Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist

Édouard Manet (1832-83) is widely considered to be the first modernist painter. His groundbreaking works stoked controversy in the bourgeois Paris art world for their avant-garde brushwork and depictions of the nude female form. In this instalment of the series Great Art Explained, the UK curator, gallerist and video essayist James Payne details why, even as nudity was prevalent in the art of Manet’s era, the depictions of naked women in his paintings were radical for their unidealised style – and for the way they stare directly at the viewer, daring, per Payne, to defy the male gaze. Centring his analysis on Manet’s groundbreaking work Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (‘The Luncheon on the Grass’; 1862-63), Payne contextualises Manet’s radical approach and his vital place in art history as a bridge between realism and impressionism.