Berthe Morisot

Before I write out even one more 'Women's History Month' post, I need to make something perfectly clear. While some (no, most) of my posts are taken right off the top of my head (with a dash of fact-checking), these are not. Well, I check my facts, but they're not spontaneous. Not that I couldn't easily list 3 dozen or more women artists who are just so darn knock-your-socks-right-off cool that they deserve a post all their own, because I could, and maybe in '08 I will do a month all about the women who come to my mind first. Since my interest in art is all tied up in modern/contemporary, the women I know most about tend to be recent, still living artists. But for this month, I'd really love to focus on the ones who did the dirty work 150, or 100 of 50 years ago. I want to know more about the women who set the stage for ones I've come to admire.

I think I can safely say that I never heard the name Berthe Morisot in any art class I have ever taken. Maybe I'd have learned about her if she had been American, or if my education had taken place in France. Art education gets nationalistic like that. Sad, but true. Morisot was French, and quite a good painter of landscapes.

Once Blogger decides to upload images again, I'll add one here.
Ah, here it is:


Like my Gardner post, Morisot is often compared with Cassatt. They date from the same period and were tied up in the same movement, Impressionism. The even shared quite a bit of subject matter. Women and children are prominent subjects in both painters' work, but Morisot tended more to landscape, to the out-of-doors plein-air moments that Monet and other Impressionists likewise chased.