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The Modernism of Manet and Seurat
Modern Form and Divisionism at the Service of the Subject
Édouard Manet and Georges Seurat are among the revered precursors of modern and abstract art. However, this should not distract from the fact that they created a new style of painting which captured the extraordinary modernisation of the second half of the nineteenth century.
Chapter 1 - Édouard Manet, The Old Musician, Formal Study
A formal study of Manet's Old Musician (1862), which is now housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, helps us to understand how, as a respectful heir to the masters, Manet was knocking on the doors of modernity in his painting a year before he began work on The Luncheon on the Grass (1863).
Chapter 2 - Édouard Manet, The Old Musician, Iconographic Study
Could the supposed technical shortcomings of The Old Musician be a way for the painter to depict the changes to Paris during the reign of Baron Haussmann? Through the identification of each of these characters, and in light of the social history of Paris, we will discover how Manet revisits traditional history painting in his own way. Interpretation by English historian T. J. Clark.
Chapter 3 - Édouard Manet, Argenteuil
When non-academic form serves the subject. A formal study of Argenteuil (1874) from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai reveals that Édouard Manet neglected perspective and the famous academic finish. Perhaps he used his abrupt style to convey the social and sanitary reality of a Seine submerged by its sewers, creating a modern painting that amused Bertall and the public. The following year, Berthe Morisot addressed the issue of hygiene in the Seine in her painting Hanging the Laundry out to Dry, which is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Chapter 4 - Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnières, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Modernist historians, particularly the influential Alfred Barr of MoMA, elevated Georges Seurat to the status of a precursor of modern art. His most famous work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, is now exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and was first shown at the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886. The painting applies Chevreul and Rood's rules of optical mixing of primary colours, giving rise to Divisionism, also known as Pointillism. While he inspired future abstract painters, he also depicted his own era using an adapted pictorial language.
Bibliography
Timothy James Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers, Princetone University Press, 1985
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