Antonin Proust
Artist: Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883)
Date: 1880
Dimensions:
Painting: 51 x 37 3/4 in. (129.5 x 95.9 cm)
Frame: 64 3/4 x 52 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (164.5 x 132.7 x 6.4 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1925.108
Label Text:Antonin Proust (1832–1905) and Edouard Manet had been childhood companions and fellow art students. Proust pursued a career as a politician and journalist, while Manet became a groundbreaking Realist painter whose style was much admired by a group of younger artists eventually known as the Impressionists. Proust later wrote the biography of Manet, who had immortalized Proust with respect and affection in this spirited portrait.
As Proust later recounted, Manet fixed on a plan “to paint my portrait on unprepared white canvas, in a single sitting.” Posed in an attitude of carefully studied relaxation, the elegantly urbane and impeccably dressed Proust embodies something of the essential traits of the modern Parisian dandy. Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1880, the painting was criticized by some for its casualness and lack of finish. Others praised its bold and decisive handling of paint. The appearance of improvisatory freedom and immediacy that Manet achieved, however, was hard won. Look for areas of extensive surface crackle—a sign of considerable reworking.
As Proust later recounted, Manet fixed on a plan “to paint my portrait on unprepared white canvas, in a single sitting.” Posed in an attitude of carefully studied relaxation, the elegantly urbane and impeccably dressed Proust embodies something of the essential traits of the modern Parisian dandy. Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1880, the painting was criticized by some for its casualness and lack of finish. Others praised its bold and decisive handling of paint. The appearance of improvisatory freedom and immediacy that Manet achieved, however, was hard won. Look for areas of extensive surface crackle—a sign of considerable reworking.
On view
In Collection(s)