Berthe Marie Paulin Morisot, Impressionist.

BlogAdmin on 27th May 2022

Berthe Marie Paulin Morisot was an impressionist painter. She used broad brush strokes and her paintings were feminine interpretations of ordinary women.

Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Early Life

Berthe Marie Paulin Morisot, also known as Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was a famous French Female painter. She was born in Bourges, France. Morisot’s father was a high-ranking civil servant and her mother the great-niece of the rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. Her parents even built an art studio for Morisot and her sisters. She was one of the members of the circle of painters who were known as Impressionist painters. Morisot was one of the three most prominent women of the Impressionist style along with Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Encouragement from Parents

She and her sister Edma received an extensive art education. She began her training under Geoffroy Alphonse Chocarne and later she had her lessons with Joseph-Benoit Guichard. The Morisot sisters copied the works by Veronese and Rubens. They met Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a painter from Barbizon School, in 1861. Three years later, Morisot started submitting her work to the Paris Salon.

Eduoard Manet, An Important Relationship

Morisot met Eduoard Manet in 1868 and this meeting marked a crucial event for both the artists. Both of them developed a professional relationship that helped shape their artistic future. For Morisot, her association with Manet helped her to find access to the new group of artists and painters that would later become the Impressionists. Meeting Manet also helped her to find her husband in Manet’s brother, Eugene Manet in1874. Eugene Manet abandoned his budding painting career to support his wife, Morisot.

The same year that she married Eugene Manet, she received an invitation to exhibit in the first Impressionist exhibition. Thereafter, Morisot exhibited in seven out of eight impressionist shows held between 1874 and 1886. The one exhibition that she missed was because she was recovering from her illness after the birth of her daughter, Julie. Her daughter Julie and Morisot sisters would feature in many of Morisot’s works later. Thereafter, not only did Morisot become an important part of the Impressionist circle, but her home became a centre for intellectuals and artists to met frequently.

Morisot was a true innovator who died at the height of her career. Art critic, Paul Mantz, wrote in his review of the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877 that “there is only one true Impressionist in the whole revolutionary group – and that is Berthe Morisot”. Though her paintings were received a lot of appreciation, some writers weighed in the painter’s gender by using the terms like ‘flirtatious’ and ‘Charming’ to describe her work. It had become a matter of concern that these gender-based terminologies and labels did not find a place in the reviews of paintings by the other male painters.

Her Paintings

‘The Cradle’ (1872), ‘Reclining Woan in Grey’ (1879), ‘The Green Umbrella’, (1873), ‘The Garden at Maurecourt’. (1884), ‘Julie Dreaming’ (1894),

‘The Cradle’

‘The Cradle’ is one of Morisot’s most famous paintings. She painted ‘The Cradle’ during her stay in Paris in 1872. The painting shows one of her sisters, Edma, watching over her sleeping daughter, Blanche. Morisot eventually became famous for the depiction of the images of motherhood. Later, subjects like children, love and motherhood became her favourite subjects for painting. Morisot became the first woman to exhibit this painting in the 1874 Impressionist exhibition.

‘Hide and Seek’

Morisot is famous for a number of paintings portraying young women or girls in various settings. She completed her famous painting, ‘Hide and Seek’ in 1873. It features a mother with her young daughter playing in the field. Apparently, the child is attempting to hide behind a bush while the mother is going around the bush, looking for the child. Morisot’s style of brush strokes and her painting resembles that of Eduard Manet with whom she studied and worked for a considerable period of time. She, upon her marriage with Manet’s brother, Eugene Manet, became Eduard Manet’s sister-in-law.

Edouart Manet Painted Her

‘Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets’ is a portrait of Berthe Morisot which the famous painter and Morisot’s friend, Edouart Monet, painted in 1872. The painting features Morisot in a black gown, holding a bouquet of violets that is barely visible against the backdrop of her dress. The painting is an experiment with light and darkness as the face of the subject receives light from the right side. Another Manet painting ‘Woman with a Parrot’ also shows the woman with violets.