Édouard Manet - Boating [1874]

Édouard Manet - Boating [1874], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the summer of 1874, Manet was staying outside Paris at Gennevilliers, not far from the house in Argenteuil that he had found for the Monet family. He had refused to participate in the independent exhibition organised in the spring by the newly dubbed Impressionists. Nonetheless, Manet clearly wished to adopt the high-keyed palette, sketch-like brushwork, and subject matter centered on leisurely pursuits of his young colleagues. Boating is the manifesto of Manet's new allegiance to Impressionism.

Manet's biographers recount that Rodolphe Leenhoff, the painter's brother-in-law, posed for the figure of the sailor. The simplicity of the composition and the use of broad planes of colour accented by strong diagonals reveal Manet's admiration for Japanese colour wood-block prints. The artist Mary Cassatt, who recommended this acquisition to the New York collectors Louisine and H. O. Havemeyer, called it "the last word in painting."

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm]