I took advantage of my trip to London the other day to slip into the Manet exhibition at the Royal Academy. I have always loved Manet, and this show lived up to all expectations. Concentrating on his portraits - which is taken fairly broadly, so as to include groups and paintings such as The Railway, which you might not instinctively think of as a portrait - it is a wonderful selection of paintings both intimate and grand. I had always liked his restricted palette, with much usage of black, but hadn't appreciated the infinite variety of blacks and greys and whites he is able to produce. There is a restrained elegance without affectation, an artistry that seems natural but which is the result of enormous talent.
Manet's life - 1832 to 1883 - also spans the period of French literature that is easily as rich as, if not richer than, what was happening in England at the same time. His portraits of Zola and Mallarmé are thrilling in that, looking at them, you feel in contact with the vibrancy of French literary life at the time. I can't wait for all our books to come out of store so that I can get back into the Goncourt brothers' journal covering all this period.
There were one or two paintings I could happily have brought back to Hastings - the one on the poster is probably my favourite, showing the artist Berthe Morisot - Manet's sister-in-law - in black against a creamy-yellow background. She has an intriguing look that is both confidential and confrontational. The picture is just the right size to pick up and bring back to Hastings. We could easily find room for it somewhere. I suspect, however, that it's not going to happen. Seeing it at the Academy was a joy.
Antony Mair
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