Manet vs. Degas: how to be contemporaries, rivals and also friends

Contemporary French artists Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas were best friends until Degas gifted Manet a portrait featuring Manet and his wife Suzanne. But this painting apparently rubbed Manet the wrong way - so much so that he took a knife to the canvas. Thus, a rift was born between the two painters.

Now hanging in a modern art museum in Japan, this intimate portrait and the puzzling story behind it fascinated Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee. It got him thinking about creativity and competitiveness, especially amoung 19th and 20th century male artists.

"The relationships really present themselves on the canvas...There's an intimacy in art history that textbooks often ignore," he tells guest host Candy Palmater. 

His new book, The Art of Rivalry, examines four pairs of artists (for example Picasso and Matisse) and decodes how their frenemy status informed their work. 

Smee posits that these relationships toed the line between friend and enemy so precariously because of their intimacy. 

"They're so vulnerable," he says of the lonely pursuit of art. "To have someone they admired be inspired by them was an incredible affirmation. That's what added intensity in the relationships."