"On June 19, 1864, the United States warship Kearsarge sank the Confederate raider Alabama off the coast of Cherbourg, France, in one of the most celebrated naval engagements of the American Civil War. When Kearsarge later anchored off the French resort town of Boulogne-sur-Mer it was thronged by curious visitors, one of whom was the artist Edouard Manet. Although he did not witness the historic battle, Manet made a painting of it partly as an attempt to regain the respect of his colleagues after having been ridiculed for his works in the 1864 Salon. Manet's picture of the naval engagement and his portrait of the victorious Kearsarge belong to a group of his seascapes of Boulogne whose unorthodox perspective and composition would profoundly influence the course of French painting." "Manet's paintings and watercolors related to the battle are considered in depth alongside numerous prints, photographs, letters, and archival newspaper illustrations that illuminate the history of the episode and in some cases dispel lingering misconceptions. Manet's other Boulogne seascapes are also discussed in terms of their complex chronology and evolution. A final chapter touches on some of the sources for the seascapes - from Old Master paintings to Japanese woodblock prints - and traces the influence of the seascapes on such artists as Gustave Courbet, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Claude Monet."--BOOK JACKET.

On June 19, 1864, the U.S. warship Kearsarge sank the Confed. raider Alabama off the coast of Cherbourg, France, in one of the most celebrated naval engagements (NE) of the Amer. Civil War. When Kearsarge later anchored off the French town of Boulogne-sur-Mer it was thronged by curious visitors, one of whom was the artist Edouard Manet. Although he did not witness the battle, Manet made a painting of it. His picture of the NE & his portrait of the Kearsarge belong to a group of seascapes of Boulogne whose unorthodox perspective & composition would profoundly influence the course of French painting. This cat. also discusses Manet¿s early experience of the sea, his other seascapes & the sources that influenced his art. Over 50 full-color and b&w illus.

James McNeill Whistler and France: A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music is the first full-length and in-depth study to position this painter within the overall trajectory of French modernism during the second half of the nineteenth century and to view the artist as integral to the aesthetic projects of its most original contributors. Suzanne M. Singletary maintains that Whistler was in a unique situation as an insider within the emerging French avant-garde, thereby in an enviable position to both absorb and transform the innovations of others – and that until now, his widespread influence as a catalyst among his colleagues has been neither investigated nor appreciated. Singletary contends that Whistler’s importance rivals that of Manet, whose multi-layered (and often unexpected) interconnections with Whistler are the focus of one chapter. In addition, Whistler’s pivotal role in linking the legacies of Baudelaire, Delacroix, Gautier, Wagner, and other mid-century innovators to the later French Symbolists has previously been largely ignored. Courbet, Degas, Monet, and Seurat complete the roster of French artists whose dialogue with Whistler is highlighted.

Manet and the Execution of Emperor Maximillian ISBN 0-87070-423-0 / 978-0-87070-423-9 Paperback, 7.5 x 9.25 in. / 120 pgs / 35 color and 45 b&w. / U.S. $29.95 CDN $36.00 November / Nonfiction and Criticism

Manet is one of the most famous artists from the second half of the nineteenth century linked to the impressionists, although he was not really one of them. He had great influence on French painting partly because of the choice he made for his subjects from everyday life, the use of pure colours, and his fast and free technique. He made, in his own work, the transition between Courbet’s Realism and the work of the impressionists. Born a high bourgeois, he chose to become a painter after failing the entry to the Marine School. He studied with Thomas Couture, an Academic painter, but it was thanks to the numerous travels he made around Europe from 1852 that he started to find out what would become his own style. His first paintings were mostly portraits and genre scenes, inspired by his love for Spanish masters like Velázquez and Goya. In 1863 he presented his masterpiece Luncheon on the Grass at the Salon des Refusés. His work started a fight between the defenders of Academic art and the young “refusés” artists. Manet became the leader of this new generation of artists. From 1864, the official Salon accepted his paintings, still provoking loud protests over works such as Olympia in 1865. In 1866, the writer Zolá wrote an article defending Manet’s work. At that time, Manet was friends with all the future great impressionist masters: Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, and he influenced their work, even though he cannot strictly be counted as one of them. In 1874 indeed, he refused to present his paintings in the First Impressionist Exhibition. His last appearance in the official Salon was in 1882 with A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, one of his most famous works. Suffering from gangrene during the year 1883, he painted flower still-lifes until he became too weak to work. He died leaving behind a great number of drawings and paintings.

