Berthe Morisot

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(b Bourges, Cher, 14 Jan 1841; d Paris, 2 March 1895). French painter and printmaker. As the child of upper middle-class parents, Marie-Jos?phine-Corn?lie and Edme Tiburce Morisot, she was expected to be a skilled amateur artist and was thus given appropriate schooling. In 1857 she attended drawing lessons with Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne ( fl 1838-57), but in 1858 she and her sister Edma left to study under Joseph-Beno?t Guichard, a pupil of Ingres and Delacroix. In the same year they registered as copyists in the Louvre, copying Veronese and Rubens. The sisters were introduced to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in 1861 and took advice from him and subsequently from his pupil, Achille-Fran?ois Oudinot (1820-91). Through these artists they became familiar with current debates on naturalism and began to work en plein air, painting at Pontoise, Normandy and Brittany (e.g. Thatched Cottage in Normandy, 1865; priv. col., see Angoulvent, no. 11).

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was one of the influential painters of the French Impressionist school of art. Her delicate and subtle style won her the respect and praise of her colleagues, but she was denied international recognition until long after her death.

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was born on January 14, 1841, in Bourges, France, into an upper class family. Her parents were married in 1835 when her mother, Marie Cornelie Thomas, was 16. They had two daughters, Marie Elisabeth Yves and Marie Edma Caroline, before Berthe was born. A son, Tiburce, was born between 1845 and 1848. Her father, Edme Tiburce Morisot, was a high-ranking civil servant in the French government. He had studied painting and architecture as a young man. Her grandfather was Jean-Honore Fragonard, an important artist of the Rococo school, who painted aristocratic gardens. Their artistic influences were a major part of Berthe's upbringing. Blessed with a talent for art, she decided at an early age to become a painter. Throughout her life, Berthe's closest relationship was with her sister Marie Edma, who was also an artist. She relied upon her older sister as her strongest critic and best friend.

In 1851, when she was only ten, Morisot moved to Paris, where she was given classical art lessons by Joseph-Benoit Guilchard. Initially, the works of classic French landscape artists such as Jean Baptiste Guillement influenced her. As her skills developed, her artistic choices changed also. By 1860 she had become dissatisfied with the teaching of Guilchard.

From 1862 to 1868 she continued her classical studies under the guidance of Guilchard's friend, noted landscape artist Camille Cordot. During this time Morisot began to exhibit her work, with her first show at the Salon in Paris in 1864. Cordot was pleased with his protege's work and allowed her to sign her paintings as a "student of Cordot." Morisot went on to exhibit her paintings at Salon shows in 1865, 1866, 1868, 1870, 1872 and 1873.

The Influence of Manet

In 1868, Morisot was introduced to artist Edouard Manet and soon became his pupil. His influence drew her away from classical art and into a new form of art that would come to be known as Impressionism. Manet and Morisot complemented one another, expressing mutual admiration as well as influencing each other's style. Morisot, who was a beautiful woman, frequently appeared in Manet's work. His most famous portrait of her is Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets. Among others are The Balcony and Repose.

Morisot was influential in arousing Monet's interest in outdoor painting. She encouraged him to abandon the use of black and experiment with the Impressionist "rainbow" palette instead, even though Morisot did not emphasize color as much as most of her Impressionist colleagues. Her paintings continued to show the influence of Manet even after they stopped working closely together.

From the moment she met and began studying with Manet, she followed the Impressionistic style. Her subjects, however, differed from those of her colleagues. She shunned the brothel scenes that were popular with Degas and avoided locations where respectable women would not be found alone, such as train stations. Renowned artists such as Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir accepted her as an equal.

The Morisot Technique

Morisot pursued a style that, while unquestioningly Impressionistic, was also uniquely her own. She applied large touches of paint to the canvas in all directions. This technique produced a transparent quality in her work. She omitted detail if it was unnecessary to the overall subject, thus producing a truly impressionistic work.

