Édouard Manet
(Paris, 1832-id., 1883) French painter and printmaker.Son of an important civil servant of the Ministry of Justice, Édouard Manet was a mediocre student interested only in drawing.Faced with paternal resistance to starting an artistic career, he tried unsuccessfully to enter the Naval Academy until, after a second failed attempt, his family reluctantly agreed to finance his artistic studies, which began in 1850 in the workshop of the classical painter Thomas Couture.
Édouard Manet
After six years of apprenticeship, Édouard Manet established himself in his own studio.In those early days he established a relationship with artists and writers such as Henri Fantin-Latour, Edgar Degas and Charles Baudelaire.At the beginning of 1860 some of his works began to be recognized, which deserved, among others, the warm reception of the critic and writer Théophile Gautier.
In his production at the end of the 1870s he accentuated the naturalism of his subject matter, to give the prominence of his paintings to prostitutes and coquettes caught drinking or seducing their young lovers, and to the expansive treatment of the light.Finally, Manet abandoned his traditional technique, oil, to go to pastel.At the same time, his health suffered a growing deterioration due to an infectious disease originating in his left leg.
Despite this, in 1882 he participated in an important exhibition of French art held in London, for which he presented Bar del Folies-Bergère , the last of his great compositions.The following year, gangrene was declared on his diseased leg and he had to be amputated, an operation from which he could not recover and which would lead to his death shortly after.The posthumous exhibition of his works, held in January 1884, marked the birth of a growing recognition of his stature as an artist, who has been called the father of Impressionism by history.
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