Reproductions of Eduard Manet Oil Painting

Edouard Manet came from a well-to-do Parisian family. The young Manet was trained for a naval career, but then permitted to enter the studio of the conservative painter Thomas Couture, where he received thorough training. Trips to Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria in the 1850s brought him into contact with the work of the Old Masters, through careful coping. He was particularly impressed by the optical art and brilliant brushwork of Velazquez, whose work he saw during a brief visit to Spain in 1865. He also admired Goya and Courbet.
In 1863 Manet exhibited at the Salon des Refuses a canvas entitled Luncheon on the Grass which created an uproar. The grouping of a nude female figure and two fully clothed men in a public park shocked the Parisians as flagrant immorality. In actuality Manet had wittily adapted the composition and the poses from a sixteenth century engraving after a design by Raphael. Manet simply modernised the clothing, surroundings and accessories. Courbet found the painting formless and flat. This flatness was just what Manet was striving for. Illumination seems to come from the direction of the observer, and eliminates mass. By this painting Manet pointed out his belief that the important thing about a picture is not what it represents but how it is painted. The erasure of form allows him to concentrate on the luminosity of the green grass and foliage, the sparkling remains of the picnic, and the glowing flesh of the nude. By posing an insoluble enigma of subject, he has transformed a group of figures into a still life.