Manet's Contemplation at the Gare Saint-Lazare - Hardcover

"Rand has identified brilliantly the sources of Manet's talent for outraging his critics and befuddling even his advocates, including Zola--his emphasis on consciousness; his incredible pictorial concision; the complexity and oddity of the relationships, like those in "La Gare Saint-Lazare so strikingly and coolly presented."--Rima Drell Reck, "The French Review

The art of Edouard Manet has been called upon to support various, mostly conflicting, theories about nineteenth-century art, modernist painting, Realism, the personality and intentions of the artist, and the development of Impressionism. Manet was an exceedingly private man and left scant record of his ideas and ambitions. Harry Rand's consideration of Manet's friendship with Stephane Mallarme illuminates their shared aesthetic, and his close examination of the pictorial organization of a particular painting, the Gare Saint-Lazare (also known as The Railway), yields unmistakable clues to Manet's thoughts about painting, literature, and society.