Portrait of Monsieur Brun 1879

Edouard Manet painted this portrait of Monsieur Brun using oil paints, a traditional medium, but he employed them in a strikingly modern way. The material qualities of oil paint – its viscosity, its capacity for layering, its potential for both blending and impasto – are all on display here. Look at the way Manet uses thin washes of color to suggest the background foliage, contrasting with the thicker, more deliberate strokes that define Monsieur Brun’s figure. The application is confident, even hasty, with visible brushstrokes that assert the painting’s status as an object made by hand. This directness was a challenge to the academic painting of the time, which valued smooth surfaces and illusionistic detail. Manet’s approach, while still representational, draws attention to the very act of painting, and the artist’s labor. By emphasizing the materiality of his medium and process, Manet blurred the lines between fine art and the more overtly physical realms of craft and manufacture.