art history

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Claire Isola

Professor Cynthia Brannvall

Art 3

May 20, 2020

The Impressionist Female Gaze: Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt

In April 1874, a group of artists including Claude Monet, Camille Pissaro, and Pierre-

Auguste Renoir, in an act of rebellion against the state-run Salon, showed their works at an

independent exhibition, dismantling the centuries-old standards and traditions of the French

Academy of Art. Their soft, hazy depictions of upper middle class leisure created a new visual

language for modern life: Impressionism. Like most artistic movements in western history, the

Impressionists were dominated by men. However, the unconventional nature of the movement

gave a select few female painters the opportunity to find success in artistic careers at a time when

women’s lives were severely limited by societal constraints. The Impressionists’ emphasis on

subjectivity and rejection of Academy training unintentionally made the movement more

accessible to bourgeois women by validating the style of painting taught as a part of their

education as well as the depiction of their limited surroundings. Two female artists in particular,

Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, gained recognition in the Impressionist exhibitions for

paintings that provide unique insight into upper middle class life from a distinctly female

perspective.

Berthe Morisot was born into an upper middle class family in Passy, the French

countryside outside of Paris, where she lived her entire life. Drawing and painting were a

standard part of a bourgeois woman’s education, so it was not unusual that Morisot and her sister

Edma studied art from a young age; what differed was Morisot’s dedication to her work. By her

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early twenties, she had resolved “to make of my daily torment, work, my perpetual pleasure,”

willing to give up on the prospect of marriage, the expected ideal of a woman of her class, if it

allowed her to pursue a career in painting (Higonnet, 36). She did eventually marry Eugene

Manet, brother of realist painter Edouard Manet, but she continued to paint with her husband’s

support, managing to maintain both a career and a family, a privilege afforded to her by her

wealth and social status. Despite her public showings and recognition, Morisot led a fairly

typical upper middle class female life, insulated from the world outside her home and the seaside

trips her family took in the summer. Fortunately, the subject matter of her surroundings

exemplified the scenes of middle class leisure typical of Impressionist art, so when Edgar Degas

invited her to show at the first Impressionist exhibition, her paintings of contemporary

womanhood contained elements of lived-in experience that set her apart from the male artists.

Fig. 1. Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872.

Morisot’s 1872 painting The Cradle (fig. 1) is a modern portrayal of the classic mother-

and-child trope. It depicts her sister Edma sitting at her infant daughter’s cradle. She looks down

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at the child with a gentle, contemplative expression, her hand resting on her cheek. Unlike most

classical western mother-and-child paintings, which are largely influenced by imagery of Jesus

and the Virgin Mary, there is distance between the mother and baby; they are not even touching.

The composition is divided by a strong diagonal line formed by the curtain over the cradle, so the

viewer can see the mother and child separately, as two independent individuals. Edma’s serious,

pensive expression conveys the weight of responsibility motherhood carries. Becoming a wife

and a mother was seen as a bourgeois woman’s destiny, forcing women to “renounce, for periods

of time at least, the sanctioned joys art gives. Sanctioned, that is, when such art is not too

absorbing, when it does not take precedence over the sacred obligations of a woman” (Higonnet,

78). A woman’s education only required painting as an amateurish hobby with which to

entertain, not a gateway to a career. When Edma married, she gave up painting to devote herself

to her husband and family, causing Morisot to feel “lost and unhappy over a fate about which we

can do nothing” (Ibid, 49). Despite her initial hesitation, she did eventually marry and have a

daughter Julie, with whom she was very close and featured heavily in her paintings, without

having to make the major sacrifices expected of women at the time. The Cradle reflects

Morisot’s understanding of the complex emotions accompanying middle-class motherhood,

injecting a popular theme with a contemporary female perspective.

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Fig. 2, Berthe Morisot, The Psyche Mirror, 1876.

In her 1876 painting The Psyche Mirror (fig. 2), Morisot depicts a young woman at a

mirror thoughtfully considering her reflection. Loose brushstrokes give the painting a hazy

atmosphere, conveying the woman’s shifting sense of identity. Morisot was one of Edouard

Manet’s most frequent models, appearing in eleven of his works, “her image variously

manipulated, masked, and veiled,” in a variety of poses and costumes (Kesler, 475). She became

familiar with the strange experience of seeing herself portrayed through a male lens, often

communicating seduction or mysterious intrigue. In a society where women were defined by

their relationships with men, it was impossible for a woman to consider herself without

considering the way men saw her. Most art historical paintings by male artists portray women

looking in mirrors as doing so admiringly, conveying vanity, or in a way that connotes seduction,

in the act of preparing to fulfill a male fantasy. The woman in The Psyche Mirror does neither;

her simple white dress draws attention toward her modest pose and contemplative expression.

