Is the Royal Academy’s Manet exhibition really worth the hype? It is worth queuing in the cold to try to see paintings surrounded by crowds sometimes five people deep? The exhibition times have even had to be extended due to a surge in ticket sales.
Edouard Manet was born in 1832 and died in 1883. Although he was friends with painters such as Monet and Degas, he was a realist painter unlike their impressionist style and he steadfastly refused to exhibit with them.
The exhibition was of portraits – there were many of his wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, and of her illegitimate son who was suspected to be his child. He painted many other friends (an example of this is 'Music in the Tuileries Garden’ which is a painting where Manet included many friends and family even though they weren’t actually there at the time) – and he also painted important people of the time including Georges Clemenceau.
When some people attend the exhibition, they may be unsatisfied as some of the paintings appear unfinished. This is partly due to the fact that Manet never intended for many of the portraits to be exhibited or sometimes the sitter was too busy to come and Manet liked to paint from life. Art is also a very personal thing and what some people like, others don’t.
However, most of the paintings are very realistic; Manet was also very unconventional for his time and he painted people in their natural surroundings instead of the traditional settings.
In my opinion the Manet exhibition was a great success. I loved his paintings. Although some weren’t up to the same standards as the others, they clearly weren’t intended for public viewing. His paintings have a real essence of the person about them and almost seem like photos.
