KEY ARTISTS:
Cassatt & Morisot
KEY MEANINGS:
Depictions of men/women (portraits/figures etc.)
Work & Leisure
Modernity
KEY CONTEXTS:
Women Impressionists' works reflect the same economic, technological and social contexts described on the Impressionism page, though there's another layer of SOCIAL context they bring due to the special circumstances that they had to deal with for being women.
Social
Even though Paris was now known as a cosmopolitan city, Parisian society was still very restrictive for women.
They were not allowed to attend to the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) — the country’s most important art academy — until 1897, and it was not socially acceptable to frequent public spaces, such as cafes, to work on their art and mingle with their peers without a male companion. Despite societal challenges, Cassatt and Morisot embraced their artistic aspirations and helped create an alternative system that included attending private academies and exhibiting independently to pursue their career. |
Women in the Nineteenth Century |
“I consider women writers, lawyers, and politicians as monsters and nothing but five-legged calves… The woman artist is merely ridiculous...” - Renoir
“Women are generally excluded from our cultural heritage, overlooked by art historians and omitted from exhibitions in museums and galleries simply because they are women” - in “Mary Cassatt” by Griselda Pollock, 1980
“Women are generally excluded from our cultural heritage, overlooked by art historians and omitted from exhibitions in museums and galleries simply because they are women” - in “Mary Cassatt” by Griselda Pollock, 1980
Why Are There So Few Female Artists? |
Context: Women in Art History |
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AN AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISTMary Cassatt (1844-1926)American-born Mary Cassatt travelled to France for her artistic training and remained there for most of her life and career. There she was recognized by contemporaries like Edgar Degas for her talent, and she became the only American artist to exhibit with the Impressionists in Paris.
Her signature subjects were portraits of women and portrayals of mothers and children caught in everyday moments. In both her style and her insightful evocations of women's inner lives, she was a distinctly modern artist of the late nineteenth century.
www.theartstory.org/artist-cassatt-mary.htm |
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LIFE AS A WOMAN AND A PAINTERBerthe Morisot (1841-1895) When the second Impressionist exhibition opened in the spring of 1876 in Paris, one sharp-tongued critic described its participants as "five or six lunatics, one of which is a woman." The woman, of course, was Berthe Morisot, who in spite of her gender became a leading figure of the most famous artistic movement of the nineteenth century.
The label of "lunatic," however, was an aberration. Morisot cultivated her artistic talents and achieved success at an early age with acceptance to the Salon at age 23, and tenaciously held on to her rank at the forefront of French painters until her death 30 years later. Though frequently self-critical of her own work, and barred by social conventions from pursuing the same subject matter as her male counterparts, Morisot nonetheless developed the connections and familial support that enabled her to carve out her own independent career as an artist for more than three decades and leave a permanent mark on the direction of French art.
www.theartstory.org/artist-morisot-berthe.htm |