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Manet, Degas, and Lautrec as examples of Impressionist Painters

The 19th and 20th centuries encountered new artists creating innovative styles of

expression and breaking free from the dogma that old schools had imposed for long periods of

times. They wanted to release themselves and submerge in a sea of light, color, shapes, and

forms that would not respect any classic imposition. The following artists and their works are

representative of such changes and how they occurred: Édouard Manet and his Corner of The

Café-Concert, (ca. 1878-80), Edgar Degas in The Cafe-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs, (ca. 1877),

and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in At the Moulin Rouge from 1892.

The study of these three paintings is very enticing since they illustrate the different stages

of the movement known as Impressionism, which is considered a modern school that marked the

end of the traditional styles and the assumption of new ones. According to its precepts, a painter

has to capture the reflection of light in the objects and people that they see, which means that its

representation does not have to be necessarily realistic. The artist has to depict the impression

that light caused in its brain after processing it as a stimulus. Impressionists have disdain for

lines and traditional drawing, and only use the light to represent shapes and forms1. They want to

1
“Impressionism.” MoMA, www.moma.org/collection/terms/134, par. 1.
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represent the images as a result of light stimulating their nerve system and their mind, not as a

representation of reality passed through the filter of the discernment of the painter.

Manet (1832-1883) is considered one of the initiators of this style2. Degas could be

considered its continuator, and Toulouse-Lautrec represents the final stages of it and the

inception of the Post-Impressionism. They conducted the fight against academic painters and

became the first artists that supported a new way of expression. The manner they used light in

their paintings became one of the differentiating features of this new school. They usually, but

not exclusively, painted in outdoors to capture the full spectrum of color that daylight produced

on his subjects. Manet´s first paintings still keep a hint of realism, but as he progresses to the

new style, the absence of drawings and the outline of shapes by the pure use of the color is more

evident3.

They also portrayed street scenes and Paris´ nightlife, since they took part in it. The

bohemian movement had taken a hold on part of Paris, Montmartre specifically, and it gathered

all kind of artists and other characters that gather together in the night time4. The morals were

very ductile and many forms of amusement were permitted in cafe-concerts and dance halls.

2
Courthion, Pierre. “Édouard Manet.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Apr. 2019,
www.britannica.com/biography/Edouard-Manet, par. 1.
3
Hanson, Anne Coffin. Manet and the Modern Tradition. Yale University Press, 1979,
Page 51.
4
Huisman, Philippe, and M. G. Dortu. Lautrec by Lautrec. Galahad Books, 1974,
Page 68.
 [Last Name] 3

Since a group of these artists participated in such forms of entertainment, the representation of

what happened in those places was also part of their motifs.

In The Corner of The Café-Concert, we see a typical nightlife scene. A dance show is

progressing on a stage and clients are sitting at their tables sipping their drinks and watching the

show. A waitress carries two mugs of beer in one hand and gazes at the customers as if having a

thought about them. A man, wearing a blue shirt and a hat, smokes his pipe while watching the

dancer twirling on the stage. The musicians also appear in the scene, blocked by the clients that

are in the foreground.

The use of light as the way of depicting the figures in this work is evident. There is not an

outline of the subjects that is later complemented by the color, but the color itself defines the

contours of the shapes. Thematically, this picture shows a typical scene of the nightlife that these

painters witness. One interesting aspect is that the painting seems to lack composition as if it

were a photograph that was taken carelessly, without aiming the lens of the camera properly.

And that is one of the characteristics of the Impressionists. They craved for capturing the

infinitesimal instant when the action occurred, as when a flash illuminates a dark room. This

effect is maximized by this apparent defect in the design. It was also a counter-canon gimmick

since they did not want to follow the classical rules of composition.

These elements are also present in Degas´ Cafe-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs. The theme

is strikingly similar to Manet´s. A group of women dressing colorful gowns is on a stage and one

of them is apparently addressing the audience. A band of musicians appears at the apron of the

stage, seemingly ready to start playing, and the audience is watching, paying attention to what is
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happening in front of them. Again, the way Manet applies color defines shapes and forms. The

scene is somehow dark on the space occupied by the public since it occurs at night at an enclosed

space that is dimly lit. However, the portion that corresponds to the stage appears lit from below,

which is understandable given that the performers need to be seen and special illumination is

necessary.

Again, in this picture, the scene seems to be slightly dislocated, as if a viewer was gazing

aimlessly, watching the scene that is happening around him without focusing on a specific

element. This detail grants the picture a sense of immediacy as if the person watching what is

taking place in the room blinked for an instant and the action had been imprinted in his memory.

The effect is absolutely photographic in nature.

Toulouse-Lautrec also handles the theme of Paris nightlife. Actually, his representations

of it made him famous and his work At The Moulin Rouge is not an exception5. Thematically, a

dance hall is the place where the action represented in the painting takes place again. This is a

feature that makes these three pictures very similar. Here, we also have a group of customers

sharing a moment in the famous nightclub, but in this case, they are drinking and talking, there is

not a show taking place in the scene, at least not in the portion of the locale that is depicted.

Colors define shapes once more and give the setting a gloomy look: they are mainly blacks,

browns, ochers, and greens.

One particular feature in this picture is different. One woman in watching directly at the

viewer, as if breaking the fourth wall, to use the theatrical term. She smiles, but what is more

5
Huisman, Philippe, and M. G. Dortu. Lautrec by Lautrec. Galahad Books, 1974,
Page 66.
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interesting is the way she is represented regarding the color palette used by Lautrec. Her face is

white and green. This could an effect of the colorful lights that illuminated the room, but also

could be an early use of color related to Fauvism, which is the style that came after the Post-

Impressionism and that gave to color a symbolic use, not a realistic one6. It is also noticeable

how Toulouse-Lautrec also captures the action in a disjointed manner, as if someone is walking

and aimlessly watching around at the same time, without focusing on anybody or anything.

The study of Manet’s Corner of The Café-Concert, Degas’ The Cafe-Concert at Les

Ambassadeurs, and Toulouse-Lautrec’s At the Moulin Rouge helps to understand the main

features of Impressionism. This movement focused on the use of light to render images in the

purest form, mainly by the exclusive use of color as the resource to represent the subjects in a

painting, and the dismission of lines and traditional drawing as a feature to depict people and

objects. The themes and elements are similar in these paintings and make analogous use of

graphic devices to convey the immediacy of the moment captured by the painter.

6
“Fauvism”. MoMA, www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/fauvism/ ,
Accessed 22 May 2019, par. 1.
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Works Cited

Courthion, Pierre. “Édouard Manet.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Apr. 2019,

www.britannica.com/biography/Edouard-Manet.

Accessed 22 May 2019.

“Fauvism”. MoMA, www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/fauvism/.

Accessed 22 May 2019.

Hanson, Anne Coffin. Manet and the Modern Tradition. Yale University Press, 1979.

Huisman, Philippe, and M. G. Dortu. Lautrec by Lautrec. Galahad Books, 1974.

“Impressionism.” MoMA, www.moma.org/collection/terms/134.

Accessed on 22 May 2019.