Pulitzer-winner Sebastian Smee relives the remarkable birth of Impressionism from the ashes of war Paris, January 1871 – the final, agonising days of the Franco-Prussian War. As the German army cements its advantage, shells rattle through the Left Bank. It is a bitterly cold winter; there is no fuel, no medicine, no food. The city’s poorer citizens have long turned to eating rats, cats and dogs. France has been brought to its knees. Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas are trapped in the besieged city. Renoir and Bazille have joined regiments outside of Paris, while Monet and Pissarro fled the country just in time. Out of the Siege and the Commune, these artists developed a newfound sense of the fragility of life. A feeling for transience – reflected in Impressionism’s emphasis on fugitive light, shifting seasons, glimpsed street scenes, and the impermanence of all things – would change art history forever. This is the extraordinary account of the ‘Terrible Year’ in Paris and its monumental impact on the rise of Impressionism.

Manet is one of the most famous artists from the second half of the nineteenth century linked to the impressionists, although he was not really one of them. He had great influence on French painting partly because of the choice he made for his subjects from everyday life, the use of pure colours, and his fast and free technique. He made, in his own work, the transition between Courbet’s Realism and the work of the impressionists. Born a high bourgeois, he chose to become a painter after failing the entry to the Marine School. He studied with Thomas Couture, an Academic painter, but it was thanks to the numerous travels he made around Europe from 1852 that he started to find out what would become his own style. His first paintings were mostly portraits and genre scenes, inspired by his love for Spanish masters like Velázquez and Goya. In 1863 he presented his masterpiece Luncheon on the Grass at the Salon des Refusés. His work started a fight between the defenders of Academic art and the young “refusés” artists. Manet became the leader of this new generation of artists. From 1864, the official Salon accepted his paintings, still provoking loud protests over works such as Olympia in 1865. In 1866, the writer Zolá wrote an article defending Manet’s work. At that time, Manet was friends with all the future great impressionist masters: Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, and he influenced their work, even though he cannot strictly be counted as one of them. In 1874 indeed, he refused to present his paintings in the First Impressionist Exhibition. His last appearance in the official Salon was in 1882 with A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, one of his most famous works. Suffering from gangrene during the year 1883, he painted flower still-lifes until he became too weak to work. He died leaving behind a great number of drawings and paintings.

Another fascinating book by the author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling: a saga of artistic rivalry and cultural upheaval in the decade leading to the birth of Impressionism. If there were two men who were absolutely central to artistic life in France in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were Edouard Manet and Ernest Meissonier. While the former has been labelled the “Father of Impressionism” and is today a household name, the latter has sunk into obscurity. It is difficult now to believe that in 1864, when this story begins, it was Meissonier who was considered the greatest French artist alive and who received astronomical sums for his work, while Manet was derided for his messy paintings of ordinary people and had great difficulty getting any of his work accepted at the all-important annual Paris Salon. Manet and Meissonier were the Mozart and Salieri of their day, one a dangerous challenge to the establishment, the other beloved by rulers and the public alike for his painstakingly meticulous oil paintings of historical subjects. Out of the fascinating story of their parallel careers, Ross King creates a lens through which to view the political tensions that dogged Louis-Napoleon during the Second Empire, his ignominious downfall, and the bloody Paris Commune of 1871. At the same time, King paints a wonderfully detailed and vivid portrait of life in an era of radical social change. When Manet painted Dejeuner sur l’herbe or Olympia, he shocked not only with his casual brushstrokes but with his subject matter: top-hatted white-collar workers (and their mistresses) were not considered suitable subjects for ‘Art.’ Ross King shows how, benign as they might seem today, these paintings changed the course of history. The struggle between Meissonier and Manet to see their paintings achieve pride of place at the Salon was not just about artistic competitiveness, it was about how to see the world. Full of fantastic tidbits of information and a colourful cast of characters that includes Baudelaire, Courbet and Zola, with walk-on parts for Monet, Renoir, Degas and Cezanne, The Judgment of Paris casts new light on the birth of Impressionism and takes us to the heart of a time in which the modern French identity was being forged.