Manet and Modernism

Manet’s name has come to signify the revolutionary changes that we study as the origin of Modernism. Taking this almost mythic stature as its starting point, this course subjects Manet’s art to detailed analysis in order to understand why contemporary critics and subsequent art historians have attached such extraordinary significance to one man’s work.

The five two-hourly sessions will be arranged as follows:

1. Manet’s Paris – Focusing on the political, economic and social changes that form the context for Manet and Impressionism.
2. Manet’s Sources – Looking back rather than forward, this session considers Manet’s connection to his forerunners and his own claim that he had ‘no intention of overthrowing old methods of painting, or creating new ones’.
3. Manet’s Modernity – Whatever Manet himself may have said of his intentions, contemporary critics were clear that he was a ‘symptomatic precursor of a revolution’ in painting.
4. Manet’s Music – Drawing on recent research, this session offers new interpretations of Manet’s musical subjects, from The Spanish Guitar and Madame Manet at the Piano to Music in the Tuileries Gardens. 
5. Manet’s Legacy – Clement Greenberg famously called Manet ‘the gateway to contemporary painting’. This session explores his reasons, together with Manet’s remarkable influence.