Boating
Boating
Édouard Manet · 1874
01
Summer 1874. The Seine.
Manet is staying at Gennevilliers.
Across the river, at Argenteuil: Monet. Renoir.
02
No horizon.
No shore. No sky.
Water, right up to the top edge.
03
Top right: a sliver of sail.
The boom runs out of the frame.
Cropped, the way Japanese prints crop.
04
The man in the straw hat is family.
Rodolphe Leenhoff.
Manet's brother-in-law. Probably.
05
Beside him, a woman in a veil.
Blue and white stripes.
Nobody knows who she is.
The whole canvas.
Still no horizon.
“the last word in painting”
1879
The Salon of 1879. Critics call it rough.
Too sketchy.
Cassatt disagrees.
1895: she tells the Havemeyers to buy it.
1929: Louisine Havemeyer leaves it to the Met.
Édouard Manet
French · Realism · 1832 to 1883
Sources · 4
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