Of living artists Courbet considerably influenced the first period of Manet’s activity. Ever on the fringe of Impressionism, although never in the group, Courbet was a romantically inclined realist who taught the younger men to turn to everyday life for their subjects. His canvases were full of colour; although they have sadly toned down in the course of time, owing to the curious and unsuccessful experiments he made in trying to combine his practice with his theories. In 1859 Manet sent his work for the first time to the Salon. The _Absinthe Drinker_, strong, but reminiscent of Courbet, was rejected. The Salon was held every two years, and in 1861 both his contributions were accepted, one being a double portrait of his father and mother, the other a Spanish study called the _Guitarero_. For this Manet was awarded Honourable Mention, his first and almost his final official distinction, for he received no other until the year before his death, twenty-one years later. Working with tremendous energy in his studio in the Rue Lavoisier, Manet became the centre of a circle of friends which included Legros, Bracquemond, Jongkind, Monet, Degas, Fantin-Latour, Harpignies, and Whistler. The Guitar-player was an undoubted success. “_Caramba_,” writes genial Theo. Gautier, “Velazquez would greet this fellow with a friendly little wink, and Goya would hand him a pipe for his papelito.” Upon the jury it is said that Ingres himself was flattering, and the _mention honorable_ was ascribed to the lead of Delacroix. Couture’s sneer that Manet would become merely the Daumier of 1860 did not seem likely to be justified. Manet was now engaged upon several pictures which must not be ignored. _Music at the Tuileries_ (1861), refused at the Salon, was, as its name implies, an open-air study of the fashionable crowds gathered round the bandstand in the lovely gardens by the palace. The _Street Singer_ is the earliest of the almost realistic renderings of everyday life which the Impressionists delighted in. A sad-faced girl (a well-known character of the day) standing with a guitar at a street corner; the type is the same to this hour both in London and Paris, one of the thousand wretched beings superfluous to a great city, at once its pleasure and its sport. _The Boy with a Sword_, now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, also belongs to this period. The picture is masterly. Inspired from Spain, it is, like most great paintings, full of simplicity, full of strength. _The Old Musician_ is also extremely Spanish, with a haunting reminiscence of _Los Borrachos_ by Velazquez (although Manet had not yet directly seen this canvas). A small group watches an old man about to play his fiddle. Some boys, a little girl with a doll (a figure very dear to Manet), a man drinking, a native of the Orient in a turban and a long robe, these form a straggling composition. The picture is a fantasy of a nation the painter loved but had never yet seen.