On New Year’s Day, 1882, he received the Cross, and at the Salon exhibited _Un Bar aux Folies-Bergères_, a barmaid enshrined amidst her glasses at a Paris music-hall, and a portrait, _Jeanne_. Since 1879 paralysis had been slowly sapping his powers. Edouard Manet died near Paris on April 30, 1883, at the early age of fifty-one. Disappointment, injured pride, lack of appreciation, continued and strong hostility, each had had its effect upon a physique always sensitive and never too strong. The artist had died for his art. [Illustration: A GARDEN IN RUEIL · EDOUARD MANET ] [Illustration: FISHING · EDOUARD MANET ] The secret of Manet’s power is sincerity and individuality; his main effort was a rendering of fact; his deepest interest the truthful juxtaposition of values, the broad and simple treatment of planes, combined with a constant search for the character of the person or object portrayed. The influences which guided Manet during the earlier portion of his career have been noticed at length. He travelled extensively, and his works bear many souvenirs of foreign masters. But sufficient stress is not always laid upon the influences at work around Manet in Paris, namely, the influences of Delacroix, Corot, and the men of 1830, who carried but one stage farther the methods and tradition of the English masters, Constable, Bonington, Girtin and Turner. Apart from sources of inspiration Manet was personally gifted. He possessed (as M. Duret so well points out) the faculty of sight, a gift from Nature which cannot be acquired by will or work. Technique he had obtained after six years’ hard study in the most severe atelier in Paris. But technique is a subsidiary equipment, for a complete command over one’s materials does not always imply the possession of genius. “The fools!” said Manet with bitterness to Proust. “They were for ever telling me my work was unequal. That was the highest praise they could bestow. Yet it was always my ambition to rise—not to remain on a certain level, not to remake one day what I had made the day before, but to be inspired again and again by a new aspect of things, to strike frequently a fresh note.” “Ah! I’m before my time. A hundred years hence people will be happier, for their sight will be clearer than ours to-day.” Ambition to rise, never to remain on the same level! That is the whole doctrine of art, and the supreme epitaph for Edouard Manet, pioneer and master. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: GEORGES D’ESPAGNAT ] CHAPTER IV · THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP, 1870-1886 “L’ADMIRATION DE LA FOULE EST TOUJOURS EN RAISON INDIRECTE DU GÉNIE INDIVIDUEL. VOUS ÊTES D’AUTANT PLUS ADMIRÉ ET COMPRIS, QUE VOUS ÊTES PLUS ORDINAIRE” _ZOLA_