Customer Reviews

Edouard Manet, 1832-1883: The First of the Moderns (Taschen Basic Art)

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Gilles Néret has written a very entertaining, insightful book on the artistic life of Edouard Manet. It's not a complete catalog of all of Manet's paintings, but it does show his most important works and places them into their cultural and art historical contexts.

The book is a lot of fun to read. Néret clearly knows the subject well, and his prose is fluid and witty. (The translation from the French suffers very few problems.) The author gives the reader a lot of credit, presenting art history details in a way that the casual reader can ignore while someone with greater exposure to the artists who influenced Manet can delve into more deeply.

Taschen has done a fine job reprinting the paintings, too. In short it's a great little book.

This great little book has all of Manet's paintings in it. If the text discusses it, then the picture is in there. It includes enlargements of selected areas of critical paintings and even includes paintings by others if a comparsion is made. The scholarship is excellent including placing Manet in context, except for mistaking the American Revolution for the Civil War. For $10, one cannot beat this book. Highly recommended, I couldn't put it down.