Rendering 1 (Painting)

The article I'd like to analyze is taken from The Telegraph and is headlined "Manet, at Royal Academy, review". It was published on January 28^th, 2013, by Alastair Smart.

The article covers exhibition of works by Édouard Manet at Royal Academy in London. Thus, its major theme is the celebrated French artist’s contribution to art, as well as his personality and relationships with his sitters. The author starts with condemning others for little knowledge of the painter and his works and continues by providing some facts from Manet’s biography. Mr. Smart stresses the importance of the artist’s coming from a wealthy family, due to which the painter never had to seek commissions for financial reasons, and this gave him the freedom to experiment. Due to the author’s point of view, in many of Manet’s canvases it wasn’t simply the subject matter that was modern but the technique, for the brushwork was deliberately sketchy, for what he is now referred to Impressionalists. But – and Alastair Smart stresses the importance of that – the artist’s real creativity and innovation primarily displayed itself in the fact that Édouard Manet was among the first to include family and friends in his “genre scenes.” In addition, it’s revealed that in some works the painter’s relationships with his sitters are reflected, such as the ones with purportedly illegitimate son or with a possible lover who married another person.

In conclusion the author suggests that portraiture is the result of a complex relation between sitter and painter, and that surely our appreciation of Manet’s greatness would be even richer if we knew some facts from his biography. I share this point of view and only wish we could not only look at, but also to see.