Extract
[...] Thus, the work cannot acquire complete autonomy vis-à-vis its creator because postulating its complete unity amounts to denying its access to existence, either by the set of subjective choices of an artist. Nevertheless, it is possible for us to apprehend differently both the work and the artist thanks to their different temporality: if the existence of the artist has a beginning and an end, the work, on the other hand, knows an origin but no end, eternally pushed back by the multiplication of interpretations and the renewal of the public. [...]
[...] Also, according to the author, the character of the artist is found in the composition of the work itself: the dry temperament" of Manet is translated materiallyby simple and energetic pieces », and, in return, man himself sees in his existence as in his work, either by patches". Therefore, one cannot dissociate the artist from his work because the latter is technically translated in the former and the latter influences his way of being in his daily life:I have done what I have seen", thus Manet affirms in the wake of his work. By this, the artist emphasizes the link between his existence that he transfigures in a innovative way in his creation. From then on, the artist gives himself to see in his work. [...]
[...] Nevertheless, the work escapes temporally from the latter, and we must speculate on its autonomy. The work cannot be considered, in the first instance, without reference to its creator. This is to take the term 'artist' as one who, not being just a simple craftsman, is one who possesses mastery of a technique, creates work from their subjectivity. Manet, like Morisot, are not commissioned artists, and the theme as well as the realization of their works testify to the personal expression of their creators. [...]
[...] Thus, the work seems to acquire a certain autonomy vis-à-vis the one who produced it. Considering the work through its creator can lead to forgetting the specific characteristics of the production in favor of the artist's biography alone. Many of Manet's paintings that represent Parisian café interiors (such as the Buveurs de bière, the Coin de café-concert or At the café) They testify to their time and the transformations of modern Paris: they must be replaced in the contemporary of the artist, and therefore superimpose his life, to understand one of the senses of the works. [...]
[...] Should we distinguish the artist from their work? - The case of Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot Émile Zola, on Édouard Manet, writes the following : find in the painting a man who has the curiosity of the true and who draws from him a living world of a particular and powerful life (Written on Art, tel Gallimard, p.117). By this statement, the writer associates the artist with his work, linking the two intimately. This association implies that the understanding of one cannot be done without the other, and that the knowledge of the artist's biography is necessary for a full understanding of his work. [...]
