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MANET, "YOUNG FLAUTIST, OR THE FIFER", 1866


I don't know a thing about Manet but I think he's brilliant simply on the basis of this one painting. Fell head over heels for it the moment I saw it at the Musée d'Orsay this past summer. I just love that even though he's using these impressionist techniques of kind of soft, blurred brush strokes, without any distinct, defined lines, there's still a sharpness to the painting as a result of the interplay of contrasting colors, shadow and light. It's the kind of paradox you find in the sound of a flute itself -- a sharp, shrill high note that all the while manages to be ambient and resonate and reverberate in the space around it.

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