Manet Ragpicker Essay

The painting that I am evaluating is Ragpicker, and it was made by the painter named Edouard Manet. The painting was created over the course of a 5-year period which spanned from the dates 1865 to 1870, and the medium used to make the painting was oil on canvas. The subject of the painting is an elderly white man who is facing and looking directly at the viewer. He has a long white beard and is wearing a black hat. He is also wearing a white shirt that looks dirty and worn out and blue pants that are also dirty and have a hole in them. In his left hand from the viewers point of view he has a brown sack or bag hanging over his shoulder, and in his right hand he is holding a long brown walking stick or cane. The background of the man is very
I feel that this painting is successful because the formal theory is based on a work of art being influenced by earlier works and the artist being innovative from it, and Manet was inspired by Impressionist art and in this painting, he had his own innovative technique in it. The website Edouard Manet: Paintings, and Biography of Edouard Manet shows this innovative technique by saying, “Although Manet was also fond of using lighter colors, his paintings often had a hint of black, which was not typical in most paintings during his time (“Edouard Manet”). In the Ragpickers, Manet used his own innovative technique of putting the hint of black in the background which shows that the painting was successful by the formal theory. I also feel that the artist intention and function of giving the viewer an informative and visual painting of a homeless ragpicker and what the ragpicker did was fulfilled. In my opinion, I really liked and enjoyed this painting for the fact that it was simple and portrayed the man perfectly. It was also the painting that caught my eye right as I saw it in the museum out of all the other