Manet's Contemplation at the Gare Saint-Lazare - Tapa blanda

The art of Edouard Manet has been called upon to support various, mostly conflicting, theories about nineteenth-century art, modernist painting, Realism, the personality and intentions of the artist, and the development of Impressionism. Manet was an exceedingly private man and left scant record of his ideas and ambitions. Harry Rand's consideration of Manet's friendship with Stephane Mallarme illuminates their shared aesthetic, and his close examination of the pictorial organization of a particular painting, the Gare Saint-Lazare (also known as The Railway), yields unmistakable clues to Manet's thoughts about painting, literature, and society.

"I would expect Rand's interpretation, however controversial it may be, to bring the issue of the depiction of 'consciousness' into the center of the arena in which Manet scholars battle over a proper interpretation."Richard Shiff