Berthe Morisot’s Images of Women

by Anne Higonnet

Like her colleagues - Cassatt, Degas, Monet and Renoir - Berthe Morisot sought to represent the experience of modern life, a project that for her entailed rethinking what it meant to be a woman in the 19th century. Through close attention to the artist's work and its context, Anne Higonnet shows how Morisot transformed her femininity and its visual culture into Impressionist paintings. Higonnet presents a clear picture of visual traditions that, though very much a part of Morisot's world and work, figure only marginally in art history. Amateur picture making - enormously popular among 19th-century women - and industrialized feminine imagery dominated by the fashion plate provided a background and context for Morisot's imagery. Focusing on formal choices - poses, composition, brushwork - Higonnet compares Morisot's images of women with those of Casatt, Degas and Manet. And she examines critical Morisot's self-portraiture; her attempts, with Cassatt, at painting the female nude; and her pictorial explorations of the mother-daughter relationship.

Genres: Art

311 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[isabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

why did i get a bit emotional towards the end. she loved her daughter so much :,)))

[Bess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillant. At last, a comprehensive analysis of Berthe Morisot's oeuvre and technique. If you are interested in understanding Morisot's art, read this.