[Illustration:  MANET

OLYMPIA]

Thus it must be firmly established that from this moment Manet passed as an innovator, years before Impressionism existed or was even thought of.  This is an important point:  it will help to clear up the twofold origin of the movement which followed.  To his realism, to his return to composition in the modern spirit, and to the simplifying of planes and values, Manet owed these attacks, though at that time his colour was still sombre and entirely influenced by Hals, Goya and Courbet.  From that time the artist became a chief.  As his friends used to meet him at an obscure Batignolles cafe, the cafe Guerbois (still existing), public derision baptized these meetings with the name of “L’Ecole des Batignolles.”  Manet then exhibited the Angels at the Tomb of Christ, a souvenir of the Venetians; Lola de Valence, commented upon by Baudelaire in a quatrain which can be found in the Fleurs du Mal; the Episode d’un combat de taureaux (dissatisfied with this picture, he cut out the dead toreador in the foreground, and burnt the rest).  The Acteur tragique (portrait of Rouviere in Hamlet) and the Jesus insulte followed, and then came the Gitanos, L’Enfant a l’Epee, and the portrait of Mme. Manet.  This series of works is admirable.  It is here where he reveals himself as a splendid colourist, whose design is as vigorous as the technique is masterly.  In these works one does not think of looking for anything but the witchery of technical strength; and the abundant wealth of his temperament is simply dazzling.  Manet reveals himself as the direct heir of the great Spaniards, more interesting, more spontaneous, and freer than Courbet.  The Rouviere is as fine a symphony in grey and black as the noblest portraits by Bronzino, and there is probably no Goya more powerful than the Toreador tue.  Manet’s altogether classic descent appears here undeniably.  There is no question yet of Impressionism, and yet Monet and Renoir are already painting, Monet has exhibited at the Salon des Refuses, but criticism sees and attacks nobody but Manet.  This great individuality who overwhelmed the Academy with its weak allegories, was the butt of great insults and the object of great admiration.  Banished from the Salons, he collected fifty pictures in a room in the Avenue de l’Alma and invited the public thither.  In 1868 appeared the portrait of Emile Zola, in 1860 the Dejeuner, works which are so powerful, that they enforced admiration in spite of all hostility.  In the Salon of 1870 was shown the portrait of Eva Gonzales, the charming pastellist and pupil of Manet, and the impressive Execution of Maximilian at Queretaro.  Manet was at the apogee of his talent, when the Franco-German war broke out.  At the age of thirty-eight he had put forth a considerable amount of work, tried himself in all styles, severed his individuality from the slavish admiration of the old masters, and attained his own mastery.  And now he wanted to expand, and, in joining Monet, Renoir and Degas, interpret in his own way the Impressionist theory.