Manet: Portraying Life

The Arts Desk“Not quite the exhibition one might have hoped to see of a great artist...” One feels slightly sad that anyone coming fresh to this bold and pioneering modernist will leave simply shrugging their shoulders and wondering what all the fuss is about...

Scotsman“Manet was a great painter and a radical one...” These pictures suggest all sorts of resonances with the past. Genre pictures, like The Street Singer, that are also portraits went back to the 17th century. What was new was the sense of the modern urban context in which Manet set them...

Financial Times“Manet at intimate scale...” It sounds a perverse way of considering so complex a painter and the Royal Academy cannot rival the Orsay’s recent exhibition in scope or depth. But it does offer both intellectual revelation and visual delight...

Evening Standard“A little too thin to serve him as well as it should and could...” It must be said too that at least a dozen paintings and pastels, most of them in private collections, are not only not of exhibition quality but are bad enough to convince the newcomer that Manet does not merit his reputation as a master...

The Observer“Manet emerges as a family man...” And even though the virtue of this show – uniquely, all portraits – is also its limitation, one still sees how strange, unpredictable and unfixed the portrait could be in his art...

The Independent“In Manet's portraiture, the parts don't add up to a whole...” This is not a gathering of masterpieces. Nor is it a comprehensive showing of his portraiture, given the paucity of the borrowings from France. But what you have is the outpouring of one of the great geniuses of art...

The Telegraph“The range and variety of Manet’s portraits are a revelation...” This shifting ground between portraiture and genre goes right to the heart of Manet’s modernity and is explored in all its complexity in a ground-breaking new exhibition opening to the public on Saturday at the Royal Academy...

Guardian“Manet is great – but this show is a patchy ensemble...” Manet painted few self-portraits. He did do a wonderful portrait of his parents, but sadly it isn't here. In fact, I keep looking for works that aren't here. So much is missing, and quite a bit is missable, too...