Portrait of Irma Brunner 1880

Edouard Manet made this portrait of Irma Brunner with oil on canvas; a very common practice in painting. But Manet, although trained traditionally, was always pushing against the grain. Look closely, and you’ll see how he’s built this image up from bold strokes of paint. The surface is alive with his attention to touch, very different from the ‘licked’ surfaces favoured by academic painters. The visible brushwork is critical. It’s a way of insisting that the painting is not a window onto the world, but an object in its own right. Manet’s technique here is often described as ‘painterly,’ but it’s also a record of his labor. You can see not only what is represented, but how he went about representing it. The result is a frankness that still feels modern today.