The Water Drinker

1868

Friendship with Berthe Morisot

In 1868 Manet became a friend and colleague of Berthe Morisot; she is credited with convincing him to attempt plein air painting, to which Camille Corot had introduced her. Through Morisot, Manet became friends with Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne and Pissarro.

1870

The siege of Paris: Manet in the army

During the siege of Paris Manet, a convinced republican, sent his family to Oloron-Sainte-Marie in the south of France, while he himself, with many fellow artists, joined the army and took part in the defence of the capital; he was lucky to survive.

1870s

Refuses to exhibit with the Impressionists

Although his own work influenced and anticipated the Impressionist style, Manet resisted involvement in Impressionist exhibitions: he did not wish to be seen as the representative of a group identity and held that modern artists should seek to exhibit at the Salon.

1871

Manet's name on the Commune's Fédération des artistes

In his absence his friends added his name to the Paris Commune's “Fédération des artistes”; he himself stayed out of politics and perhaps returned to the city only after the “bloody week” — in a letter to Berthe Morisot of 10 June he writes that they had come back a few days earlier.

1873

“Le Bon Bock”: a huge success

In his new studio in 1873 Manet painted “Le Bon Bock”, which became famous: for the first time in almost fifteen years he had a huge success, yet he did not turn into a fashionable, opportunistic painter.

1874

“The Railway”: ridicule at the Salon of 1874

“The Railway”, painted in 1873, puzzled visitors and critics at the Salon of 1874: its subject seemed baffling, its composition incoherent and its execution sketchy; caricaturists ridiculed it, and only later was it recognised as a symbol of modernity. The model was Victorine Meurent, for the last time.