Modern Life

Women Impressionists

Morisot, Cassatt and Bracquemond: home, garden and theater as modern subjects

Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Marie Bracquemond all exhibited with the Impressionists, and Morisot also helped fund the shows. Shut out of much of men's training and unable to move freely around the city, they made homes, gardens and theater boxes their subjects. Their work shows the group's main traits: visible brushwork, bright daylight color, unposed moments and scenes of modern life.

• Women could not train at the state École des Beaux-Arts until 1897.
• Morisot showed in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions and helped pay to keep the group going.
• Cassatt, the one American formally linked to the group, exhibited in 1879, 1880, 1881 and 1886.
• Bracquemond exhibited with the group but later largely gave up painting.

Genre scene

A picture of everyday life, not history, myth or a formal portrait.

Japonisme

The European taste for Japanese art, especially woodblock prints, from the 1850s.

Works in this part

• The Mother and Sister of the Artist
• Summer's Day
• In the Dining Room
• Little Girl in a Blue Armchair
• In the Loge
• At the Theater
• The Tea
• Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly
• The Child's Bath
• The Bath
• Le Goûter (Afternoon Tea)

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain