6 Surprising Painting Quotes by Édouard Manet

Painter's Digest | January 26, 2016 | Just for Fun

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What Was He Thinking: Did Syphilis Cloud His Mind?

While at the time he was not celebrated as a great painter, Édouard Manet is today considered one of greats of his day. He is in fact considered by many to be the father of modern art.

He chose to paint “regular folks”…people of a lower station than the popular artists of his day would deign to paint. Perhaps he got to close to some of his subjects as regrettably he died of syphilis at just 51 years of age.

Manet to Claude Monet about Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
“He has no talent at all, that boy! You, who are his friend, tell him please to give up painting.”
On insults:
“No one knows what it feels like to be constantly insulted. It sickens and destroys you… The fools! They’ve never stopped telling me I’m inconsistent; they couldn’t have said anything more flattering.”
On nature:
“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.”
On staying off task:
“You must always remain master of the situation and do what you please. No school tasks, ah, no! No tasks!”
On craft:
“It is not enough to know your craft – you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.”
On the real audience:
“If I’m lucky, when I paint, first my patrons leave the room, then my dealers, and if I’m really lucky I leave too. “

Whether his thoughts on painting, other artists, patrons, and art dealers were affected by his illness we’ll probably never know. But artists of today owe a large debt to Manet and his contemporaries for paving the way for us to break the rules and follow our own vision.

No school tasks, indeed!

Thanks to Alyssa Buffenstein and ArtNetNews for the original article, which can be read here.

Drawing of Édouard Manet by Henri Fantin-Latour.
Image: Courtesy of Hulton Archive/Getty Images.