Posts in Berthe Morisot

Every writer wants to inhabit her protagonist in order to understand and write from her point of view. I already identified with aspects of Berthe Morisot’s life when I wrote La Luministe: her issues with her family, her desire to create, her reluctance to marry. But never could I have imagined that I would understand something about what it was like for her to live through the Siege of Paris. Here we are, well into our second trimester of the Covid 19 pandemic. We’re tired of not being able to… Read More

A prompt from #Debut19Chat to tell a story about a secondary character in my novel inspired me to write my first-ever flash fiction. Here’s a scene with Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot. Paris, August 1888  I’m about to go mad with boredom! The weather is so fine that I long to ride in the Bois de Boulogne. Of course, it was riding that led to my confinement in this bed. A fall and now a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. Mother steps into my room, holding a tea tray. “Mame,… Read More

To help you enjoy the music I’ve chosen to accompany various chapters in my novel about Berthe Morisot, here’s some context about each selection. It was so much fun to compile this soundtrack I may continue adding music when inspiration strikes! Chapter 1 — Tea Picking Dance featuring the traditional Japanese stringed instrument, the koto, signifies the moment when Berthe sees her first Japanese print. The simple image of a woman in the private act of brushing her hair influences her future paintings. Chapter 4 — When the Morisot family attends the opening of… Read More

For much of history, there has only been room for one woman in any given field. She has been the exception, with a second woman automatically positioned as a rival. Think of Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun and Adelaide Labille-Guiard. Or Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Or Serena Williams and the latest contender trying to unseat this champion. This is the position in which Berthe Morisot found herself when Mary Cassatt joined the Impressionists. Morisot had helped found the movement, and for its first three exhibitions, she was “the woman Impressionist”. When Degas… Read More

During January and February of 1894, although she wasn’t aware that they were to be the last months of her life, Berthe Morisot began to incorporate personal images into the backgrounds of her paintings. Perhaps after her husband died, she’d begun to consider her own mortality. Then too, her mother had died at age 48, so she might have felt that time was running out. Berthe’s daughter Julie’s studies included piano and violin lessons. In Julie au Violin, you can see one of Edouard Manet’s many portraits of Berthe on Julie’s… Read More

  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…. Read More

In addition to using her sisters and daughter as models, Berthe Morisot also painted someone who was almost like a member of the family—her maid, Pasie.  Berthe’s mother had taken the usual route to find her lady’s maid. She brought a teenaged village girl back with her after a visit to her hometown in the south of France. Even with her auburn hair pulled into a simple bun, wearing a dark blue serge domestic’s uniform topped with a fresh white apron, Pasie was an appealing model. Berthe painted several scenes… Read More

Images of fashionable bourgeois women were Berthe Morisot’s métier. She relied on her sister Edma and her friends to sit for many such paintings. But when she was born on November 14, 1878, Berthe’s daughter, Julie, became her mother’s favorite model. Here are representative paintings from each of the five stages of Julie’s life. The accompanying quotes are from La Luministe. Here’s my description of Julie’s first appearance, with Angèle, Berthe’s seconde mere:   As soon as I felt myself again, I began to make paintings of my baby, relying on… Read More

A woman like Berthe Morisot, a member of the 19thcentury Parisian upper-class, could study painting to add to her list of accomplishments, but aspiring for professional status was out of the question. Hiring professional models was similarly uacceptable. As a result, Berthe Morisot relied on the women in her life to model for her. Her sister, Edma, was a frequent model. (You can see her in well-known Morisot paintings, including The Cradle, Hide and Seek, and Chasing Butterflies.) The Artist’s Sister at a Window (1869) features the signature characteristics of Berthe’s… Read More

When choosing a cover for my novel, La Luministe, I wanted to convey the beauty of Berthe Morisot’s painting, but I also wanted to suggest something about the artist herself. The brown-eyed brunette beauty in the painting in At the Ball is not Berthe Morisot, although the artist seems to have intentionally chosen a model who resembles her. (Morisot used the same model in Before the Theater, in which she is dressed in Morisot’s own black gown.) The model is only known to us as “Mademoiselle M,” which furthers the parallel between… Read More