A Sea Without Boats?

Writing soon after the release of Manet’s The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama,” French critic Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly said of the painting, “This sea of M. Manet’s carries me off on the crest of its wave. M. Manet might have painted the sea alone. He could have left out his ships and his picture would have been greater still. Just the sea, with its mounting green swell…How great that would be—as an idea and as a picture!” (qtd. in Courthion 82). Though this remark was generated by the artist’s earliest seascape, it deserves consideration for all of Manet’s sea paintings. If the waves of Manet’s first and least animated marine painting could have been equally as “great” without boats, could those of his latest, most animated pieces have generated the same liveliness of brushwork without boats?

Close study of the evolving brushwork in Manet’s seascapes contradicts d’Aurevilly’s statement. It is only through comparison of the paintings’ boat-broken waves that we can fully appreciate the progression of Manet’s brushwork from Arcachon. By analyzing the waves of his post-1871 paintings that are not broken by boats, we can still evidence a progression to livelier brushstrokes, but not to the extent of the waves generated by the boats. Because Manet intends to capture a moment of instantaneous action on the sea, his brushwork is liveliest where the action is the liveliest. As shown in Toilers of the Sea, Manet’s strokes become increasingly vertical and wispy towards the front of the scene where the boat breaks through the waves. Compared to the broader, more horizontal lines of dark green in the background, the waves of the foreground are more airy and white. They appear to leap off the sides of the boat, as if the craft’s movement is generating their energy. This effect of increasingly lively strokes is also evident in The Escape of Rochefort, in which the strokes are the swiftest where they splash off the boat. As in Toilers of the Sea, the background away from the boat is almost entirely horizontal and composed of long, flat strokes before building into the more vertical, whiter strokes around the craft. The boat’s movement drives the scene, churning smooth water into a clash of colors and shapes.

Because the boats allow Manet to produce his liveliest brushwork, I chose to analyze the strokes directly affected by the crafts’ travel. By comparing the strokes Manet used to convey ships’ movement through water, we can more closely define how he portrays motion with his brush. The boats’ wakes generate the most action in the scenes and thus provide the closest window for observing how brushstrokes capture movement at sea. Comparing the wakes alone, we can see the development of Manet’s brushwork on a more exact level, for it is here that his strokes most powerfully drive the paintings.

Manet, Edouard. Toilers of the Sea. 1873. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Manet, Edouard. The Escape of Rochefort—The Large Study. 1880-1. Kunsthaus Zurich, Vereinigung Zurcher Kunstfreunde. Zurich, Switzerland.