Impressionism. Nathalia Brodskaya

      The portrait of another friend, Théodore Duret, has a more official look. Duret, whom Manet called “the last dandy,” is depicted standing in an elegant outfit, cane in hand. In the painting’s grey-brown colours, contemporaries saw the customary influence of Spanish painting. It may have been intentional: the two men had met during Manet’s trip to Spain in 1865.

      Duret, as an art critic was, at first, rather critical of Manet, disconcerted by the artist’s sketch-like pictorial style. Nevertheless, he soon became an ardent admirer, not only of Manet, but of his Impressionist friends, as well. In 1878 he published his first serious work: History of the Impressionist Painters. It was Duret who described Manet’s working method, which he had witnessed in Manet’s studio. Duret had grasped the essential thing about his friend’s work: Manet was born a painter the way one is born with perfect pitch. He saw his future painting in colours the same way Michelangelo felt his yet unformed sculpture in a block of stone. And whatever Manet painted, colour alone was both an end and a means.

      In Manet’s work it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a portrait from a scene of everyday life, even if one eliminates the instances where Manet asked his friends to pose for paintings, such as Luncheon on the Grass and The Balcony. Manet’s wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, appears in his canvases seated at the piano. Manet had learned to be aware of those times she gave music lessons to him and his brothers. Suzanne posed, alone or with Léon, in the setting of their apartment or on the beaches of northern France.

      Manet was never indifferent to feminine charm. In the early 1880s he was commissioned by his friend Antonin Proust to paint portrait-panels symbolising the four seasons. For Spring (location unknown), he chose the beautiful actress Jeanne Demarsi; for Autumn, he chose Méry Laurent. An especially warm friendship developed between the painter and this model. Méry Laurent was a Parisian demimondaine. The first time she visited Manet’s studio was in 1876. The painter had been seduced by her elegance and smile, and especially by her pink complexion combined with her dark blonde hair.

      At the same time, he worked on portraits of men, among them the Portrait of Georges Clemenceau at the Tribune painted in 1880. The painter and his model were connected through the many friends they shared. Manet did more than one portrait of his friend from childhood and youth, Antonin Proust, who had given him wonderful memories. The portrait of legendary journalist Henri Rochefort (Hamburg, Kunsthalle) was notable for its unusual emotional resonance.

      Manet revealed himself to be no less demanding when it was a matter of his own appearance. He started painting self-portraits late, in the 1870s, “at the very moment when he was at the peak of his career,” wrote Théodore Duret. In his best Self-Portrait with a Palette (New York, private collection), he depicts himself, as did Velázquez and Rembrandt, examining the expression of his own face. But this was very late in his career, only a few years before his death, after Manet had endured the difficult experience of the war and the Commune.