The Man with the Sword: Édouard Manet's Double-Edged Works

Four key works by Manet, La Pêche, The Boy with a Sword, Polichinele presents Etchings by Edouard Manet, and The Luncheon, link an iconographic motif-the sword-to a persistent theme-the artist's invisible presence. These works reveal not only the psychological compulsion to unburden a secret, but also the complex method by which Manet imparted to many of his other works a significance rarely suspected. Manet was far more than a gifted technician with a revolutionary vision of the mechanics of light. A personal dynamism suffuses his work, an intellect drawn repeatedly to certain themes – in the case of these four works, the travesty surrounding his unrecognized son; in others, such abstract concerns as death, intimate relationships, heroism. We discover an artist struggling to create a non-narrative art while nevertheless compelled to express something beyond mere image. (BAB)