PHILADELPHIA.- The quintessential painter of modern life in late 19th-century France, Edouard Manet captured many of the most important developments of French culture during the period, from its street life and café concerts to train stations and even summer vacations by the shore.  Remarkable in their freshness and immediacy, Manet’s paintings of the sea and coastal vistas demonstrate his great versatility. From February 15 through May 31, 2004, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents Manet and the Sea, a major exhibition surveying for the first time the full scope of the artist’s fascination with the moods, movements and allure of the sea. It places his works in a broad artistic context, revealing how Manet contributed to the emergence of Impressionism and helped set the course for movements in modern art.

The exhibition includes about 100 paintings, drawings, and watercolors from 60 public and private collections in the United States and abroad. In addition to some 38 works by Manet, it includes works by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Gustave Courbet, Berthe Morisot, James McNeil Whistler, and others. The exhibition explores the connections between these artists while addressing the development of seaside tourism that contributed to the popularity of French marine painting in this period. “Manet created more than 40 paintings that take the ocean as his subject, and it is fascinating to trace his own artistic development through this theme,” says Anne d’Harnoncourt, Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “The exhibition not only examines a great painter in a new light but also reveals a multitude of connections between the artists working in France during this remarkable moment of artistic discovery.” The exhibition demonstrates Manet’s crossing of an artistic threshold, leading to innovative developments in painting. He and his contemporaries recorded not only the sea and its changing moods but also the many fashionable people who traveled to the shore in search of an escape from city life. Notes Joseph J. Rishel, the Gisela and Dennis Alter Senior Curator of European Painting and Sculpture before 1900: “The sea—a natural force in a constant state of flux—offered artists a perfect vehicle for exploring new painting techniques and compositions. Manet’s remarkable ability to manipulate paint captivated his contemporaries and verged on what, in the 20th century, would be called ‘pure’ painting.”

Edouard Manet (1832-83) was born in Paris, son of a high-ranking government official. After failing to qualify as an officer in the French Navy and refusing his family’s wish that he study law, he turned to art. He studied painting in the studio of Thomas Couture in Paris but his individualistic temperament led him to reject the rigid dictates of academic painting and to seek inspiration in modern life and the paintings of the old masters. Manet’s love of the sea can be traced to his letters describing his journey to Rio de Janeiro when he was 17, but it does not appear in his art until 1864, when—following news accounts of an American Civil War battle off the coast of Cherbourg—he quickly produced the grand history painting known as The Battle of the U.S.S. Kearsarge and the C.S.S Alabama (John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia). It was followed by a trip to Boulogne on the English Channel that led to further marines, including The “Kearsarge” at Boulogne, 1864 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Steamboat Leaving Boulogne, 1864 (The Art Institute of Chicago). These early seascapes strike out in bold new directions that radically transformed established models. Also included are paintings that have rarely been exhibited in the United States, such as The Port of Calais, 1868-72 (private collection) and Rising Tide, 1873 (private collection) in addition to the two versions of The Escape of Rochefort, 1880-81 (Kunsthaus Zurich and Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which were considered too controversial for Manet to exhibit in his lifetime.

Two enchanting works reveal with particular charm Manet’s pleasure at the seaside. The Beach at Boulogne, 1868 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond), in which fashionable people with open parasols enjoy the breeze and salty air as distant vessels bob amid the waves, and Departure of the Folkestone Boat, c. 1868-72 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), in which Manet’s bravura handling captures a hectic moment on a crowded jetty where a paddle steamer prepares to embark across the channel from Boulogne to England.

Manet’s sea paintings responded to developments of other artists and exerted an impact on younger ones who perceived the implications of Manet’s marines. The exhibition features seven works by Gustave Courbet, including The Wave, 1871 (National Gallery, Scotland). Courbet began painting marines earlier, but by the end of his career began to share significant affinities with Manet. Monet’s response to Manet is seen in 17 paintings, including Lighthouse at Honfleur, 1864 (Kunsthaus Zurich); Pont de La Hève at Low Tide, 1865 (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth); Garden at Sainte-Adresse, 1867 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); and On the Beach at Trouville, 1870-71 (Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris). The Impressionist Berthe Morisot will be represented with six works, including Harbor at Lorient, 1869 (National Gallery, Washington) and Boat Building, 1874 (Musée Marmottan Monet). Three works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir will be seen, among them Seascape, 1879 (The Art Institute of Chicago) while Manet’s dialogue with James McNeill Whistler will be reflected in five works, among them Crepuscule in Flesh Color and Green: Valparaiso, 1866 (Tate Gallery, London). In Philadelphia, the exhibition is curated by Joseph J. Rishel and John Zarobell, Assistant Curator of European Painting and Sculpture. Juliet Wilson Bareau, a preeminent Manet scholar, is a consulting curator for the exhibition and contributor to the exhibition catalogue. Manet and the Sea is organized by The Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. It will travel to the Van Gogh Museum (June 18- September 26, 2004).