As an imaginative painter, Manet found his means of expression neither in the soil, nor in things related thereto, but in the sky, or, more precisely, in light and atmosphere. With these he gave to objects near by, or in the middle distance, or afar off, those correct values which before his day were either unnoticed, or else ignored.
White Lilac in Glass Vase Art Print
Manet, Édouard
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Manet has said: “The principal person in a picture is the light.” Now it is complained that, in his over-attention to atmospheres, Manet never modeled to anything like roundness, and so his figures seem flat and
the general impression is that of flatness, a defect common to his school. Besides it should be noted that, whereas ideas are permanent, pigments fade and with that fading les values and la tache–those excellencies obtained by obliterating half-tones and obscuring details–will have disappeared, thus making prophetic the words of that real Impressionist Monet, he whose style had been greatly influenced by Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed and his ice and snow effects and those of sunlight and mist: “Perhaps I sacrifice too much to lightness and brightness, but these are essentials of the landscape.”
