The Artist

Édouard Manet

French · 1832 - 1883 · Impressionism

Manet sits at the edge of Impressionism — older than Monet and Renoir, more rooted in the Old Masters, but the painter who first scandalized the Paris salons into modernity. Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe shocked critics and cracked open what painting could look at. His later still-lifes, café scenes, and portraits ease back from confrontation into pure observation — and remain some of the most quietly modern images of 19th-century life.