Édouard Manet: "Color is a matter of taste and sensitivity"

• "Color is a matter of taste and sensitivity".

• "Every new painting is like throwing myself into the water without knowing how to swim.".

• "I paint as I feel like painting; to hell with all their studies".

Camille Corot (1796-1875) | Lo stile

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot Corot è una delle figure più significative della pittura di paesaggio. Le sue opere, infatti, attingono a piene mani dalla tradizione neoclassica e, al contempo, anticipano le innovazioni en plein air dell'Impressionismo.

Claude Monet, nel 1897, avrebbe detto di lui: «Qui c'è un solo grande maestro: Corot. Non siamo nulla nei suoi confronti, nulla».

Né il suo contributo nella pittura di figura è meno importante: Edgar Degas, altro noto pittore impressionista, preferiva le sue figure rispetto ai suoi paesaggi, e in tal senso Corot esercitò un'influenza che traspare persino nelle tele di Pablo Picasso. Nella sua vita eseguì più di tremila dipinti ed era considerato dai contemporanei come uno dei massimi paesaggisti mai esistiti, a lato di nomi illustri come Claude Lorrain, John Constable e J. M. W. Turner.

Padovanino, Alessandro Varotari | The Archangel Michael

Padovanino or Varotari Alessandro Leone (4 April 1588 - 20 July 1649), also commonly known as Il Padovanino, was an Italian painter** of the late-Mannerist and early-Baroque** Venetian school, best known for having mentored Pietro Liberi, Giulio Carpioni, and Bartolommeo Scaligero.

William Bouguereau | The Water Girl, 1885

One of Bouguereau’s favorite motifs was the idealized peasant girl dreamily engaged in rustic activities.

The innocence and simple grace of this subject (cleaner than her real-life counterparts would have been) epitomize the sentimental, non-threatening peasant archetype especially preferred by Bouguereau’s upper-class and American patrons.

Viktor Sheleg (Russian, 1962)

Viktor Sheleg was born in Lomonosov, near Saint-Petersberg, Russia. His family moved to Latvia when he was three.

Viktor has been drawing since early childhood and started painting at the age of twelve. Self-taught, his creativity is based on his personal worldview, which earned him a solid reputation of an independent artist.

Sheleg developed his style and aesthetic preference in a country isolated from the rest of the world and known for its climate of conformity.

The artist himself says that his work is inspired by chaos and that his painting is guided by emotions and energy. He lives and works in Riga, Latvia.

Édouard Manet and Paris

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) depicted many scenes of the streets of Paris in his works.

The Rue Mosnier Decked with Flags depicts red, white, and blue pennants covering buildings on either side of the street; another painting of the same title features a one-legged man walking with crutches.

Again depicting the same street, but this time in a different context, is Rue Mosnier with Pavers, in which men repair the roadway while people and horses move past.

The Railway, widely known as The Gare Saint-Lazare, was painted in 1873.

Édouard Manet e l'Impressionismo

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) viene giustamente inserito nella genealogia dell'Impressionismo.

Egli, infatti, fu l'artefice di una pittura priva di forti variazioni chiaroscurali, e più sensibile al contrasto e alle armonie fra i colori piuttosto che alla definizione dei volumi: queste peculiarità, se da un lato furono accolte molto freddamente da molti, dall'altro giocarono un ruolo fondamentale nell'affermazione della pittura impressionista, animata da artisti come Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne, Bazille ed altri.