Boating
A man in white holds the tiller as a woman leans on the gunwale, water filling the frame with no horizon. Manet's Impressionist-period work painted outdoors. Full commentary ↓
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Boating is an oil painting by Edouard Manet (1874) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It measures 97.2 × 130.2 cm.
In the pictureA man in white with a straw hat holds the tiller rope of a sailboat and looks toward us. Beside him a woman in a striped dress and a veiled hat leans against the gunwale and gazes into the distance. The boat is cut off at the bottom of the picture, and everything else is blue water. With no horizon, the boat seems to float on the surface of the picture.
BackgroundManet painted it in the summer of 1874 while staying with Monet at Argenteuil. It belongs to the period when Manet, a studio painter, worked outdoors in bright colors under the influence of his Impressionist friends. The composition, filling the picture with water and no horizon, came from Japanese prints. The models are said to be Manet's brother-in-law and an unidentified woman. When it was shown at the Salon of 1879, critics asked why the water was so blue.
Puzzle tipIn this puzzle, half the pieces are blue water. Complete the two figures and the shape of the boat first, then place the water by the direction of the brushstrokes (short horizontal dashes) and by brightness. The water pieces near the figures have a faint green tinge, and those at the top a faint violet. Zooming in is a must.
- Artist
- French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris
- Classification
- Paintings
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 97.2 x 130.2 cm
- Credit line
- H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
In these collections: Sea and Waterside Masterpiece Puzzles
Stories about this work
- Seven Paris Paintings from 1874 to 1897, from Manet's Boating to Pissarro's Winter Boulevard
Twenty-three years, from Manet's Boating to Pissarro's Boulevard Montmartre. Following Impressionism's birth, its split, and the passage to the next generation through seven paintings. Plus how pointillism and blurred brushwork differ as puzzles.
