Edouard Manet, The Spanish Singer

Edouard Manet, The Spanish Singer

The Spanish Singer is an oil painting on canvas by French painter Édouard Manet, made in 1860 and has been preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1949.

This work, composed in Manet's studio, used a model and stage equipment that was later used for at least one other painting. This work, which is both realistic and exotic in depicting its subject, exhibits the influence of Spanish art, particularly Diego Velázquez, on Manet's style. Manet was accepted to the Paris Salon for the first time in 1861 due to this painting, and he also exhibited portraits of his mother and father there.

Even though the figure of the guitarist singing appears Spanish, even his contemporaries recorded that the costume was not original and seemed to be posing in a studio. One criticized the "Marseilles type jacket and trousers of this gitarerro from Montmartre". Emile Zola pointed out that while the public may think Manet's models were Spanish, they should know that Manet "kept Spanish costumes in his studio and liked their colors".

He drew a guitarist using his right hand to play a stringed instrument intended for a player using his left hand, but critics thought the "mistake" was insignificant. However, he said that he "painted the head in one go" and "When I looked at it from my small black mirror... everything was alright. I never added another stroke". Remember the two points we discussed elsewhere: great masters never make mistakes in their important works, and minds like ours are mirrors of truth. So is it a coincidence that when you look at The Spanish Singer in the mirror, the guitar strings unravel by themselves? The player becomes left-handed while playing a guitar strained for a left-handed player. Nobody had previously noticed that The Spanish Singer reflects the truth as an image of Manet's mind.

The Spanish Singer received positive reviews at the time and earned a good mention. French writer Charles Baudelaire and French journalist and literary critic Theophile Gautier praised the painting for its "very true color" and "strong brush". As a result, Manet became the leader of the avant-garde movement and inspired a group of young artists including Henri Fantin-Latour and Carolus-Duran, who decided to visit Manet's studio.