Berthe Morisot | Daily Art Fixx - Art Blog: Modern Art, Art History, Painting, Illustration, Photography, Sculpture

Berthe Morisot: 1841-1895

Born to a prosperous family on January 14, 1841, in Bourges, Cher, France, Berthe Morisot was a central member of the Paris Impressionists. Morisot, as well as her sisters, were encouraged at an early age to pursue art and studied with neoclassical painter Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne. In 1858 she and her sister Edma studied at the studio of Joseph-Benoît Guichard, and through him met the leading landscape painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot who encouraged the siblings to paint outdoors.

Morisot exhibited at the Salon from 1864 to 1873. Around 1867, she met Édouard Manet with whom she developed a close friendship. Morisot modeled for Manet numerous times and in 1874 she married his brother, Eugène. That same year she refused to show her work at the Salon and instead participated in the first independent show of Impressionist paintings. In 1878, Morisot had a daughter Julie who became a main source of inspiration for her paintings.

Morisot painted her daily experiences and reflected 19th century cultural expectations of her class and gender. Her works included landscapes, family and domestic life, portraits, garden settings and boating scenes. She avoided urban and street scenes as well as the nude figure. Morisot worked with pastels, watercolors, and oil, and in her later years, she experimented with lithography and drypoint etching.

Morisot became an important member of the Impressionist group. Painters and writers would meet at her home including Renoir, Degas, and Mary Casssatt. Morisot was never commercially successful in her lifetime. At the time however, her paintings sold for slightly higher prices than those of Renoir, Monet, and Sisley.

Berthe Morisot died of pneumonia on March 2, 1895 in Paris at the age of 54. She was interred in the Cimetière de Passy.

Sources: Wikipedia, Cleveland Museum of Art, Biography.com

Mother’s Day: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother

Happy Mother’s Day all you moms out there! In honour of this special day, I give you a selection of well known portraits of artist’s mothers. Throughout history, many artists have painted their mothers for a variety reasons; “as a loving tribute, to capture a memorable face, to work through conflicting emotions, as a family legacy, or the simple availability of a model.”

The development of photography in the 19th century however, had a significant impact on portrait painting. Many turned to photography studios to have their portraits made as a cheaper alternative. Some artists found photography to be a useful aid to composition and from the Impressionists onward , artists have found numerous ways to expand their techniques and reinterpret the portrait to compete effectively with photography:

“Henri Matisse produced powerful portraits using non-naturalistic, even garish, colors for skin tones. Cézanne relied on highly simplified forms in his portraits, avoiding detail while emphasizing color juxtapositions. Gustav Klimt’s unique style applied Byzantine motifs and gold paint to his memorable portraits. Picasso painted many portraits, including several cubist renderings of his mistresses, in which the likeness of the subject is grossly distorted to achieve an emotional statement well beyond the bounds of normal caricature.”

As a result of an increased interest in abstract and non-figurative art, portrait painting in Europe and the Americas declined in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s an 70s, however, a revival of portraiture began. Artists such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, and other contemporary artists have made the human face a focal point of their work. As well, photographic portraiture has become fully accepted in the art world and photo portraits are exhibited alongside painters in galleries and museum.

Whether a portrait of one’s mother or family member, friend or a stranger on the street; in our era of mass-media and the web, where images can be exchanged seconds, our desire to create and commission unique images of ourselves lives on.