This movement, so historically memorable, when Manet discovered the sun and the fine fluid of the atmosphere, was shortly before 1870. Not long before the declaration of war he was in the country, in the neighbourhood of Paris, staying with his friend de Nittis; but he continued to work as though he were at home, only his studio was here the pleasure-ground. Here one day he sat in full sunlight, placed his model amid the flowers of the turf, and began to paint. The result was "The Garden," now in the possession of Madame de Nittis. The young wife of the Italian painter is reclining in an easy-chair, between her husband, who is lying on the grass, and her child asleep in its cradle. Every flower is fresh and bright upon the fragrant sward. The green of the stretch of grass is luminous, and everything is bathed in soft, bright atmosphere; the leaves cast their blue shadows upon the yellow gravel path. "Plein-air" made its entry into painting.
In 1870 his activity had to be interrupted. He entered a company of Volunteers consisting chiefly of artists and men of letters, and in December he became a lieutenant in the Garde Nationale, where he had Meissonier as his colonel. The pictures, therefore, in which he was entirely Manet belong exclusively to the period following 1870.
From this time his great problem was the sun, the glow of daylight, the tremor of the air upon the earth basking in light. He became a natural philosopher who could never satisfy himself, studying the effect of light and determining with the observation of a man of science how the atmosphere alters the phenomena of colour.
In tender, virginal, light grey tones, never seen before, he depicted, in fourteen pictures exhibited at a dealer's, the luxury and grace of Paris, the bright days of summer and _soirées_ flooded with gaslight, the faded features of the fallen maiden and the refined _chic_ of the woman of the world. There was to be seen "Nana," that marvel of audacious grace. Laced in a blue silk corset, and otherwise clad merely in a muslin smock with her feet in pearl-grey stockings, the blond woman stands at the mirror painting her lips, and carelessly replying to the words of a man who is watching her upon the sofa behind. Near it hung balcony scenes, fleeting sketches from the skating rink, the _café concert_, the _Bal de l'Opéra_, the _déjeuner_ scene at Père Lathuille's, and the "Bar at the Folies-Bergères." In one case he has made daylight the subject of searching study, in another the artificial illumination of the footlights. "Music in the Tuileries" reveals a crowd of people swarming in an open, sunny place. Every figure was introduced as a patch of colour, but these patches were alive and this multitude spoke. One of the best pictures was "Boating"--a craft boldly cut away in its frame, after the manner of the Japanese, and seated in it a young lady in light blue and a young man in white, their figures contrasting finely with the delicate grey of the water and the atmosphere impregnated with moisture. And scattered amongst these pictures there were to be found powerful sea-pieces and charming, piquant portraits.