Manet had retained a distinct fascination for both the sea and for maritime activity since his late childhood – according to his confidant Antonin Proust, it was around the sea at Boulogne where Manet “se ressaisit (re-seized himself)” (Proust, 56). This “re-seizing” and self-invigoration, stemming from an uncompromised interest in all things maritime, elicited a punctuated disregard for his predetermined career plans and precipitated the artist’s 1848 enrollment in the French merchant marine. Manet’s early sea experiences undoubtedly provided inspiration not only for his Kearsarge depictions, but also for his paintings of boating activity off the French coast at Boulogne, most notably the watercolor study Steamboat, painted in 1868, and the oil paint version of the very same subject, Steamboat Leaving Boulogne, completed in 1864. The inherent commonalities between these paintings and the Kearsarge depictions – including similar subjects (ships), settings (Boulogne sea), and periods of completion (1864-8) – permit the Boulogne steamboat paintings to be utilized as a lens though which to view Manet’s particularly unfavorable presentations of the anti-imperialist Kearsarge and the continuing conflict between his political sentiments on those canvases and his beliefs in word. When the subject of Manet’s maritime depiction is a French steamboat in French water, such as in Steamboat and Steamboat Leaving Boulogne, the ship’s presence is affirmed, not undermined; it exists favorably with the other elements of the seascape. When the Kearsarge, an anti-imperialist entity, is the subject however, Manet depicts the warship unfavorably and negates its very existence. These Boulogne depictions emphasize the unfavorable portrayal of the Kearsarge.
Steamboat Watercolor Study, 1868
In Steamboat (left), the prominent positioning of the boat allows the boat’s presence to be celebrated. In the watercolor study The Kearsarge at Boulogne (bottom, right), on the other hand, Manet places the Kearsarge in the distance which contributes to the unfavorable portrayal of the warship. In Steamboat, the beholder is placed lower and closer to the steamship, creating a sense of immediacy and permitting a clear delineation of the sea’s movement – each ripple, each wave, each small displacement of water is readily apparent and represented by tightly-sequenced horizontal brushstrokes. The sea is dynamic, active, and life-like because we are close enough to the ship to see that sea’s activity and movement. The ever-moving ocean retains a certain vitality, in turn instilling vitality in the steamboat – in this painting, the boat does not move the water, the water moves the boat. The water affirms the boat. The sea, its live “luminosity” afforded by the steamboat’s close positioning to the beholder, invigorates the ship, welcoming it (Wilson-Bareau, 69). The steamboat’s presence, in turn, is not negated but rather is glorified – the steamboat, assisted by its sea-comrade, cuts a proud path through the seascape, asserting its prominent presence. We are close enough, in this instance, to perceive an emission of steam from the ship, a veritable materialization of the boat’s virility, that almost touches us. Closeness in perspective is utilized here in order to demonstrate the active quality of a steam-emitting ship that is complemented by an active, responsive waterway.
Where this steamboat is active, however, the distant Kearsarge is decidedly passive. Since the Kearsarge is so far away from the beholder, individual gradations in the sea that provide a sense of life and movement are not readily apparent. Broad, barely differentiable wet brushstrokes contribute to a sense of stagnancy: the sea in this presentation does not retain, as Wilson-Bareau notes, the delineated ripples and waves of Steamboat’s multifaceted, “light-reflected” moving sea, but rather exists as an unmoving, solid block (Wilson-Bareau, 69). This uniform, block-like sea in turn renders the Kearsarge stagnant and unmoving; the sea is impenetrable and oppressive, embedding Kearsarge. The ship is trapped in the distance. The Kearsarge, moreover, possesses none of the virility, none of the movement, and none of the life of the French steamboat – the warship is cemented and constricted. This Union battleship, and the body of water that contains it, are not immediate but rather passive, distanced, and dead.
In addition, the distanced perspective of the Kearsarge seascape elicits a lack of differentiation between the sky and the sea, as the sea retains many of the same, uniformly gray tones of the sky. The sky and the sea thus are not complementary but become one giant, solid, impenetrable mass, dominating the canvas and further undermining the Kearsarge’s presence. This sky-sea block cements the warship, prevents the Kearsarge from acquiring the same freedom and movement of Steamboat, and remains oppressively fettering in its totality due to a lack of differentiation. The immediate horizon line in Steamboat, by contrast, is much more defined. This definition of the line that demarcates what is sky and what is sea balances the composition, complementing the vertical shape of the steamboat and augmenting the boat’s stature in the work. This clear delineation, as Wilson-Bareau notes, of the sky “against the sea” (Wilson-Bareau, 69) in Steamboat, like the clear delineation of the sea’s ripples and movements in the painting, is a result of a lack of distance in perspective. Manet here is “close” to the steamboat, to the maritime predilections of his youth, and affirms the French steamboat’s presence. In his Kearsarge at Boulogne watercolor study, however, Manet’s displays a distinct aversion to the Union warship on canvas, distancing the anti-imperialist ship in its presentation and in turn “distancing” himself from his stated anti-imperialist, anti-Napoleonic sentiment.
