It was in 1861 that Manet first sent to the Salon the portraits of his
parents and the _Guitarero_, which was hailed by Gautier, and rewarded
by the jury, though it roused surprise and irritation. But after that he
was rejected, whether it was a question of the _Fifre_ or of the
_Déjeuner sur l'herbe._ This canvas, with an admirable feminine nude,
created a scandal, because an undressed woman figured in it amidst
clothed figures, a matter of frequent occurrence with the masters of the
Renaissance. The landscape is not painted in the open air, but in the
studio, and resembles a tapestry, but it shows already the most
brilliant evidence of Manet's talent in the study of the nude and the
still-life of the foreground, which is the work of a powerful master.
From the time of this canvas the artist's personality appeared in all
its maturity. He painted it before he was thirty, and it has the air of
an old master's work; it is based upon Hals and the Spaniards together.

The reputation of Manet became established after 1865. Furious critics
were opposed by enthusiastic admirers. Baudelaire upheld Manet, as he
had upheld Delacroix and Wagner, with his great clairvoyance,
sympathetic to all real originality. The _Olympia_ brought the
discussion to a head. This courtesan lying in bed undressed, with a
negress carrying a bouquet, and a black cat, made a tremendous stir. It
is a powerful work of strong colour, broad design and intense sentiment,
astounding in its _parti-pris_ of reducing the values to the greatest
simplicity. One can feel in it the artist's preoccupation with
rediscovering the rude frankness of Hals and Goya, and his aversion
against the prettiness and false nobility of the school. This famous
_Olympia_ which occasioned so much fury, appears to us to-day as a
transition work. It is neither a masterpiece, nor an emotional work, but
a technical experiment, very significant for the epoch during which it