Manet and the Etching Revival
We are pleased to present an exceedingly rare, complete set of 30 etchings with aquatint by Édouard Manet (1832-1883), the “painter of modern life” and “father of modernism.” Manet. Trente eaux-fortes originales was printed in Paris by the Swiss-born art dealer, publisher, and collector Alfred Strölin. The etchings are accompanied by an introduction and index by the French author and art critic Théodore Duret, one of Manet's greatest champions, and a heliogravure portrait of Manet by Henri Fantin-Latour, an extraction from the latter’s celebrated canvas Hommage à Delacroix.
Henri Fantin-Latour. Heliogravure of Édouard Manet, from the cover of Manet. Trente eaux-fortes originales. Paris, A. Strölin, 1905.
See the full description of this copy here.
The early 1860s was a critical period for Manet and modern art in general. As Duret explains, this was when the artist was most fascinated with Spanish themes, taking as his subjects the various singing and dancing troops that made their way into Parisian entertainment; in turn this helped fuel his interest in the representation of modern everyday life. In 1861, as a young artist of only twenty-nine years, Manet received honourable mention at the tremendously important Paris Salon with Le Guitarrero ('The Spanish Singer') followed by great notoriety at the 1863 Salon des Refusés with the scandalous Déjeuner sur l'herbe, and greater notoriety still with his Olympia, exhibited in 1865. These works and others laid the foundation of Manet’s reputation for challenging academic conventions of representation and subject matter as they reformed both what was being shown and how it was being presented.
Édouard Manet, Le Guitarrero (The Spanish Singer), 1861. Etching based on Manet’s eponymous painting, exhibited at the Salon in 1861.
In the same years – the early 1860s – the medium of etching was being rediscovered. The so-called “etching revival” – which spanned roughly 1850 to 1930 in various countries but especially France, England, and the United States – is characterized by the medium’s re-embrace by artists who celebrated it as an original art form. Of course, there had been etching greats in the past, like Rembrandt and Goya, who were deeply influential to the artists of the revival. But by the mid-nineteenth century, etching had come to be seen primarily as an instrument for reproducing paintings. With Manet and his generation, artists became more intrigued with exploring the properties of the medium to create non-reproductive, “original” works of art.
One of the most significant moments of the revival was the establishment of the Société des Aquafortistes in 1862, of which Manet was a founding member. The Society, which aimed to promote etching among artists and the public alike, was established at the urging of the skilled etcher Alphonse Legros. As with other painters, Manet joined the Society new to the graphic arts, and it was Legros who taught him the ropes. Félix Bracquemond would also be an important figure and technical adviser for Manet as he developed his skills in the medium.
The concept of “originality” is always intriguing when talking about Manet. His painted oeuvre is full of quotations and allusions to other works in the art historical canon. Indeed, one of Manet’s many talents lay in the way he took up such subjects only to refresh and re-present them, as with Olympia, which turns Titian’s Venus of Urbino (and indeed the whole history of nudes) on its head.
Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Given the reproducibility of etching and its potential for exploring “new” ways of producing images, it makes sense that questions around originality would become all the more apparent with the artist’s work in this medium. In fact, many of his etchings relate to paintings, either by him or by other artists he admired, and the portfolio presented here is like a journey through Manet’s mind, where familiar characters from his paintings transform and reappear in new guises and in new spaces.
Édouard Manet, Olympia, large plate, 1867.
Édouard Manet, Olympia, small plate, 1867.
Some of these painting-related etchings closely follow their painted predecessors, as with The Dead Toreador (1867-68) or two versions of the famous Olympia—small and large—both from 1867. But even these have subtle differences that can become quite significant. For example, in the large plate of Olympia, the model’s lips seem to part ever so slightly, furthering the “shocking” address of the painted Olympia from a few years earlier. The modelling of her body is also even more withheld as Manet focuses instead on creating stark contrasts throughout, an emphasis that leads to a proto-cubist rendering of the sheets in the foreground. Meanwhile, the small plate crops out much of the surroundings and softens the representational “assault” by literally softening Olympia’s curves and closing her mouth. This small plate was included in Émile Zola’s 1867 booklet Édouard Manet, Étude biographique et critique, which was published at the time of Manet’s solo exhibition in May of that year.
Another intriguing “copy” is an etching Manet did of the important Impressionist Berthe Morisot, whose art significantly influenced Manet. The etching was done in 1872, probably just after the much more famous painting of the same subject now at the Musée d’Orsay, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (Berthe Morisot au bouquet de violettes, 1872). While both present Morisot in black mourning dress, in the painted version, buttery textures, an enchanting play of light, and Morisot’s wide eyes all coalesce to develop a sense of intimacy and approachability, while in the etching Morisot’s mourning attire becomes invested with much greater emotional depth. Here Morisot is shown leaning slightly forward, and her dark eyes shift from inviting to penetrating. Morisot’s eyes were in fact green, but Manet clearly found in them much room for experimenting with emotionality. As they shift from the brown of the painting to the black of the etching, the delicate play of light once again becomes more abrupt: now the shadow literally divides her face into black and white.
Édouard Manet, Portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1872-74.
Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, 1872. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Public domain.