Steamboat Leaving Boulogne, 1864
We can also utilize a comparison between the oil-paint versions of Steamboat Leaving Boulogne (left) and The Kearsarge at Boulogne (bottom, right) to further propound Manet’s unfavorable presentation of the Union battleship. In Steamboat Leaving Boulogne, the natural elements exist in indubitable harmony with the French steamship; by contrast, the natural elements in The Kearsarge at Boulogne conflict with the Kearsarge and undermine its existence. The sky in the latter work does not retain the placid, feathery quality of Steamboat’s, but rather contains a sharp blue streak directly above the American ship that interrupts its otherwise white uniformity. This streak descends on the Kearsarge, existing as a gaping mouth, ready to swallow the warship. The light blue aspect of the sky in Steamboat, however, remains in communion with the French steamship, complementing it. In this instance, the feathered blue streak descends upon the steamboat, but not in a way so as to consume the boat: it gracefully approaches the steamboat’s smokestack as if the steamboat itself is emitting bits of blue sky. The steamboat here is not only “belching” a proud burst of “smoke” (Wilson-Bareau, 67), but also “belches” a trail of blue sky on the left that further solidifies the steamboat-sky embrace. The steamboat’s presence is irrefutably affirmed, not rejected; the sky does not seek to undermine the ship’s existence and possesses none of the antagonism of Kearsarge’s blue void. The feeling of peaceful coexistence dominates this presentation.
The sea and the sailboats further accompany the sky in this glorification of the steamship in Steamboat and in the undermining of Kearsarge. In this painting, the sea remains, as Wilson-Bareau notes, “calm, unruffled,” and “unnaturally flat” (Wilson-Bareau, 67). “Unruffled” and “unnaturally flat,” however, connote an unmoving, dead quality. Here the sea is not just “flat” (Wilson-Bareau, 67) and dead, but Manet’s utilization of soft light and ever-so-subtle gradations portray the sea in slow, soft motion. This softly moving sea, furthermore, gently moves the steamship, caressing and encouraging it. Within the bottom two-thirds of the canvas, moreover, the softness of the sea contributes to an idyllic quality that permeates the work; the steam ship is able to traverse the seascape of its own accord in a proud diagonal. The ship here is not at odds with the water, but on the other hand is remarkably with it at peace as it glides over the surface. The three sailboats within the middle-left portion of the canvas, in response to the steamboat’s slow displacement, collect around the wake in quiet veneration. They bow before the boat’s imprinted path, “frame” and “accompany the packet on its journey” (Wilson-Bareau, 67), viewing it as holy in its own right. Their “calculated placement” leave the “steamer’s wake…unbroken” (Wilson-Bareau and Deneger, 66; Wilson-Bareau, 67), as if they are prostrate before an idol. A certain reverence for the steamboat exists.
These three sailboats, moreover, are not like their three counterpart sailboats in The Kearsarge at Boulogne, which, as Wilson-Bareau and David Deneger note in their exhibition catalogue Manet and the Sea, “head toward the American warship” (Wilson-Bareau and Deneger, 66). Wilson-Bareau and Deneger, however, fail to note how these boats, in advancing, are actually oppressing and overwhelming the American warship. In so doing, they push the Kearsarge away from the beholder and into the distance, negating the warship’s very existence. In this way, the sailboats do not affirm its presence, but rather seek to terminate it. There exists a distinct aversion, an opposition, to the Kearsarge’s incursion on their waters: an opposition that connotes Manet’s own “opposition” to the Kearsarge and the anti-imperialist Union cause. The sea assists the sailboats in conflict with the Union warship as its “swirling, foam-capped waves” (Wilson-Bareau and Deneger, 66) contrast with the affirming placidity of the sea in Steamboat and further demonstrate an aversion toward Kearsarge. In Steamboat, Manet utilizes the sky, sea, and sailboats in order to celebrate the steamship’s presence; in contrast, the natural elements of the seascape in The Kearsarge at Boulogne undermine the presence of the anti-imperialist battleship.