The Jeu de Paume Museum [antikvár]

Preface Towards the years 1862-1863, a group of young painters decided to rediscover nature. Instead of continuing to transpose it in the light of their studios, they would set up their easels in the open air. Making use of new discoveries in the field of science, they juxtaposed pure colours and thus obtained values which enabled them to render sensation, atmosphere, impression. Corot and Delacroix had shown the way (Fantin-Latour expressed their gratitude to Delacroix just after the Master's death in his Tribute to Delacroix). Manet was to be at the centre of this group of young artists, which Fantin commemorated a few years later in The Studio at Les Batignolles. He exhibited Lunch on the Grass and Bathing at the "Salon of the Rejected" in 1963, but the Emperor preferred Cabanel's Birth of Venus, which he bought at the official Salon. A comparison of the two works shows how disconcerting was this new art which rejected all pictural artifices and relied on contrast and the opposition of colours applied with wide brush-strokes. Two years later, at the Salon of 1865, the critics attacked Olympia even more violently. Amidst all this incomprehension, however, a few voices were raised in defense of Manet, while Zola wrote with surprising foresight that "Fate has without doubt already chosen the Louvre as the future home of Olympia and Lunch on the Grass. Bazille, Monet, Sisley and Renoir were more attracted to the open air than was Manet. They would meet in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where Daubigny had been one of the first to set up his easel. They received advice from Courbet and Diaz, whom they also met in Normandy, where Boudin and Jongkind helped them to discover the sea. These years of intense work, during which they were often living in great poverty, gave birth to works which attracted as yet little notice from the public. The 1870 Salon, the last of the Second Empire, saw the triumph of Regnault's Salomé. Cézanne had submitted the portrait of his friend Emperaire (admittedly in a spirit of bravado) to the same Salon, where it was naturally refused. War broke out shortly after and the group was dispersed. Bazille, killed at Beaunela-Rolande, was not to return.