People keep calling me the bridge between old art and new art like I didn’t build the bridge, walk across it, and then get blamed for making everyone else late. by Édouard Manet

Both of you are exhausting. I went outside once and suddenly everyone wanted to discuss my whole personality.

That’s the line. That’s the one everybody reposts while pretending they discovered me too.

You also painted like you were trying to win an argument with daylight.

I defended the paintings, not the manners. There is a difference and Édouard knows it.

And yet you kept showing up to look at the argument.

I know. I just think if the critics were that advanced, they’d have painted better.

At least someone had a personality. The rest of Paris acted like a nap in a waistcoat.

Zola, please. You wrote one good defense and now you think you invented my man’s entire reputation.