The world they painted, Friedrich explains, was set to music by Offenbach, his comic operas reflecting the decadence, pomposity, and materialism of the court and of the ambitious Empress and the reprobate Napoleon, whom she bullied into an ill-fated war against the Prussians. Along with his perceptive analysis of Manet's paintings, Friedrich relates the story of impressionism and the community of artists Manet inspired: Monet, Gauguin, Renoir, Degas, C zanne, and Morisot, who married Manet's brother. Empress Eug nie, Berthe Morisot, and ``Olympia''-Manet's model and painting, whose mystery inspired this book-all have one or two chapters devoted to them, with the author building up other histories from them. As artistic inspiration, artifact, and social symbol, women dominate Friedrich's text. douard Manet's life is the frame, his art a recurrent motif. Toklas-both 1989 City of Nets, 1986, etc.) now brings his rare historical imagination and narrative gifts to the art and politics, frivolity, eccentricity, and scandal of the Second Empire (1865-85) in Paris during the reign of Napoleon III. Friedrich (Glenn Gould, The Grave of Alice B.
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