Manet's art Revolutionary
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-09-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 11
To mark the :entenary of (1832-83) a s mall exhibiti Work") is on display at t October.
Manet was a revolutionary painter, strongly influenced by the 'Realist" movement in 19th century art. Realism was a reaction against the conventions of the past: against Romanticism, philosophical idealism, religion and superstition.
It had political implications especially in France (its centre) and grew up in the radical climate after the 1848 Revolution. Realism was not just a movement in painting but also influenced literature including the work of the French bourgeois Balzac and the Russian anarchist Tolstoy.
Courbet and Degas were known as "plebian realists" as they painted ordinary people. Millet concentrated on peasants. Manet, however, painted tbe bourgeois society of Paris.
Values
Realism was revolutionary in its day as it called on art. to portray the world as it was, not as tradition dictated it. It was also highly individualistic and reflected the values of expanding and progressive 19th century capitalism.
Manet's art was later influenced by the Impressionists and their obsession with paint ing the world as it appeared rather than (as for the Realists) how it was.
In this exhibition Manet's Impressionist phase is represented by 'The Banks of the Seine at Argenteuil" (1874), a standard Impressionist-style riverscape. Far more interesting are his earlier (Realist) paintings.
Labour Committee o Ireland, BM Box 535 London WCIN 3XX realism the death of Eduar I Manet on of his work ('N lanet at ne National Gallery until 9 By Albert