Manet

Although his career spanned a mere twenty years, Édouard Manet remains one of the most influential artists in history. Rejecting the classical style of painting religious or mythological subjects, Manet was one of the first artists in the nineteenth century to paint modern people in modern situations. Many of his paintings depicted the everyday street life of Paris, especially the cafés. The realism of his art offended the mainstream art community, and as a result, Manet s work was criticized as being obscene and unskilled. Despite the critics, paintings such as The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia inspired the Impressionist movement and marked the beginning of modern art.