Edouard Manet

Life: 1832-1883

Style: Impressionism

Works: Absinthe Drinker (1858)

            Old Musician (1862)

            Le Repos (1870)

            On the Beach (1873)

            Execution of Maximilian (1867)

Quote: “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.” (3)

Fun Fact: He was the father of impressionism (5)

         You walk into Manet’s house and are properly stunned. The father of impression (5) definitely loves his art. The walls are absolutely covered with his paintings as well as those of friends and people he had influenced, such as Matisse. Manet tells you that he was born into the ranks of the Parisian bourgeois in 1832 and that his mother’s godfather was Charles Bernadotte, the Crown Prince of Sweden (1). Manet is very proud of this.

            You wonder how a member of the Parisian bourgeois who has ties to the crown prince of Sweden could possibly have ended up as an artist, and even though you know that you should get right down to the business of asking about Chucky, your curiosity forces you to ask Manet about his work first. He tells you that his father, Auguste Manet, was a magistrate and judge who had encouraged him to take up the same line of work (1). However, he was destined to follow another path, which is how his walls came to be lined with paintings in a style he had developed.

            Finally, your curiosity satisfied, you

ask about Chucky. All you get is a blank look. You bite your lip, unsure of what to do.

            “You know…Chucky. The squirrel? He was kidnapped? And somehow all you artists know about it? I think it has something to do with how you influence each other or-”

            “I know what you are talking about, but I can’t explain it to you. All I can say is that I have heard about Chucky but I can’t tell you where he is. Go find my close friend Baudelaire. He even wrote a quatrain to accompany one of my Spanish subjects, Lola de Valence, in 1862 (4).

       “Or perhaps you would rather follow the influence of the artists; I have been greatly influenced by some of the old masters such as Goya. For example, my work The Execution of Maximilian reaches out to Goya’s Third of May (1). Did you know that that painting was banned from being exhibited in Paris because of the “Frenchness” of the executioner’s costume (1)?”

            You hurriedly thank Manet and rush out before he can continue talking. You have already used up much of your valuable time in your search for Chucky.