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Manet And The Object Of Painting By Michel Foucault

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Edouard Manet, an artist most commonly known in relation to the advent of modernist art, is credited with introducing such painterly techniques as producing flatness in painting, and, a layering down of hues (alla prima). He is regarded as the father of modernité, having many written works have been produced as supplements, responses or studies of his paintings and influences in art—three of which I present as subjects of scrutiny in this paper: the Painter of Modern Life by French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire, who produced several essays in relation to the phenomenon of modernity (as both modulator and interpreter) Manet and the Object of Painting by Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and critic, and Modernist Painting by Clement Greenberg, a mid-20th century art critic. In each of these respective pieces, I will be analyzing closely the …show more content…

They differ in terms of length, structure, style and method of evocation. Baudelaire resorts to sub-heading sectioning, dividing his thoughts under twelve primary pillars, starting with I. Beauty, Fashion and Happiness. Using such large, overbearing words and then breaking them down into observational, almost ethnographical paragraphs where he describes behaviors, views and examples in relation to his larger claims. In Foucault’s Manet and the Object of Painting, the structural form differs, as the text was originally a 1971 lecture given in Tunisia alongside a series of other lectures he delivered in Milan, Tokyo, and Florence. Thus, what we find is a slightly tweaked, translated transcription of the talk. Greenberg’s Modernist Painting, however slightly shorter than the two texts, reads clearly and is structured starting from a broad articulation of modernism that is then rationed into specific claims or takes, enveloped in critical reflections upon artistic practice as well as philosophy of the phenomenon—similar to Baudelaire’s

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