An artwork on Galleree from Cleveland Museum of Art.
About the artwork
Claire Campbell1876
Edouard Manet
Born into a wealthy family, Édouard Manet was encouraged in his artistic curiosity by his uncle and often visited the Louvre with his college friend Antonin Proust. Initially, however, Manet wanted to pursue a naval career. It was not until he failed the entrance exams for the naval academy that he decided to pursue a career as an artist. In 1850 he entered the studio of Couture (q.v.), whose reputation had risen sharply after exhibiting his Romans of the Decadence (Salon 1847, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Couture wanted to circumvent conventional academic training and combined traditional painting methods with new techniques-for example, allowing underpaint to form an intrinsic part of the final composition, which resulted in a sketchy appearance. Manet would absorb this technique into his work. He had no strict need to sell his artwork; rather, he longed for recognition as an artist. He responded to Charles Baudelaire's call to young artists to paint contemporary life rather than antiquity and take a distanced point of view, because, as Baudelaire stated in his article The Painter of Modern Life (published in Le Figaro, 1863), objectivity is more sincere and honest. In 1863 the Salon jury rejected more than half of the five thousand works submitted, including Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). In response to the conservative jury of that year, Napoleon III, in an effort to appease the artists as well as discourage antigovernment sentiment, organized the Salon des Refusés, which took place in the Palais des Champs-Élysées two weeks after the opening of the official Salon. The painting caused a formidable succès de scandale both for its technique and subject matter. The majority of the people failed to understand that the artist wanted to translate the conventions of the Old Masters into a new idiom that would reflect contemporary society. Two years later the scandal was repeated when Manet's Olympia (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) was accepted into the Salon of 1865. This time the jury was more lenient because fewer academicians were among its members. Even though his work often received severe criticism, Manet continued to submit works to the Salon, which he felt was the only legitimate place to compete and prove himself as an artist. At the time of the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867, Manet, following Courbet's (q.v.) lead set in 1855, organized his own pavilion next to the Exposition where he showed more than fifty paintings. Émile Zola, the French writer and critic who may have collaborated with Manet in writing the preface for his one-man exhibition, recognized his talent and modernity. Zola rejected academic painting of the day, including Alexandre Cabanel's (1823-1889) The Birth of Venus (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), which not only won the gold medal at the Salon of 1863 but was purchased by Napoleon III. Zola vehemently defended Manet against harsh criticism and exalted him as the greatest painter of the nineteenth century. Manet painted a portrait of Zola (Salon 1868, Musée d'Orsay, Paris) that reflected the artist's interest in Japanese prints as well as photography. By the 1870s Manet's palette had lightened and his brushwork became freer and more sketchy. These new features in his painting technique may have resulted from his contact with the younger impressionist group that began exhibiting as such in 1874. Although Manet was friendly with its members and sympathized with their goals, he never exhibited with them and continued to show his paintings at the official Salon. Manet was truly innovative in depicting subjects of urban life. However, during his lifetime he enjoyed little support, and it was not until the impressionists gained general recognition that Manet was acknowledged as a truly modern painter. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) would express his immense admiration for Manet as follows: "He was the first to act by reflex, thus simplifying the painter's métier, . . . Manet was direct as could be."1
1. Matisse in L'Intransigeant (25 January 1932), cited in Manet 1832-1883, 18.
During the late 1870s, Edouard Manet began to experience health problems that made it difficult for him to work in oil painting. Instead, he began to draw using pastel, a powdery medium that allowed him to render line and color with each stroke. This work is one of numerous portraits that Manet created around this time with the medium. It depicts Claire Campbell, a fashionable young British woman whose father published <em>The Daily Telegraph</em>, a British newspaper. Manet used the velvety texture of pastel to render the subject's skin and hair, limiting his palette to mostly neutral tones such as white, gray, and black.
Edouard Manet almost always depicted the subjects of his pastel portraits against plain colored backgrounds, as seen in this work.
pastel with oil on beige canvas
Unframed: 55.2 x 45.7 cm (21 3/4 x 18 in.)
The Fanny Tewksbury King Collection
In the golden haze of the late 1870s, the air was thick with change, not just in the world outside but within Edouard Manet himself. The celebrated artist, a pioneer of modern art, found his once-steady hand trembling, grappling with the creeping shadows of health issues. As if to combat these unwelcome visitors, he gently shifted his approach, opting for the soft embrace of pastel—a powdery medium that breathed new life into his work.
It was during this time of struggle and transformation that Manet turned his gaze toward a young British woman named Claire Campbell. She was a figure of elegance, her very presence embodying the fashion of her day, a reflection of the emerging modern world. Her father, a distinguished publisher, brought the news to thousands through the pages of <em>The Daily Telegraph</em>, but in this moment, it was Claire’s face that captivated Manet’s artistry.
With each delicate stroke of pastel, he conjured the velvety texture of her skin and the soft shimmer of her hair. The colors were not a riotous spectrum but rather a serene palette dominated by neutral tones—whispers of white, gentle grays, and deep blacks. It was as if Manet sought to capture not just her outward beauty but something deeper, a fleeting essence that lingered between the lines of color.
Within the confines of each portrait, Manet transformed his physical limitations into artistic exploration. No longer bound by the heavy rigors of oil, he found freedom in nuance, creating a world where line met color in an intimate dance. In his works from this period, the struggles of life didn't extinguish his voice; instead, they revealed layers of emotion and thought, inviting viewers into a silent conversation about beauty, resilience, and the stories we share.
As the evening light faded, leaving warmth in its wake, Manet's portraits stood as a testament to his creative spirit—illuminating a path through the darkness and reminding us all of the intimate and profound connection between artist, subject, and the ever-evolving narrative of life itself.
About the artist
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