Arts: Manet

In 1874 Edouard Manet exhibited in the Salon a little oil a foot wideand less than two feet high. Nobody thought much of Manet. Jean Baptiste Faure, a singer who had the sort of immense popular recognition that Manet dreamed about, bought this picture, “Punchinello,” for a few francs. He sold it four years later for $400. Last week at a sale in the Hotel Drouot,Paris, “Punchinello” brought $17,000.

Edouard Manet (1832-83) was among the first of the Impressionists. He has been consistently confused with his contemporary, Monet, by people who cannot tell black from white. Manet’s figures are flat; Monet’s trees and seas and flowery forests leap with a wind of movement. Manet loved light; Monet loved shading. Manet painted with a brush as broad as a glance of the eye; Monet put his color on in tiny dots. Manet saw life as a gleam; Monet saw it as a shimmer. It was late in life that Manet came to recognition; he was laughed at until a day when the Empress Eugenie stood in front of a canvas of his and said, “Oh, I like that. …” He has made money for the people who bought his early pictures.