Manet depicts an intimate scene, with a boatman and a woman sitting on a mooring deck. Across the Seine houses and the chimneys of factories can be seen. Manet challenged the Impressionists on their own ground with this painting. With his mastery of light and brush stroke in this scene, Manet never lost touch with form. Manet devised a structured composition of horizontals and verticals which makes the work more than merely a fleeting image of a scene captured by accident. |
|