We must close this necessarily fragmentary survey of French art at the
Louvre with the mention of Edouard Manet (1832-1883), whose _Olympia_
(No. 613A, Plate LIII.) is the first, and so far the only painting of
the Impressionist school that has gained access to this gallery. It
was formerly exhibited at the Luxembourg. Hung as it is now in Gallery
VIII. amid the works of David, Gros, Ingres, Delacroix, Delaroche, and
other early nineteenth-century painters, this _Olympia_ fully explains
the sensation, but certainly not the indignation, caused by its first
appearance at the Salon of 1865. It sings out with such brilliant
purity of colour and is so emphatic in the patterning of its design, so
daring in the placing side by side of almost unmodulated but infallibly
accurate colour masses, that everything around appears more or less
dingy and artificial. Manet’s _Olympia_ marks the dawn of a new era,
not because it is based on a revolutionary rejection of tradition, but
because it is true to the _spirit_ of the best tradition, which is not
carried on by literal and mechanical imitation, but by evolution and
adaptation to modern life and thought.
[Illustration:
PLATE LIII.—ÉDOUARD MANET
(1832-1883)