Some etchings also allude to works by other artists he admired. A fine example in the present portfolio is a wonderful plate of The Infanta Marguerita after Velázquez, which is based on Diego Velázquez’s Infanta Maria Margarita of 1654, now at the Louvre. Made between 1862 and 1864, Manet’s etching shows the artist’s early mastery of the medium as he explored various ways to suggest texture, space, and form through ever more refined systems of line. Particularly effective here is the striking contrast between the densely hatched background, sparsely striated “blonde” hair and the few sinewy lines used to suggest the shape and detailing of the Infanta’s lavish dress. This plate is thought to be after a painting by Manet which has since been lost or destroyed, making the etching valuable documentation of the artist’s oeuvre as well as an excellent study of the etching medium.
Édouard Manet, The Infanta Marguerita after Velázquez, 1862-64.
Other portraits included in the portfolio go even further, as with those of Charles Baudelaire and Eva Gonzalès. Baudelaire’s portrait is fittingly taken from Manet’s 1862 canvas, Music in the Tuileries Gardens, his first major work to depict modern city life. Baudelaire, the poet of modern life – whose “painter of modern life” clearly owes a great debt to Manet – is included directly behind the left-most woman of the pair of women in cream-yellow dresses and blue-trimmed bonnets. No longer a (celebrated) face in the crowd, the etching abstracts and refines Baudelaire’s profile with short, economic lines highly suggestive of Baudelaire’s own particular brand of nervous elegance.
Manet, Music in the Tuileries, 1862. Oil on canvas. Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. Public Domain.
Édouard Manet, Charles Baudelaire, 1862.
Some of the plates have no relation to Manet’s (or anyone else’s) paintings and seemed to be motivated purely by the possibilities of the medium. In this regard, Line in Front of the Butcher Shop (Queue devant la boucherie, 1870-71) offers a wonderfully kaleidoscopic play of pattern and forms as abstracted umbrellas dance above the heads of women waiting in line for the butchers. A bayonet rising in the back is, however, a clear reminder of the reality of the scene. Manet was a member of the National Guard at the time of the Prussian siege in 1870 and recalled the devastations war brought onto the people: “[The] butcher shops open only three times a week, and there are queues in front of their doors from four in the morning, and the last in line get nothing.”
Édouard Manet, Line in Front of the Butcher Shop, 1870-71.
Rather more light-hearted is Cats (1868-69), which shows three cats in unrelated space and compositional asymmetry inspired by the Japanese prints popular at the time. Here Manet not only highlights cats’ fascinating ability to effortlessly contort themselves into perfect little balls but in so doing also plays with the ability of line to suggest form. While one cat is densely covered in etched lines with only slight variation in the density to create shape, the other two cats are effectively rendered primarily through short hatching strokes restricted to their outlines. A handful of proofs of this plate seem to have been printed right when it was completed, but the plate was never actually published in Manet’s lifetime. It was published posthumously in three editions: the 1890 Gennevilliers edition comprising about 30 impressions; the 1894 Dumont edition of 30, printed on blue-green papers; and this 1905 Strölin edition of 100.
Édouard Manet, Cats, 1868-69.
The final etching included in the edition is Jeanne, dated to 1882, the last plate Manet ever produced. It closely follows Jeanne (Spring), a portrait of the actress Jeanne Demarsy he painted in 1881. Along with The Bar at the Folies-Bergère, this was the last painting he ever exhibited, the two having been displayed at the Salon of 1882. It is an important inclusion in the portfolio, not only for its chronological lateness and morbid honorific as being Manet’s final plate, but also because of what the work represents in terms of Manet’s place in art history. As this Strölin edition of Manet’s etchings well attests, the artist continued to challenge academic conventions of form and content, but always with deep dedication to Art itself in both its possibilities and its history. Thus, throughout his myriad experiments and revisions, he consistently sought recognition from the official institution of the Salon. This recognition finally came right at the end of his short life. In 1881, he was awarded a second-class medal at the Salon and was inducted into the national Legion of Honour, and with Jeanne he experienced the type of unanimous acclaim he had always longed for, despite his long-standing reputation of going against the grain.
Édouard Manet, Jeanne (Spring), 1881. Oil on canvas. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
Édouard Manet, Jeanne, 1882.
These are only some of the fascinating works included in the Strölin portfolio, which offers an excellent representation of the variety and depth of Manet's art in the final decades of his life. Between 1860 and 1882, Manet produced about 100 prints (73 etchings and 26 lithographs); although a number of these were included in Society-related projects, many others were published posthumously. Upon the artist's death in 1883, thirty etched plates were counted among his possessions, which then became the property of his wife, Suzanne; in 1890, Suzanne printed about thirty impressions of twenty-three of these (including thirteen which had previously been unpublished) at Gennevilliers, where Manet had summered at his family's house. These twenty-three plates, along with seven more, were then ceded to the dealer and printer Louis Dumont who likewise published thirty impressions of each of the thirty plates. As Dumont's successor, the plates then passed into the hands of Alfred Strölin, who is responsible for the current edition, of which 100 copies were printed. Apart from contemporary impressions known in only a small number of copies, the plates of the Strölin edition are generally considered most desirable, as those of previous editions are often poorly inked. There is, however, an additional measure of finality at play: upon completing the print run, Strölin destroyed all the coppers by punching holes in them, thus ensuring his would be the final prints pulled from Manet's plates.
How to cite this information
Julia Stimac, “Manet and the Etching Revival,” PRPH Books, 24 March 2021, www.prphbooks.com/blog/manet. Accessed [date].This post is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.