Lampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Edouard Manet (1832?1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Manet¡¯s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city¡¯s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Dejeuner sur l¡¯herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian¡¯s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal.
With rich illustration, this book introduces Manet¡¯s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.
About the series: Each book in TASCHEN¡¯s Basic Art series features:
a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
a concise biography
approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions
A Wolf in the Spanish Sheepfold 1859-1862
Modernity: Scandal and Triumph 1863-1868
Godfather to the"Manet Gang" 1868-1874
The"Boater"Years 1874-1878
"Greater than We Thought..." 1879-1883
Edouard Manet 1832-1883 Life and Work