I would like to establish a small museum featuring the work of the women Impressionists. Berthe Morisot, a founder of the movement, contributed paintings to all but one of the exhibitions. Mary Cassatt first contributed to the fourth show. Marie Braquemond’s work appeared in three shows before her husband discouraged her further involvement with the Impressionists. Eva Gonzalès never participated in an Impressionist exhibition, but as a protégé of Edouard Manet, her style fit within the parameters of Impressionism, so I’d make her an honorary contributor to my imaginary show.
I’ll be your docent as we peruse the work of the women of Impressionism that include scenes of daily life, featuring family members and friends.
Let’s start in the entryway with a theme that all four artists interpreted–women reading (see above gallery):
- Woman Reading (Cassatt, 1978-79)
- Young Lady Reading (Cassatt, 1878)
- Reading in the Garden (Gonzalès, 1880-82)
- Afternoon In the Forest (Braquemond, 1880)
Morisot and Cassatt were the two most active Impressionist painters, so let’s take a look at some of their work in the main gallery.
Morisot was as devoted to her sister, Edma, as Cassatt was to her sister, Lydia. That closeness and intimacy can be seen in The Sisters (Morisot, 1869) and Two Sisters (Cassatt, 1896). Both feature the accessory du jour—a Japanese fan. A difference between the works is that Morisot’s was in oil on canvas, while Cassatt’s was in pastels.
In Mother and Sister of the Artist (Morisot, 1869-70) and Portrait of Katherine Kelso Cassatt (1889), the artists portray more family members. Although these women are imposing figures, both Morisot and Cassatt were devoted to their intelligent, progressive mothers.
Both Summer’s Day (Morisot, 1879) and Summertime (Cassatt, 1894) feature women enjoying boating, probably in the lake in the Bois de Boulogne. You might have noticed that all of these Cassatt works were created 20 years or more after Morisot’s counterparts. Was she paying homage to her old colleague and competitor?
In a small side room, we can see comparable works by Morisot and Gonzales, Awakening, and Awakening Girl (The Alcove). Where Gonzales depicts an idealized, soft-focus scene of a young woman rising from a ruffled pillow beneath a diaphanous canopy, Morisot portrays an awkward servant girl. And notice the different take on seeing and being seen at the theater in Gonzalès’s Box at the Italian Theater and Cassatt’s Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge.
It was her husband’s wish that Marie Braquemond turn her artistic talents to china painting. (For this reason alone, she deserves an alcove devoted to her almost life-sized masterpiece, On the Terrace at Sevres, 1880.) Gonzalès died of childbirth fever. Morisot died at age 54. Cassatt lived the longest, until 1926. She saw WWI and women’s suffrage bring women’s lives out of the domestic sphere. Although they’re gone, the work by these artists documenting the daily lives of women in the late 19th century lives on, in the Museum of Women Impressionists.