Edouard Manet (1832 – 1883)
French painter.
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You must always remain master of the situation and do what you please. No school tasks, ah, no! no tasks!
I am influenced by everbody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there.
In a face, look for the main light and the main shadow; the rest will come naturally — it's often not important. And then you must cultivate your memory, because Nature will only provide you with references. Nature is like a warden in a lunatic asylum. It stops you from becoming banal.
The leader, the hero of Realism, is now Manet. His partisans are frenzied and his detractors timid. It would seem that, if one refuses to accept Manet, one must fear being taken for a philistine, a bourgeois , a Joseph Prudhomme [JP, created by caricaturist Henri Monnier, was a personification of the vulgar self satisfied bourgeois who grew up under the July Monarchy], an idiot who cares for nothing but miniatures and painted porcelain[-]one examines oneself with a sort of horror[-]to discover whether one has become obese or bald, incapable of understanding the audacities of youth.
Conciseness in art is essential and a refinement. The concise man makes one think; the verbose bores. Always work towards conciseness.
Only party hacks and the ambitious, the Henrys of this world following on the heels of the Milliéres, the grotesque imitators of the Commune of 1793... What an encouragement all these bloodthirsty caperings are for the arts! But there is at least one consolation in our misfortunes: that we're not politicians and have no desire to be elected as deputies.
One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.
I never imagined that France could be represented by such doddering old fools, not excepting that little twit Thiers...
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