ne.

[Illustration: MANET

THE BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGERE]

It will be seen that Manet fought through all his life: few artists'
lives have been nobler. His has been an example of untiring energy; he
employed it as much in working, as in making a stand against prejudices.
Rejected, accepted, rejected again, he delivered with enormous courage
and faith his attack upon a jury which represented routine. As he fought
in front of his easel, he still fought before the public, without ever
relaxing, without changing, alone, apart even from those whom he loved,
who had been shaped by his example. This great painter, one of those who
did most honour to the French soul, had the genius to create by himself
an Impressionism of his own which will always remain his own, after
having given evidence of gifts of the first order in the tradition
handed down by the masters of the real and the good. He cannot be
confused either with Monet, or with Pissarro and Renoir. His
comprehension of light is a special one, his technique is not in
accordance with the system of colour-spots; it observes the theory of
complementary colours and of the division of tones without departing
from a grand style, from a classic stateliness, from a superb sureness.
Manet has not been the inventor of Impressionism which co-existed with
his work since 1865, but he has rendered it immense services, by taking
upon himself all the outbursts of anger addressed to the innovators, by
making a breach in public opinion, through which his friends have passed
in behind him. Probably without him all these artists would have
remained unknown, or at least without influence, because they all were
bold characters in art, but timid or disdainful in life. Degas, Monet
and Renoir were fine natures with a horror of polemics, who wished to
hold aloof from the Salons, and were resigned from the outset to be
misunderstood. They were, so to say, electrified by the magnificent
example of Manet's fighting spirit, and Manet was generous enough to
take upon himself the reproaches levelled, not only against his work,
but against theirs. His twenty years of open war, sustained with an
abnegation worthy of all esteem, must be considered as one of the most
significant phenomena of the history of the artists of all ages.

This work of Manet, so much discussed and produced under such tormenting
conditions, owes its importance beyond all to its power and frankness.
Ten years of developing the f