ÉDOUARD’S FRIENDS

Abstract

Manet: Portraying Life is at the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London W1, until 14 April Edouard Manet could afford to be both an artistic outsider and a Parisian socialite. His well-heeled family paid for him to study painting for 5 years, to take the Grand Tour, and to set up his own salon in 1856. Visitors to the Royal Academy will be confronted by a large reproduction of Fantin-Latour’s L’Atelier aux Batignolles , which has Manet painting Zacharie Astruc, while Zola, Renoir, and Monet look on. He counted among his friends Offenbach, Stephane Mallarme, and Charles Beaudelaire, to whom his wife reputedly played …