How does a symbolic revolution take place? When is it successful? The great French sociologist explores these questions through the example of Édouard Manet, the founder of modern painting, in his groundbreaking lectures at the Collège de France from 1998 to 2000. The lectures are accompanied by a manuscript about Manet, which Bourdieu worked on with his wife Marie-Claire. A discovery! Bourdieu situates Manet's painting within the crisis of art in the mid-19th century - at a time when the number of artists is increasing and state authority in assessing the value of art is fundamentally called into question. In this situation, Manet breaks with the rules of academic painting and revolutionizes the entire aesthetic order. His paintings are to be understood as declarations of war against the guardians of academicism.