Édouard Manet quotes

Édouard Manet was a pioneering French painter and a key figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His bold brushwork and modern subjects challenged traditional art conventions of his time. He played a crucial role in inspiring and supporting the younger Impressionist artists. Here are 42 of his quotes:

One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.

Édouard Manet

Who is this Monet whose name sounds just like mine and who is taking advantage of my notoriety?

Édouard Manet

You must always remain master of the situation and do what you please. No school tasks, ah, no! no tasks!

Édouard Manet

My dear Zola, - I am making up my mind to hold a private show. I have at least two score pictures to exhibit. I've already already been offered a site in a very good location near the Champ de Mars. I am going to stake the lot and seconded by men like yourself, am hopeful of success. See you soon. Cordially, yours ever, All of us here are delighted with your article, and I am instructed to send you thanks.

Édouard Manet

I never imagined that France could be represented by such doddering old fools, not excepting that little twit Thiers...

Édouard Manet

I spent a long time, my dear Suzanne, looking for your photograph - I eventually found the album in the table in the drawing room, so I can look at your comforting face from time to time. I woke up last night thinking I heard you calling me... Every day we're expecting a major offensive to break through the iron ring that surrounds us. We are counting on the provinces, because we can't just send our little [French] army of to be massacred. Those devious Prussians may well try to starve us out.

Édouard Manet

No one knows what it feels like to be constantly insulted [by art-critics in Paris]. It sickens and destroys you... The fools! They've never stopped telling me I'm inconsistent [in his painting style]; they couldn't have said anything more flattering.

Édouard Manet

We have reached that delightful moment when 'Impressionism' is about to be born, when its light (the formula for which has yet to be found) is still only a hint, a caress, in the silvery snows of Monet or in the pale skies of Pissarro. Ah, how one would like to prolong this moment of hesitation for ever, this moment of transition, when transparent blue shadows are putting black shadows to flight and bitumen disappears!

Édouard Manet

I don't know why I'm here. Everything before our eyes is ridiculous. The light is wrong, the shadows are wrong. When I enter in the studio I feel like I am entering a tomb [in the studio of their common art-teacher Thoman Couture ]. I know we can't make a model undress in the street. But there are fields, and at least in the summer we could do studies of the nude in the country, since the nude appears to be the first and the last word in art.

Édouard Manet

There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.

Édouard Manet

You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and universal figure and still keep it living and real.

Édouard Manet

There is only one true thing: instantly paint what you see. When you've got it, you've got it. When you haven't, you begin again. All the rest is humbug.

Édouard Manet

No one can be a painter unless he cares for painting above all else.

Édouard Manet

You can do plein-air painting indoors, [to his pupil then, Berthe Morisot ] by painting white in the morning, lilac during the day and orange tones in the evening.

Édouard Manet

Goodbye my dear Suzanne [his wife], your portraits are hanging in every corner of the bedroom, so I see you first and last thing..

Édouard Manet

Ah! Women... I met one yesterday on the Pont de l'Europe [in Paris, circa 1881 - Manet was walking through the city frequently with his friend Antonin Proust, but then already more or less cripple because of his syphilis]. She was walking the way only a Parisienne knows how to walk, but with an extra something, even more assured. I'll remember that. There are some things that will always be engraved on my mind.

Édouard Manet

I should be going with Champfleury and Stevens, but they keep putting it off. Anyway, they are bloody bores. Excuse the unseeming language, but since my letter is not for publication, I can say what I please. Touché.

Édouard Manet

He has no talent at all, that boy! You, who are his friend, tell him please to give up painting.

Édouard Manet

I am influenced by everybody. [and Willem de Kooning admitted: 'every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there'].

Édouard Manet

I was painting modern Paris while you were still painting Greek athletes..

Édouard Manet

In art, conciseness is both a necessity and a luxury; a concise man provokes thought, a wordy man provokes boredom; always move towards conciseness. In the figure, look for the main light and the main shadow, the rest will come of itself: often, it amounts to very little.

Édouard Manet

What a pelisse! It's tawny brown with an old gold lining – staggering. It will make a wonderful background for some things I'm thinking of doing. Promise that when it's worn out you'll give it to me.

Édouard Manet