Lampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Eacute;douard Manet(18321883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism.Manetrs"s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the cityrs"s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Deacute;jeuner sur lrs"herbewith its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titianrs"s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal.This richly illustrated book introduces Manetrs"s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come. The author Gilles Neacute;ret (19332005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'OElig;il and Connaissance des Arts and received the Eacute;lie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications.

His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Daliacute;: The Paintings, Matisse, andErotica Universalis.