The Absinthe Drinker
Édouard Manet·1859
Historical Context
Manet's first major genre painting, exhibited at the 1861 Salon, drew on his direct observation of Parisian street life and his admiration for Spanish painting, particularly Velázquez's depictions of social marginals. The absinthe drinker — a ragpicker standing at a parapet with his bottle — was inspired by a figure Manet had encountered near the Louvre and drew on the Baudelairean fascination with urban bohemia and social dereliction. His teacher Thomas Couture rejected the canvas when Manet showed it to him, calling it 'an absinthe drinker… and the painter who painted this nonsense.'
Technical Analysis
The figure stands against a shallow, barely differentiated background in the manner of Velázquez's court jesters and philosophers, the grey-green tonality of the ground rhyming with the sickly tones associated with absinthe. Manet models the ragged costume with broad, summary brushwork, rendering the social degradation through the looseness of the paint itself.
