My Manet – Your Manet

About

The paintings of Edouard Manet (1832-1883) have fascinated me for about sixty years.

Now I want to find out: Why?

After a career as a professor of sociology
and social gerontology, I am engaging
now in a new field of interest as an artist
and blogger about art – especially on
Edouard Manet and figurative art.

Especially, the painting Luncheon on the Grass is puzzling me – as well as countless other viewers. So, I started some research reading about it, but my question was not answered – I found new questions.

In this blog, I want to share my inquiry into Manet: the experience and insights I gained from reading others and the first results from exploring his paintings with diagrams.

The blog is about My Manet – since it is a very personal view, it covers not all of Manet’s work, and is not the view of an art expert.

The blog is about Your Manet – because I would very much like to discuss my view and learn about your view on Manet, whether you are an art expert or not. So, feel encouraged to send me your comments!

The blog is not only about “theory” – about what causes our interest in Manet’s art. The blog is also about “practice” – since I want to explore Manet in my own painting revitalizing a life-long hobby (on-and-off, since I had “better things to do”). The blog is even about “method” – in the sense that I want to develop the diagrams further as we go along.

I will start the blog by presenting an installation about Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass which I prepared for a local art exhibition in January, 2021 –  see page “Installation My Manet” and a video in “My Gallery”. And then we go from there:

In regular posts, I will pick up questions which are raised by this first presentation of My Manet, by your comments, and in reviews of the literature (“My Reading of …”). The posts will also widen the theme to include other paintings of Manet, other painters influenced by Manet, and examples in contemporary figurative painting.

On dedicated pages, I will summarize and consolidate the on-going inquiry in sections.

In a personal gallery, we will collect related paintings or drawings found in the literature, produced on the way by myself, or even contributed by you.

Before we enter the discussion, it might be helpful to clarify my starting point:

My interest goes back to my teenage years in the early ‘60ies– about a hundred years after Manet created the painting in 1863! The little ink drawings below date from the early ‘80ies, about hundred years after Manet’s death.

Figure:  Sketches of Faces after Manet

Many art historians agree that Modern Art started with Manet – but I knew little about art history when I first encountered the painting and could not appreciate their “revolutionary” character. So my fascination must have other reasons.

Art critics have published a wealth of literature on the social and historical context of Manet’s time
– but in my youth I was not interested in social history or the emergence of “The Painting of Modern Life” (Clark), and Manet certainly did not incite any political interests.

The fascination must have arisen from the painting itself – but what was I “seeing” or “seeing-in” the painting?
Formal aesthetic qualities seemed to have little impact. Actually, I liked other painters more (Vlaminck, Matisse), although my favourites changed over the years.
Many critics claim that Manet shows problems with composition, especially, in his earlier works.
I found this somehow unconvincing.
Then a few years ago, in some antiquarian bookshop, I ran into Bild und Blick in Manets Malerei (Picture and Gaze in Manet’s Painting) by Michael Lüthy (2003).

This got me started!
The secret was hidden in the way Manet created social relations through the gazes of people, both inside the painting and with people outside the painting.
Unfortunately (in my mother’s eyes), it turned out that I had more interest in social relations then in finding ways to paint them.
So, I chose a professional life in sociology – and only now, many years later, I revitalize my interest in My Manet.

If you want to join me in my journey  – or simply comment on my view on Manet – you are invited to follow my posts and browse through the content pages and the gallery. 

Meet you there!

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