MARY CASSATT (1844 - 1926)
|
Francoise in Green, Sewing1908 - 1909
Oil on canvas |
ARTWORK
Mary Cassatt is known for her paintings of mothers and children, but in some of her later artworks she focused on individual children engaged in a solitary activity. Francoise was most likely a young girl from the village of Mesnil-Theribus, Oise near Cassatt’s home in France. In this painting, a young girl, eight to twelve years old, is seated in a white-framed armchair, just beyond an entryway to an adjacent parlor. The young girl is engaged in needlework, her head is slightly bent as she focuses intently on plying the needle. She wears an elegant dress made of taffeta or silk-flounced skirt and green and white stripes complemented by a white blouse with ruffles. The girl is placed in the center of the painting and the chair behind her is turned slightly to the left to echo the diagonal patterns of the floor design. A green curtain at the top left and a white mantle at the top right are separated by a small ochre rectangular wall space with white wood trim, which, together, forms a frame around her head.
ART HISTORY
Impressionism began as a French art movement that consisted of independent artists who chose to rebel against the traditional French Academy. Led by Manet’s bold and direct painting style and subject matter that abandoned academic subjects for everyday scenes, the impressionists embraced a new wave of independence that was not bound by any one individual style. Impressionists placed great value on the immediacy of the brushstroke and preferred the color and light of plein air painting or painting outdoors. Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot were members of the Impressionist group; two female artists whose work featured women and children as their primary subject matter. A little over a decade following the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, the collector Paul Durand Ruel held his first exhibition of Impressionist paintings in New York, and soon after, American artists and collectors would embrace Impressionism as an important artistic development.
Impressionism began as a French art movement that consisted of independent artists who chose to rebel against the traditional French Academy. Led by Manet’s bold and direct painting style and subject matter that abandoned academic subjects for everyday scenes, the impressionists embraced a new wave of independence that was not bound by any one individual style. Impressionists placed great value on the immediacy of the brushstroke and preferred the color and light of plein air painting or painting outdoors. Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot were members of the Impressionist group; two female artists whose work featured women and children as their primary subject matter. A little over a decade following the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, the collector Paul Durand Ruel held his first exhibition of Impressionist paintings in New York, and soon after, American artists and collectors would embrace Impressionism as an important artistic development.
ARTIST
|
Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker who spent most of her adult life in France. She was a close friend of Edgar Degas and exhibited her work with the French Impressionists.
Cassatt was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She was born into an upper middle class family, which enabled her to travel throughout Europe as part of her education and training. Cassatt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and was a fellow student of Thomas Eakins. Discouraged by the limitations for women at the Academy, Cassatt decided to move to Paris, accompanied by her mother and other family members. Although women were also forbidden at the time to attend the École des Beaux Arts, Cassatt was able to study with Jean Léon Gérôme, a painter of Orientalist themes, and Thomas Couture, winner of the Prix de Rome in 1837. In 1867 Cassatt had her first painting accepted by the annual Paris Salon exhibition titled A Mandolin Player and continued to submit work until the Franco Prussian War. Cassatt traveled to Spain and was greatly influenced by the work of Velasquez, whose influence was recognized earlier in the work of Manet. Edgar Degas invited Cassatt to participate in the Impressionist exhibition, at which time her paintings departed from the traditional academic style, depicted women and children using a light, airy, impressionistic palette. |
CONNECTIONS
The term “Impressionism” was first coined by Louis Leroy in his review of the first Impressionist Exhibition, which was derived from a painting by Monet titled “Impression Sunrise.” Leroy’s review took the form of a dialogue that represented two skeptical viewpoints:
Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.
Impressionism, while emphasizing color and light, was more of a movement than a style, and artists who were members often exhibited paintings that varied in technique and subject matter. Degas was one artist and friend of Cassatt’s who shared her interest in the pastel medium and printmaking. Although their subject matter differed, they both used the two mediums to expand the boundaries of their art and impressionism as a whole. Below are a few representative examples of works by Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, and Monet, artists who were important members of the Impressionist group.
Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.
Impressionism, while emphasizing color and light, was more of a movement than a style, and artists who were members often exhibited paintings that varied in technique and subject matter. Degas was one artist and friend of Cassatt’s who shared her interest in the pastel medium and printmaking. Although their subject matter differed, they both used the two mediums to expand the boundaries of their art and impressionism as a whole. Below are a few representative examples of works by Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, and Monet, artists who were important members of the Impressionist group.
|
|
Edgar Degas, The Ballet Rehearsal, gouache and pastel, 1875; Berthe Morisot, In the Dining Room, oil on canvas, 1875; Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise, oil on canvas, 1873.
DISCUSSION
Mary Cassatt never had children of her own because she felt that motherhood was incompatible with her career as an artist. Yet, most of her paintings consisted of mothers and young children. How did her life as a single woman influence her choice to paint women and children? During the 19th century, men and women spent a lot their time is separate social circles and middle class single women were rarely left alone in a room with a man. How did this influence Cassatt’s choice of subject matter?