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Morisot draws upon her personal experiences under the male gaze to depict a woman preparing

for its scrutiny, but taking a moment to assess her own sense of identity.

Unlike Morisot, Mary Cassatt remained unmarried and childless for her entire life. Born

in Pennsylvania, she benefited from certain opportunities open to well-off American women that

were unavailable to French women. At sixteen, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine

Art, where she both met female artists and defended women’s art to her predominantly male

colleagues. Her family’s wealth and connections allowed her to study abroad in Europe and

move to Paris, where she would spend much of her life. She was outspokenly critical of

corruption within the Salon system, so she gladly accepted Degas’s invitation to show in the

Impressionists’ 1879 exhibition. Her portrayals of upper middle-class women and children imbue

largely domestic subjects with realism and a sense of agency.

Fig. 3. Mary Cassatt, In the Loge, 1878.

Cassatt’s 1878 painting In the Loge (fig. 3) is an exploration into the concept of looking.

Its central figure is a woman in an opera box gazing across the theater (not down at the stage)

through binoculars, while in the background, a man in another opera box gazes similarly at her.

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Cassatt frequently attended the opera, not so much for the performances, but because she enjoyed

its social element. In the nineteenth-century, the opera was considered a social event for the

upper middle-class and one of the few public spaces where women were openly accepted.

Despite experiencing considerably more freedom than Morisot, Cassatt still did not have

unlimited access to male society, notably Paris’s cafe-concerts frequented by many of the

Impressionist painters, due to concerns for her safety and social respectability. She “admired the

power of sensuality and realism” in Degas’s moody depictions of the dark side of urban life, but

was unable to have these experiences herself, instead waiting outside venues for reports back

from her male friends or catching up on the latest discussions at dinner parties (often hosted by

Berthe Morisot) (Mathews, 124). Never content with the prospect of a domestic existence,

Cassatt took full advantage of the experiences available to her. The opera was a rare opportunity

for bourgeois women to see and be seen, as attested to by the eagerness and engagement of the

woman In the Loge. She leans forward, focusing intently on the people in the balcony across the

way, appearing markedly more active and intentional than most depictions of women at the time.

However, the man in the background reminds the viewer that despite her assertion of

subjectivity, the woman still falls prey to the gaze of others (including the viewer’s). With In the

Loge, Cassatt responds to the prevalence of the male gaze by depicting a woman with a gaze of

her own, taking in as much of the world as she can before returning to her sheltered existence.

Another way in which Cassatt differed from Morisot was her active involvement in

causes that promoted advancements for women. She was a strong supporter of the American

women’s suffrage movement, bitter about the anti-suffrage views within her own family, going

so far as to sell off the paintings she had intended for her anti-suffrage heirs. “She took the

family’s anti-suffrage position as a personal affront, believing that if they had no respect for the

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advancement of women, they had no respect for her, and therefore should not be allowed to have

her art” (Mathews, 310). In 1893, she was commissioned to paint a mural for the Women’s

Building, an exhibition at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago celebrating the

achievements of women. The exhibition’s ultimate message was unclear and the subject of

constant debate. Some viewed it as evidence that women were just as competent as men and

deserving of complete gender equality, while others took a separate essentialist viewpoint and

saw it as proof that women are competent within the domestic (feminine) sphere and deserve to

be valued at the same level as men, but within the confines of their prescribed gender roles.

There was also an issue of inclusion; white middle-class women were heralded as a feminine

ideal, while African-American women’s demands for representation were denied. These debates

continue to have relevance in feminism today, but in the case of the Women’s Building, they

created an inconsistent tone of empowering women without actually challenging the status quo.

The project was generally well-received by the public, but Cassatt’s mural Modern Woman was

unpopular and panned by critics, who described it as “garish” and “crude,” and even accused

Cassatt of “seem[ing] to indicate an aggressive personality with which compromise and

cooperation would be impossible” (Hutton, 44). Part of the issue was that Cassatt was not a

muralist, so her Impressionistic style clashed with the building’s more classical, decorative

murals, but the painting reflected modernity in its content as well as its style, making a striking

statement about women and their potential.

Fig. 4. Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, 1893.

