The Story of Art Without Men

by Katy Hessel

Making use of her access to upper-class women, Morisot captured vividly and intimately their private worlds, lamenting their lack of independence but also celebrating their small freedoms. The only female participant in the first 1874 Impressionist exhibition, Morisot enjoyed a flourishing career and showed her work in all but one of their eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886 (her only absence due to illness following the birth of her daughter). She was praised for her quick, feathery, at times rough, brushstrokes as well as for her subjects, which ranged from family life to the fashionable bourgeoisie. One of her finest examples of the latter is, I think, Reclining Woman in Grey, 1879, an unfinished-looking canvas with raw, bare edges acting to draw us into a sea of almost uncontrollable white and silvery splinter-like shapes. Although we meet this woman in an interior scene, the warmth and radiance of her lively expression hints at the increasing confidence and independence of a modern woman.