"It is not enough to know your craft - you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more"
About this Quote
Manet is picking a fight with the comforting lie that mastery is merit on its own. “Know your craft” nods to the academy: drawing drills, polished technique, the rulebook that turns painters into reliable producers of “correct” pictures. Then he yanks the ladder away. Craft is necessary, but insufficient; without “feeling,” it becomes a kind of visual bureaucracy. The line isn’t anti-skill so much as anti-compliance.
The real barb is in his use of “science.” In the 19th century, science was prestige: optics, anatomy, perspective, the measurable truths that promised certainty. Manet doesn’t deny its value (“all very well”), but he demotes it. For painters, imagination matters “far more” because art isn’t a lab report; it’s an argument with reality. He’s defending the right to distort, simplify, shock, or leave things unresolved if that’s what makes the image alive. The subtext: accuracy can be a trap, and “objective” technique often masks timid taste.
Context sharpens the intent. Manet worked in a Paris where the Salon rewarded narrative polish and seamless finish, while modern life was getting louder, flatter, more abrasive. His own paintings - blunt contrasts, visible brushwork, contemporary subjects treated with the gravity once reserved for myth - were read as incompetence or provocation. This quote is his rebuttal: what looks like broken rules is often a different set of priorities.
He’s also drawing a boundary around artistic authority. Feeling and imagination aren’t decorative extras; they’re the engine that turns skill into vision, and vision into rupture.
The real barb is in his use of “science.” In the 19th century, science was prestige: optics, anatomy, perspective, the measurable truths that promised certainty. Manet doesn’t deny its value (“all very well”), but he demotes it. For painters, imagination matters “far more” because art isn’t a lab report; it’s an argument with reality. He’s defending the right to distort, simplify, shock, or leave things unresolved if that’s what makes the image alive. The subtext: accuracy can be a trap, and “objective” technique often masks timid taste.
Context sharpens the intent. Manet worked in a Paris where the Salon rewarded narrative polish and seamless finish, while modern life was getting louder, flatter, more abrasive. His own paintings - blunt contrasts, visible brushwork, contemporary subjects treated with the gravity once reserved for myth - were read as incompetence or provocation. This quote is his rebuttal: what looks like broken rules is often a different set of priorities.
He’s also drawing a boundary around artistic authority. Feeling and imagination aren’t decorative extras; they’re the engine that turns skill into vision, and vision into rupture.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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