MANET
AND THE
PAINTERS OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE
Alan
Krell
"Brilliant and very well illustrated." —The Art Quarterly
Rejecting
the traditional "histories" and "mythologies" that won official acclaim,
Manet turned instead to the life of his own time in order to challenge
the society in which he lived. He confronted his age by engaging with
a Realist, rather than Impressionist, tradition, while at the same
time drawing on the masters of the past: Raphael, Titian, Velasquez,
and Goya. In this incisive and well-researched study, Alan Krell examines
the artist's known intentions and the critical, sometimes bitterly
hostile reception that he encountered, and compares Manet's progressive,
modern views—on sexuality, on the position of women, on the
family—to Impressionists like Monet, Degas, and Morisot.
Rejecting
the traditional "histories" and "mythologies" that won official acclaim,
Manet turned instead to the life of his own time in order to challenge
the society in which he lived. He confronted his age by engaging with
a Realist, rather than Impressionist, tradition, while at the same
time drawing on the masters of the past: Raphael, Titian, Velasquez,
and Goya. In this incisive and well-researched study, Alan Krell examines
the artist's known intentions and the critical, sometimes bitterly
hostile reception that he encountered, and compares Manet's progressive,
modern views—on sexuality, on the position of women, on the
family—to Impressionists like Monet, Degas, and Morisot.