Efforts to capture the truth in painting and to connect with French literature led Édouard Manet to a modern conception of painting. He followed the example of artists of the past (Titian, Tintoretto, Velázquez, Goya, Delacroix and Courbet).
In addition to creating revolutionary paintings The Luncheon on the Grass, Olympia or Bar in Folies Bergère, he also sought a new sacral painting. Through illusory realism, vivid colors and the capture of natural light, he became a model for the Impressionists, became close to them and partly accepted their technical and thematic principles.