Édouard Manet (1832 - 1883) occupies a pivotal position in art history as the figure who bridges the academic tradition and the Impressionist revolution, without quite belonging fully to either. Born in Paris in 1832 into a prosperous bourgeois family, he trained under Thomas Couture but quickly developed a style characterized by flattened forms, bold tonal contrasts, and an unflinching attention to contemporary urban life. He was deeply influenced by Velázquez and Goya, whose directness and painterly economy he absorbed into a vision of modern Paris that the Impressionists — especially Monet and Degas — took as a point of departure.
