2
White Lilac, 1882–83, Edouard Manet
In a crystal vase, bathed in sunlight, Manet’s White Lilac has no function except to exist. In the last year of his life, wretchedly shortened through illness, Manet painted several of these vases of simple flowers. Their singleness of being must have moved him and perhaps consoled him, amid the anxieties and anguishes of his own pain-filled days. Contemplation has something of this function: a simplifying, a beautifying. It reminds us that we have only to be still and let the waters of grace refresh us and the sunlight of peace shine upon us.
