Edouard Manet truly did despise illusion â€" as well as anything else that convoluted, manipulated, or corrupted the truth or reality of a situation. He was a man obsessed with unadulterated, unaltered truth, and sought to display reality in his subjects: he was, truly, one of the first "realists." Antonin Proust, Manet’s close companion, remarked that the artist once stated that "I paint what I see, and not what other people want to see" (Proust, 28). What he "saw" in his subject was therefore what he believed to be that subject’s truth â€" irrespective of his society’s prejudices, ignorance, or adherence to the un-real ideal of academic art. Manet maintains this approach even when he himself is the subject in his Self-Portrait with a Palette. In this self-portrait, the artist is not interested in the superfluous, the unessential, the "extra"; on the contrary, he simply wants, as Proust noted, to portray "himself" at his most essential (Proust, 51). In Self-Portrait with a Palette, Manet utilizes a two-dimensional presentation in order to disregard the unessential elements of the composition and to celebrate his essence: his ability as an artist to truly "see" his world. He paints himself as he sees himself, as an artist, not as how other people "want" to see him. Manet two-dimensionally emphasizes his stature as a man who is committed to portraying the essential truth in reality by emphasizing these same essentials in his own portrait.
Manet utilizes a two-dimensional presentation to emphasize his eyes and his brush, the most veritable representations of an artist’s ability to "see" the world, while undermining the unessential elements of the composition. The lack of depth in the artist’s coat finds its origin in the coat’s two-dimensional quality â€" the coat contains no significant gradations in color for contour, but rather relies on line (the basis of two-dimensional depiction) for its form. Lines give the garment its shape: lines form the arm of the coat, lines form the lapels of the coat, lines form the barely discernable pocket of the coat. Even the buttons themselves are no more than thick, short, angled lines. This two-dimensional coat remains plain, flat, and insignificant in its lined presentation â€" our eyes glance over and naturally disregard the garment because it is so plain in its lack of three-dimensionality. Like the coat, the artist’s left hand is unworthy of our attention, existing as no more than a two-dimensional smudge, a mere extension of the negligible coat from which it protrudes. The hand is not captivating, engaging, or gracefully rendered, but instead lacks appropriate shading and delineation. It is a two-dimensional blur, and our eyes naturally pass over it to move on to the more engaging aspects of the composition: the brush and the eyes.
While Manet uses two-dimensionality to disregard the unessential elements of the subject, the coat and hand, he utilizes the same two-dimensional forms to emphasize and celebrate the brush and eyes. The flat, two-dimensional quality of the brush Manet holds in the painting augments its length â€" our eyes are immediately drawn (no pun intended) to this protruding, projecting form. The brush here becomes a staff, a miter, a symbol of the artistic stature of a man who has wed himself, as Emile Zola observed in his Édouard Manet: Étude Biographique et Critique, to "seeing nature as it is, without seeing it in the works and opinions of others…[to] a language of simplicity and justice" (Zola, 334, 346). This "simplicity" in "seeing" his own "nature" as artist, as manifested in the brush, is further enhanced by the three two-dimensional brushes extending from the lower left of the painting. These three brushes, existing as a substitute for Manet’s absent right hand, point to the brush-miter Manet holds on the right â€" our eyes are further drawn to this long, projecting tool. This noticeable, significant two-dimensional brush on the right and the eye-leading two-dimensional brushes on the left take the place of the artist’s negligible, two-dimensional hands. Manet here appears, quite simply, as if he has paintbrushes for hands. What better way to present his essential character, his ability and dedication as a truth-seeking artist?
The two-dimensional characteristic of these brushes, furthermore, plays its part along with the other two-dimensional, lined shapes in the work to further frame and enhance the most essential aspect of Manet’s capability as a realist artist: his eyes. The two-dimensional elements in the painting converge to form succeeding "V’s" toward the top of the canvas that frame and emphasize the artist’s eyes. The downward-sloping diagonal of Manet’s lower right arm, in this fashion, converges with the three upward-sloping paintbrushes to form the first V. The two-dimensional lines that form the downward-sloping right coat pocket converges with the single upward-sloping paintbrush to form the second V. The two-dimensional lapels of Manet’s coat converge to form the third V, and the V-shape of Manet’s upper beard forms the fourth and final V. These four V’s when placed together in the work frame, lead up to, and enhance the presence of a pair of intensely penetrating eyes that stare with unflappable directness at the beholder. It is as if Manet, in his gaze, is trying to perceive the truth and reality of the world we are in, the true "nature" (Zola, 334), according to Zola, of our own existence.