My favourite Impressionist painter is, surprisingly to some, a woman, who was born 185 years ago this week on 14th January 14th 1841.
Berthe Morisot was the only woman among the founding Impressionists and a true innovator. Nobody imagined in the mid-19th century that a well-brought up young woman could ever become a famous professional artist.
An upper-class girl, Berthe and her sister Edma, chaperoned, of course, spent much of their time copying classical paintings in the Louvre but, because they were girls and despite their obvious talent, were excluded from studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the usual way for artists to be noticed and supported.
At the Louvre, Berthe had met and became friends with other artists such as Manet and Monet. Another friend, Corot, introduced her to plein air (outdoor) painting at which she excelled. Like Degas, she often mixed media, sometimes combining watercolour, pastels and oil in a single painting.
Her subject matter was what she knew best and was part of, the private moments of women. She painted them without objectifying them, as was done by her fellow artists. Her technique was entirely her own though influenced by Degas, Renoir and especially her friend, Edouard Manet. Although she married his brother, Eugene, the love between her and Edouard was evident from their many letters. Even their techniques were in tune down to similar brushstrokes and use of colour.
Berthe Morisot’s paintings were accepted into the snooty Salon,the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, for eight successive years until she changed direction in 1863 and opted to join the likes of Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, James M. Whistler and Edouard Manet and show her work in the Salon des Refusés.
This was an exhibition held by order of Emperor Napoleon III to exhibit those works refused by the selection committee of that year’s official Paris Salon. They included such paintings as Édouard Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe and James McNeill Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl.
It was an astounding success. More than a thousand visitors a day visited the Salon des Refusés. The journalist Émile Zola reported that visitors pushed to get into the crowded galleries where the refused paintings were hung.
It had its detractors. The critic Albert Wolff wrote in Le Figaro that the Impressionists consisted of “five or six lunatics of which one is a woman…[whose] feminine grace is maintained amid the outpourings of a delirious mind.”
Morisot’s painting was recognised and admired by critics and fellow artists although her struggle to be taken seriously as an artist frustrated her. She wrote, “I don’t think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that’s all I would have asked for, for I know I’m worth as much as they.”
She was. In February 2013, Morisot became the highest priced female artist of all time, when After Lunch (1881), a portrait of a young redhead in a straw hat and purple dress, sold for $10.9 million at a Christie’s auction, three times its upper estimate.
The post Ruth Leon recommends…Berthe Morisot History’s Forgotten Impressionist appeared first on Slippedisc.
Leave a Reply