This technique of generating tension at the point of action is most evident in Manet’s last seascape, The Escape of Rochefort—Large Study, which he painted in 1880-81. In this piece, he most effectively captures action on the sea by sharpening the brush techniques that proved effective in his 1870s paintings. As noted by Wilson-Bareau and Degener, this painting allows Manet to build on his previous pieces and “develop his own, inimitable style…by means of vibrant, interwoven brushstrokes that enable light and air to surround and penetrate the sharply characterized forms” (Wilson-Bareau and Degener 90). Though these critics acknowledge the unique style which Manet develops in this painting, they do not examine it as a culmination of his earlier work and thus fail to appreciate how Manet is able to effect such exceptional transience with his brush. 
In The Escape of Rochefort, Manet captures an energy in his waves unprecedented by his paintings of ten years earlier but driven by his experimentation in those pieces. From his plein air work at Arcachon, Manet learned to develop tension in his paintings by applying increasingly vertical strokes towards the front of the painting to make the boats’ cutting through water evoke the most energy. For the back of The Escape of Rochefort, he uses a blend of lines before working in staccato strokes that gradually become more vertical towards the foreground and peak at the point where the waves crash against the boat. The upward movement of these strokes parallels the boat’s sharp movement through the water. Compared to his earliest works, in which the wake was either nearly indistinguishable or fell flat around the base of the boat, The Escape of Rochefort captures a remarkable three-dimensionality in its brushwork. The waves seem to have a life of their own. In addition to using increasingly vertical strokes, Manet uses increasingly dry strokes like those with which he experimented at Arcachon, but here he places them more appropriately in the scene. As in Toilers of the Sea, Manet makes the strokes that crash into the boat the coarsest to reflect the boat’s rough drive through the water but further accentuates that moment by also incorporating more irregular contours and bolder colors. The zigzag technique first employed at Arcachon reappears at the forefront of the scene but with sharper turns, drawing the viewer’s eye to the vigorous interplay of lightning-like strokes that drives the boat through the scene. Also, while he began to incorporate nontraditional sea colors in 1871, this painting captures a clash of color unparalleled by his earlier work. Manet not only includes tan strokes first evident in his Arcachon piece, but he infuses the waves with other shades, juxtaposing deep shades of black with sunlit hues of yellow to create a sense of collision. The water comes alive as the multicolored strokes battle each other in the boat’s wake. Though Manet had been generating life in his seascapes throughout the previous decade, this 1881 painting best captures the effect of his increasingly lively brushwork.
Manet, Edouard. The Escape of Rochefort—The Large Study. 1880-1. Kunsthaus Zurich,
Vereinigung Zurcher Kunstfreunde.
Zurich, Switzerland.