The central image of Modern Woman (fig. 4) is a pastoral scene of several women,

including children, harvesting fruit from trees. They work together, picking the fruit, passing the

fruit along, and carrying away the filled baskets. Each woman has a full, realistic figure and

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wears a loose-fitting dress in a contemporary style. The image of women picking fruit is

evocative of the Biblical story of Eve and the Fall of Man, which was often used as evidence of

women’s inherent subordination to men. However, a common feminist interpretation of the time

asserted that Eve ate the forbidden fruit not because she was enticed by sinful pleasures, but by

her desire for knowledge, making her independent and heroic. Within this context, Modern

Woman reads as a community of self-sufficient women seeking knowledge and passing it down

to future generations. The notable absence of men among active women insinuates that women

are not only capable of intellectual pursuits, but that they can do so completely independently of

men. This was a radical statement for the time and likely made most people uneasy. This

discomfort paired with the mural’s disconcerting style was ultimately responsible for the work’s

poor reception. Cassatt’s portrayal of modern women in their daily life as an allegory for a

subversion of a classical theme was ahead of its time in its assertion of female empowerment, but

was unfortunately lost when the Women’s Building was dismantled after its exhibition.

Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt found success as artists, not in spite of their gender, but

in many ways because of it. The stability and opportunities afforded by their privileged

backgrounds along with the Impressionist movement’s break from classical traditions that

excluded women allowed them to elevate images of modern middle class female life out of the

domestic sphere and into the world of high art. By giving importance to female concerns, they

paved the way for other women to express themselves through art and pursue artistic careers,

eventually leading to more diverse perspectives and expressions of the female experience.

Unfortunately, the issue of female artists not receiving the recognition they deserve continues to

this day, so it is imperative that we evaluate their strengths, not solely through comparison to

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men, but through the lens of social context, so the art world can become more inclusive and

representative of artists of all genders.

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Works Cited

Cassatt, Mary. In the Loge. 1878. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collections.mfa.org/objects/31365/in-the-loge?ctx=e4e0e757-ded0-4542-8a84-557e6fb06 034&idx=41.

Cassatt, Mary. Modern Woman. 1893. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, v. 86 (1892-1893),

edited by Herman Melville and Henry Mills Alden, New York: Harper & Bros, p. 839, hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101064076134.

Higonnet, Anne. Berthe Morisot. E-book, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Hutton, John. "Picking Fruit: Mary Cassatt's Modern Woman and the Women's Building of 1893." Feminist Studies, vol. 20, issue 2, 1994, pp. 319-350.

Kesler, Marni R. “Unmasking Manet’s Morisot.” Art Bulletin, vol. 81, issue 3, Sep. 1999, pp. 473-489.

Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Mary Cassatt: A Life. E-book, New Haven: Yale University Press,

1998.

Morisot, Berthe. The Cradle. 1872. Musee d’Orsay, musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/resultat-collection.html?no_cache=1&zoo m=1&tx_damzoom_pi1%5Bzoom%5D=0&tx_damzoom_pi1%5BxmlId%5D=001132&t x_damzoom_pi1%5Bback%5D=en%2Fcollections%2Findex-of-works%2Fresultat-

collec tion.html%3Fno_cache%3D1%26zsz%3D9.

Morisot, Berthe. The Psyche Mirror. 1876. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza,

museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/morisot-berthe/psyche-mirror.

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Bibliography

Cruea, Susan M. “Changing Ideals of Womanhood During the Nineteenth-Century Woman Movement.” ATQ, vol. 19, issue 3, Sep. 2005, pp. 187-204.

Dixon, Kathryn. Mary Cassatt. E-book, Cary, N.C.: TAJ Books International, 2013.

Foley, Susan. “Becoming a Woman: Self-Fashioning and Emotion in a Nineteenth-Century Family Correspondence.” Women’s History Review, vol. 24, issue 2, Apr. 2015, pp. 215-233.

Harris, Beth, and Steven Zucker. “Cassatt, In the Loge.” YouTube, uploaded by Smarthistory, 2

Apr. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVuyK_vIMfc. Higonnet, Anne. Berthe Morisot. E-book, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Hutton, John. "Picking Fruit: Mary Cassatt's Modern Woman and the Women's Building of

1893." Feminist Studies, vol. 20, issue 2, 1994, pp. 319-350. Kesler, Marni R. “Unmasking Manet’s Morisot.” Art Bulletin, vol. 81, issue 3, Sep. 1999, pp.

473-489. Kinney, Leila W. “Morisot.” Art Journal, vol. 47, issue 3, Sep. 1988, pp. 236-241.

Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Mary Cassatt: A Life. E-book, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Stokstad, Marilyn, and Michael W. Cothren. Art History, vol. 2, 6th ed. Pearson Education, Inc.,

2018. Zucker, Steven, and Beth Harris. “Morisot, The Cradle.” YouTube, uploaded by Smarthistory, 29

Apr. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na05-xCZR8s.