amused collu- sion in the half-abstracted gaze of Victorine Meurent as she poses for 'The Picnic' and `Olympia'. She knows she is not just a `nude', but the first, and still most dramatically, undressed woman in painting. The Salon exhibitions of the time were choc-a-bloc with sculptures and paintings of the naked female form — idealised. It was the 'reality' of Victorine Meurent's portrait that condemned it in the eyes of the academics, the critics and the public. They could not bear to be shown what they knew. And Manet was never really forgiven. But, traditionalist that he was, he could not ac- cept their stupidity. He saw himself as the saviour, not the betrayer, of the old values. He never despaired of the academics and faithfully supported the Salon till the end, but the academics could never fully accept him. So this greatest of academic painters, in the true sense of the word, was denied the Academy. That is the most ironic loss of all. Who knows what a transformation it might have wrought in painting if Manet had been officially accepted. It was lucky he had a private income.
Manet's restoration of the academic tradition is triumphantly revealed by this exhibition. He updates the pastoral with 'The Picnic', sacred and profane love with `Olympia', religious devotional painting with his 'Christ with Angels', history pain- ting with the contemporary sea battle bet- ween the Confederate's 'Alabama' and the Union's `Kearsage', the portrait in all its forms, the Dutch tavern genre, the vanitas' still-life, the `plein air' subjects of his younger and more countrified admirers Monet, Morisot, Renoir. He also con- tributes some innovations of his own. He is the first artist to depict a horse race from the front and not the side; the first, in his documentation of the 'Alabama' and the `Kearsage', to paint a worthy picture of modern war. Had he not died he would also have been the first artist to take the driving of a train as a subject. Here again he demonstrates how originality is no more than sincerity of view, aided by a technique that from the start is perfected to render im- pressions as spontaneously as required.
In terms of range of subject, Manet is revealed by this exhibition as one of the great all-rounders. It demonstrates, too, how much is lost in reproduction, par- ticularly his blues — he is one of the great painters of blue, as of pink and black. He is also one of the most original painters of the sea. Most sea painters have been landlub- bers, but Manet spent a year afloat during his abortive attempts to join the navy, and it shows. He paints the sea as if he is on it its heave and high horizons. In the depic- tion of animals, he is to cats what Veronese is to dogs. He is surely the greatest painter of pensiveness, particularly in women. All his pictures of Berthe Morisot are stunning, not least a violently expressive and not at all flattering one of her in mourning, from a private collection. He is a great painter of flowers, and not enough are included. Of course, he is the Father of Modern Art: the personification of Individualism, though he was a devout Catholic and devoted hus- band. Courbet is his most cited rival for this honour, but for all his immense power and substance as a painter, he proves more old- fashioned in attitude than Manet. Coming out into Paris, still Manet's Paris today it is a disgrace that nothing in the city is yet called after him — it is impossible not to think of Degas's grudging admission after his death: 'He was greater than we realised.'
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