Edouard Manet Quotes

There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.

Qui donc a dit que le dessin est l'écriture de la forme? La vérité est que l'art doit être l'écriture de la vie.

Il serait beaucoup plus intéressant de comparer cette peinture simplifiée avec les gravures japonaises qui lui ressemblent par leur élégance étrange et leurs taches magnifiques. L'impression première que produit une toile d'Edouard Manet est un peu dure. On n'est pas habitué à voir des traductions aussi simples et aussi sincères de la réalité.

It was not until 1869 that Claude Monet became a friend of Edouard Manet, joining Manet’s circle, which by now included Zola, Cézanne, and Degas.

The painter, Edouard Manet, once observed: “There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another.

He was witness to a Paris in ruins, with ashes and destruction everywhere. But despite the terrible damage and the enormous amount of suffering, the shattered city was already showing surprising signs of life. The day after the Commune had been annihilated, Goncourt sanguinely wrote: “This evening one can hear the movement of Parisian life starting up again, and its murmur like a distant tide.” Two days later, he added: “Across the paving-stones which are being replaced, the people of Paris, dressed in their travelling-clothes, are swarming in to take possession of their city once more.” Zola, writing to Cézanne soon after his return, put it more succinctly: “Paris is coming to life again.” Sarah Bernhardt agreed. One morning soon after her own return, she received a notice of rehearsal from the Odéon theater. “I shook out my hair,” she wrote, “stamped my feet, and sniffed the air like a young horse snorting.” She had realized, with typical exuberance, that “life was commencing again.” But perhaps Edouard Manet put it best of all. Writing to Berthe Morisot on June 10, he told her, “I hope, Mademoiselle, that you will not stay a long time in Cherbourg. Everybody is returning to Paris; besides, it’s impossible to live anywhere else.