If Manet’s experiment with plein air at Arcachon in 1871 directed the course of his later work with the sea, he built upon and redirected those lessons ten years later in this last seascape. The Escape of Rochefort hones the most successful aspects of his earliest attempts at depicting a lively sea to stand as his most instantaneous, lifelike piece. 
Ironically, though, while the artist’s progressively more animated brushwork may have been generated by his on-site experience, his last and liveliest seascape was produced in the studio. Because Manet has developed a better sense of boat’s movement through water from his studies at Arcachon, he is able to effect a lively feel to the canvas without being outside. Compared to his in-studio paintings done twenty years earlier, this final piece seems much less polished and therefore much more vivacious. As Manet himself said, “An artist must be spontaneous. But to have spontaneity, one has to be a master of one’s art. You have to translate what you feel, but translate it on the spot….Invariably, in fact, you perceive that what you did yesterday is no longer compatible with what you do tomorrow” (qtd. Brombert 272). The artist’s renderings of a boat at sea in the 1870s and 1880s show a marked progression from his work of “yesterday,” culminating in this last and most instantaneous seascape. Because by 1881 Manet had become so adept at depicting a moment at sea through his brushwork, he no longer needed to actually be at sea to effect that transience on canvas. He had mastered the art of spontaneity. Only by tracing the progression of his “perpetual haphazard brushstrokes” (Gronberg 238) can we appreciate his ability to reproduce the boats’ rapid movement indoors. Only by realizing the deliberate decisions he makes with his brush can we understand how we, too, are brought to the sea by Manet’s seascapes. Because of the skillful use of his brush, Manet is able to make his canvas come alive for the viewer, allowing us to feel at sea no matter where we view his paintings.
Manet, Edouard. Self-Portrait with a Palette. 1879. Private collection.