Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
France, 1866
Oil on canvas
Musée d’Orsay 
© Musée d’Orsay, dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Patrice Schmidt

Manet’s work epitomises the sensibility of modern artists in search of new sources of inspiration. Fascinated by Diego Velasquez’s Pablo de Valladolid, which he first saw in the Museo del Prado in 1865, Manet borrowed several features from it in The Fife player, painted the following year – notably the disappearing background, which especially struck him, and which he compared to air surrounding the figure. Manet chose a subject from everyday life – an anonymous boy soldier whom he turned into a monumental figure like a Spanish grandee, set in an indeterminate space. He also used a simplified language, a limited palette, and colours applied in flat blocks. Alongside The Bohemian, with its quintessentially Spanish subject, The Fife player illustrates in a different and complementary way the influence of paintings from the Spanish Golden Age on Manet’s work.