Manet, Edouard

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Edouard Manet was a French painter. His early masterworks The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia engendered great controversy, and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism--today they are considered watershed paintings which mark the genesis of modern art. One of the first 19th century artists to approach modern-life subjects, his art bridged the gap between Realism and Impressionism. From 1850 to 1856, after failing the examination to join the navy, Manet studied under the academic painter Thomas Couture. In his spare time he copied the old masters in the Louvre. He visited Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, during which time he absorbed the influences of the Dutch painter Frans Hals, and the Spanish artists Diego Velazquez and Francisco José de Goya. He became friends with the impressionists Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cezanne, and Camille Pissarro, in part through his sister-in-law Berthe Morisot, who was a member of the group. Manet painted his last major work, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère), in 1881-1882 and it hung in the Salon that year.

Manet died of untreated syphilis, which caused much pain and partial paralysis from locomotor ataxia in his later years. His left foot was amputated because of gangrene 11 days before he died. He died in Paris in 1883 and is buried in the city's Cimetière de Passy. In 2000, one of his paintings sold for over $20 million.