by Mattea Gernentz

On a trip to Paris in August 2019, days after submitting a research proposal on the significance of the women Impressionists, I discovered that the Musée d’Orsay was hosting an exhibition on Berthe Morisot, uniting her work in an artistic display for the first time since her death. To my delight, the museum’s second floor was filled with galleries upon galleries of her work. Charming paintings of Berthe’s daughter, Julie, chronicled her youth. There were women in gardens, sitting in boats, conversing, fawning over children, reading, and playing violin. Amid the paintings in gilded frames, security guards, gaggles of schoolchildren, and notices warning against the sin of flash photography, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the fierce urge to cry. The beauty was nothing short of astonishing, and it felt as if every individual atom in my body was humming, alive. This is the female gaze, womanhood laid bare without voyeurism, I thought. With every portrait, I couldn’t help but pause in wonder, thinking, That could be me. Near the exhibition’s exit, I spied Woman at Her Toilette, ironically on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago—the museum I frequented nearly every month during my undergraduate years. An old friend. The subject depicted, half-twisted away from the viewer, reaches a sturdy arm upwards, as if to unpin her bun. As she does so, the sleeve of her ivory dress slips haphazardly off her other shoulder. The day is done, and, as the woman gazes at herself in the mirror, she begins to calmly shed her finery. She is free.

Berthe Morisot exhibited at the Salon de Paris in 1864 at the age of twenty-three and six times thereafter before joining the more avant-garde Impressionists in 1874 for their first official exhibition. Though Impressionism is widely acclaimed now, it was highly contentious at the time of its inception; the critic Albert Wolff brusquely stated that the Impressionists were “five or six lunatics of which one is a woman...[whose] feminine grace is maintained amid the outpourings of a delirious mind.” A bit of a backhanded compliment. Far from delirious, Morisot was focused and disciplined. Born into an affluent family, Berthe had the benefit of receiving a thorough art education. Her work purposefully centered private, intimate scenes within homes and gardens, but her subjects and brushwork were sometimes dismissed as too feminine, too feathery and insubstantial. Frustrated, Morisot wrote in her diary: "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.” Drawn together by their mutual interest in art, she married Eugène Manet, the brother of Edouard Manet, and they had one child.

When Morisot died, her beloved daughter, Julie Manet, carried on her legacy as a budding artist in her own right and was looked after by the eccentric, loving members of the Impressionist inner circle—receiving art lessons from Renoir, doting visits from Degas, trips to see Monet’s lush gardens at Giverny, and tours of the countryside in order to sketch and paint landscapes “plein air.” She maintained a detailed diary chronicling her childhood up until her marriage to the painter Ernest Rouart in 1900 at the age of twenty-two. Her often poetic accounts provide valuable insight into the political upheaval of the Dreyfus affair, her gradual development as an artist, and the profound sorrow she experienced after being orphaned at 16.

“At the moment, I can’t think of anything except painting. I have heaps of other things to do, but instead I’m starting a picture of three lovely fish from Ource. I’m completely obsessed with painting, and am working hard at it these days.” -Julie Manet (October 14, 1897)

Unlike her French counterparts, Mary Cassatt was an American who drifted to Paris. Though born in Pennsylvania, she studied painting and sketching in France, and her painting The Mandolin Player was accepted at the Paris Salon in 1868. Cassatt was invited by Edgar Degas to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1877, and her art was showcased in half of their exhibitions, those taking place in 1879-1881 and 1886. Her now-beloved domestic scenes capture authentic scenes of daily life, elevating the mundane through vibrant depictions of knitting, enjoying tea, and bathing wriggling children. Like other Impressionists, she was heavily influenced by Japanese art, particularly woodblock prints, a link evident in Nude Child (1890-1891) among other works. Though Mary Cassatt revelled in depicting the special bond between mother and child, she never married or had children of her own, defying societal conventions of the era.

Known as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond was also an accomplished artist of the time, though she did not come from a similarly privileged background. Her talent was recognized as a teenager, and she later had the opportunity to study under Monet and Degas. Her artist husband, Félix Bracquemond, brought the impoverished artist Paul Gauguin into their home to stay for a time, and Gauguin served as an artistic influence on Marie, teaching her techniques to achieve more vibrant tones in her work. Sadly, Félix was harsh on Marie and resentful of her talent, though art was what originally brought them together in a love-at-first-sight encounter at the Louvre. (Isn’t that the dream?) After years of resistance within her household and without (from artists such as Ingres) and the strain of the birth of their son on her already precarious health, Marie eventually ceased creating art. However, her love for Impressionism never flagged, and, in defense of the movement, she wrote: "Impressionism has produced... not only a new, but a very useful way of looking at things. It is as though all at once a window opens and the sun and air enter your house in torrents.”

Eva Gonzalès was the only formal student of Manet and was introduced to sophisticated Parisian cultural circles from an early age due to her father’s status as a novelist and journalist. Unlike Morisot and Cassatt, her work was never included in the “controversial” Impressionist exhibitions in Paris. Her artworks, such as Nanny and Child (1877-78) and Une loge aux Italiens (1874), exhibit an astute awareness of fashion conventions of the time and a masterful sense of perspective as she captures an approachability and lifelike realness in her figures—the child distracted by creeping ivy on the gate, the upturned umbrella, and the opera glasses loosely grasped as the woman’s attention drifts elsewhere. Gonzalès tragically died in childbirth in 1883, just five days after the death of Edouard Manet, and she left behind roughly 124 oil paintings and pastels.

While most museumgoers are familiar with Renoir, Manet, Monet, and Degas, this quintet of accomplished women artists is often tragically overlooked, despite their crucial role in shaping the revolutionary course of the Impressionist movement.

ST.ART does not own the rights to any images used in this article.