IIId The Conditions of Art 519

(From its fur black and brown/Comes a perfume so soft, that one evening/1 was embalmed
in it for having/Caressed it once... only once.)

C’est I’esprit familier du lieu;

II juge, il preside, il inspire • i
jmb
Toutes choses dans son empire;
J E Ili
Peut-etre est-il fee, est-il dieu?
(It is the familiar spirit of the place;/It judges, it presides, it inspires/All things in its
empire;/Perhaps it is a sprite, is it a god?)
Monsieur Manet, instead of Monsieur Astruc’s verses, would perhaps have done
well to take as epigraph the quatrain devoted to Goya by the most advanced painter of
our epoch:
GOYA - Cauchemar plein de choses inconnues,
De foetus qu’on fait cuire au milieu des sabbats,
De vieilles au miroir et d’enfants toutes nues
Pour tenter les demons ajustant bien leurs has.

(Goya - Nightmare full ofunknown things/ Ofa foetus cooked in the middle ofa sabbath/
Of old women at a mirror and naked girls/ Straightening their stockings to tempt demons)
Perhaps this olla podrida de toutes les Castilles is not flattering for Monsieur Manet,
but all the same it is something. One does not make an Olympia simply by wanting to.
- The Christ would call for a certain technical analysis which we do not have time to
give. - To summarize, it is hideous, but all the same it is something. A painter is in
evidence, and the strange group is bathed in light.

13 Edouard Manet (1832—1883) ‘Reasons for Holding a Private

Exhibition’

The Salon jury of 1866 rejected both Manet’s Filer and his Tragic Actor. The next year he
was apparently ignored when a large exhibition of French art was being prepared for the
Paris World’s Fair. Following Courbet’s precedent he took matters into his own hands and
mounted a private exhibition of fifty of his works in a specially erected wooden building at
the Pont de I’Alma, near the exhibition site. The following statement was printed as a
foreword to the catalogue. Its message, like that of Courbet’s statement of 1855, was that
it was merely the artist’s individuality that had aroused hostile reactions to his work, and
that if the members of the public could only be allowed to judge for themselves they would
be persuaded of his sincerity. In fact the venture attracted no significant attention from the
public or the press. The statement was subsequently published in Jacques de Biez, Edouard
Manet, Paris, 1884, and was reprinted in Pierre Cailler and Pierre Courthion (eds), Manet
raconte par luHTieme et parses amis, Geneva, 1953. This translation by Michael Ross is
taken from the English version of the latter publication. Portrait of Manet by Himselfand His
Contemporaries, London: Cassell, 1960, pp. 60-1. The ellipsis is in the original.

Monsieur Manet has been exhibiting or trying to exhibit his pictures since 1861.
This year he has decided to present to the public the whole of his work.
520 Modernity and Bourgeois Life

When he first showed in the Salon, Monsieur Manet received a good notice. But
later, when he found that he was so often turned down by the jury, he realized that the
first stage in an artist’s career is a battle, which at least should be fought on equal
terms, that is to say that the artist should be able to show the public what he has
done.... Without this opportunity, the painter would become too easily imprisoned
in a circle from which there is no escape. He would be forced to make a pile of his
canvases or roll them up in an attic.
Official recognition, encouragements and rewards are in fact regarded as a hall­
mark of talent; the public have been informed already what to admire and what to
avoid, according to whether the works are accepted or rejected. On the other hand an
artist is told that it is the public’s spontaneous reaction to his pictures which makes
them so unwelcome to the various selection committees. In these circumstances the
artist has been advised to wait; but wait for what.? Until there is no selection
committee.? He would be much better off if he could thrash the question out directly
with the public. The artist today is not saying. Come and see some perfect pictures,
but. Come and see some sincere ones.
It is sincerity which gives to works of art a character which makes them appear an
act of protest, when in fact the painter has only thought of rendering his own
impressions.
Monsieur Manet has never wished to protest. On the contrary, the protest, entirely
unexpected on his part, has been directed against himself; this is because there is a
traditional way of teaching form, methods and manner of looking at a picture, and
because those who have been brought up to believe in these principles will admit no
others. It makes them childishly intolerant. Any works which do not conform to these
formulas they regard as worthless; they not only provoke criticism, but hostility and
even active hostility. To be able to exhibit is the vital concern, the sine qua non for the
artist, because it happens that after looking at something for some while, one becomes
familiar with what seemed before to be surprising, or if you will, shocking. Little by
little it becomes understood and accepted. Time itself imperceptibly refines and
softens the original hardness of a picture.
By exhibiting, an artist finds friends and allies in his struggle for recognition.
Monsieur Manet has always recognized talent where he has met it; he has had no
pretensions to overthrow old methods of painting or to create new ones. He has
simply tried to be himself and no one else.
Further, Monsieur Manet has met with valuable encouragement and recognizes
how, day by day, the opinion of men of real discernment is becoming more favourable.
It only remains now for the artist to regain the goodwill of a public who have been
taught to regard him as an enemy.

14 Eugene Boudin (1824—1898) Letters to Martin

Boudin was a regular exhibitor in the Salon between 1863 and 1897, and in 1874 was
included in the first exhibition of the Independent artists - subsequently the Impressionists
(see IVa10-13). He concentrated increasingly on paintings of the harbours and beaches of
Northern France. The works for which he became best known were relatively small in scale,