Guardian Unlimited Arts | Arts features | Thoroughly modern Manet_If you told me it was a contemporary work not only would I believe you, I’d be excited to see an image that’s so true to our time._Nineteenth-century art has such an invincible hold on us because we are still in confused rebellion against a social order that seems more permanent now than it did in the age of Manet and Marx. The real ghosts in Manet’s Paris are ourselves.