Edouard Manet

“You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and unique figure and still keep it living and real,” said Edouard Manet in 1880

Édouard Manet, the french born painter was one of the first to approach modern and post modern life subjects in his work. Manet explores everyday people in everyday setting. However also drawing great and powerful people of the time. This portayist often looked at the way people interact in spaces, which I am hoping to explore.




This was my favourite piece in the exhibition, this was due to it capturing very normal people, and I found a secne of interaction, I wanted to people able to walk to the people in painting. I really liked the contrasted between the girl standing and the women sitting. I think this could represent a number of things. I think mainly it represents the freedom of being young, where the women has been weighed down by society and what she now knows about life. There also seems to a sense of wanted to break free from the young girl, where as the women has just settled with what life is. It is very interesting the environment in which Manet has chosen to set this piece, the of centre and mysterious setting adds a lot of depth to the painting. It is unclear what is behind the bars, however the young girl still reflects a seance of longing to be on the other side.

Although a lot Manet work is extreemly intresting, when I was at the exhabition in London, the selction of people who had come to see the exhabition excited me more than Manet's work. It was intresting to see how people grouped and formed around verious different paintings and also over hearing aspects of their conversation, which were not only about the art work. I found it very intresting to see the kind of people who came to art galleries in the middle of the day. Also the thing which they spock about was very intresting to me. I treid to capture these through quick fine liner sketches of people.