Artist's atelier 1880

Édouard Manet painted this oil on canvas, *Artist's Atelier*, sometime in the mid-19th century. It depicts a corner of his studio, evoking the material conditions of artistic production in Paris at the time. Note the arrangement of bottles and jars, the brushes, and the pigments scattered across the table. These are the tools of the trade, but they also suggest a certain bohemian lifestyle associated with artists in the French capital. Manet was a key figure in the burgeoning avant-garde, challenging the conservative norms of the Salon system. The academic establishment valued highly finished, historical, or allegorical paintings, but Manet championed a more direct and modern approach to painting. Works like this offer a glimpse into the artist's world, but also challenge the traditional hierarchies of the art world. To better understand this, scholars consult letters, reviews, and other historical documents to reconstruct the social and institutional context in which artists like Manet operated. The meaning of art, therefore, is always contingent on its context.