MANET, ma'na', EDOUARD ( 1833-83). A French genre and portrait painter, the founder of the Impressionist School. He was born at Paris, of a family of magistrates, who desired him to follow the same career. After completing his studies at the College Rollin, at Paris, be was sent to Rio de Janeiro, in the hope of changing his determination to become a painter. Persisting in his design, upon his return to Paris in 1850 he entered the studio of Couture, with whom he worked six years. He then traveled in Germany, Holland. and Italy, studying the old masters, especially the works of Tintoretto at Venice, whose influence is evident in a series. of religious pictures painted about this time. He eventual ly evolved a style of his own, which broke abso lutely with tradition, and revolutionized modern painting. One chief characteristic of this style is the substitution of actual values of color (q.v.)., as they are in nature, for the relative or corresponding values of the studio. (See 111 PRESSIONI ST SCHOOL OF PAINTING.) Another was a broad execution, in which he gave the predominating local color, ignoring the minor variations, thus giving the general effect, to the effacement of detail and modeling.
Among the best known of his early works were: the "Absinthe Drinker" (18601. showing the in fluence of Couture: "Boy with a Sword" (1860), Metropolitan Museum, New York; "Guitar Play er" (1861) ; the "Fifer:" "Le bon bock," a por trait of the engraver Belot enjoying a glass of beer. His "Dejeuner sur l'herbe" ("Breakfast
on the Crass"), in which two nude female figures were contrasted with clothed men, raised a storm of misdirected indignation. His other works in elude: a "Dead Christ and Angels," "Olympia" (1865) ; "Music Lesson" (1870) ; the "Garden" (1870). his first real plein air painting: the "Railroad" (1874) ; "Nana" (1876) ; "Bar at Folies-Bergere" (1882) ; "Jeanne" (1882). He also executed a number of pastels, and engraved a series of his works (published, 1S74), besides illustrating Cros's Le fictive, Champfleury's Les chats, and Poe's Raven.
Painting of so revolutionary a character raised much criticism, in which Mallet's part was ably taken by his friend Zola. Ilis frequent choice of subjects from low life also militated against his popularity. The Salon was usually closed against him and he was forced to hold separate ex hibitions. lie did not receive the Legion of Honor till 1882, and not until after his death was his importance fully realized. He was a highly cultured man, of great wit and social charms. IIis death occurred at Paris, April :30, 1883.
Consult: Zola, Edouard Manet: Etude bio graphique et critique (Paris. 1867) ; and the biographies by Basire (Paris, 1884) : Gone, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. i. ISS-1 ) Beckwith, in Van Dyke, Modern French Masters (New York, 1896).