Her work portrayed scenes of everyday life, often with women and children. She also painted landscapes, again incorporating women and children. Her mother and sister made frequent appearances in her paintings. Morisot worked in various mediums, including oils and watercolor. She is best known as a watercolorist. She integrated figures into the design of her paintings using a pastel hue. Her subject, style and frequent use of these pastels produced an intimate atmosphere in her work. Some of her best known works include The Artist's Sister Edma and Their Mother, (1870) The Cradle (1873), Madame Pontillon Seated on the Grass (1873), In a Park,Hanging out the Laundry to Dry,Girl with a Basket,Woman at her Toilet, and La Lecture (1888).

A Late Marriage

Through her relationship with Edouard Manet, Morisot met his older brother, Eugene, in 1868. She married him in December 1874. Eugene Manet was a writer and political activist who encouraged her to continue with her work. Their home at 4 rue de la Princess in Bougival on the Seine soon became a gathering place for artists and the literary lions of the day. Among her closest friends was the Symbolist poet Stephane Mallarme.

Morisot and Manet had a daughter, Julie, born in 1878. As a result of her marriage and motherhood, she began focusing increased attention on domestic and family scenes in her paintings.

An Impressionist Leader

For the most part, the Impressionists recorded garden and landscape scenes. While the classical artists such as Jean-Honore Fragonard, Morisot's grandfather, had been drawn to the elegance and grand scope of aristocratic gardens, the Impressionists took to public parks, common gardens and everyday locations.

Initially, the public and the press rejected the Impressionists as a band of renegades and revolutionaries. Among the Impressionists, only Degas and Morisot were accepted each time they submitted works to the prestigious Salon exhibition, while others, such as Frederic Bazille, Camille Pissarro, Renoir, Monet and Paul Cezanne were often rejected.

The Salon exhibit of 1868 resulted in many favorable reviews for the Impressionist artists despite the decision of the hanging committee to place many of their pictures in unflattering locations. There were still detractors, however. By 1870 there were still mixed reviews for the Impressionist artists.

After the Franco-Prussian war, funding for artists evaporated. This, coupled with disenchantment for the Salon system, encouraged the Impressionists to formulate plans for an independent show. On April 15, 1874, the "Premiere Exposition" of 165 works of art opened to the public. This was a corporation composed of artists funded the exhibition. Morisot was one of the charter members of the group. Although the group included artists of the Academic style, the Impressionists were the driving force. Morisot's paintings were featured in the show. Except for 1879, she continued showing her works annually until the last group exhibition in 1886.

A small group representing the Impressionists, including Morisot, Renoir, and Monet, organized their own auction to sell their work. On March 24, 1875, 72 paintings went on sale. The auction was a dismal failure, as was a similar sale in May 1877. It took time and continued effort before the Impressionists gained acceptance.

Belated Recognition

Morisot's style continued to develop in her later years, Her brother-in-law, friend and mentor, Edouard Manet, died in 1883. After his death, Berthe Morisot came under the influence of Renoir.

Morisot's husband died on April 13, 1892, after a lengthy illness. In 1895, while nursing her sick daughter, Morisot developed a fatal case of pneumonia. She died in Paris on March 2, 1895 and was buried at Passy cemetery next to Eugene and Edouard Manet.

Morisot believed in the capabilities of all women. "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 I know I'm worth as much as they," she once said. But she lived in a time when equal treatment was rare. Even though she produced more than 860 paintings, her death certificate states she had "no profession."

Morisot left her collection of Degas, Monet and Renoir paintings to her daughter, Julie Manet. After her death, she became known more for being a friend and model of Edouard Manet than an artist in her own right. Although Morisot's work was generally well reviewed when it was exhibited, she did not become known internationally as an artist until 1905, when the London Impressionist exhibition displayed 13 of her paintings. It took almost a full century before Berthe Morisot's work received the credit it deserved.

Books

A Day in the Country, edited by Andrea P.A. Belloli, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984.

Dictionary of Art, edited by Bernard S. Myers, McGraw-Hill, 1969.

Encarta Encyclopedia, Microsoft, 1998.

Higonnet, Anne, Berthe Morisot, Harper and Row, 1990.

Hutchinson Dictionary of the Arts, Infonautics, 2000.

Janson, H.W. and Anthony F. Janson, History of Art, Harry N. Abrams, 1997.

Oxford Companion to Art, edited by Harold Osborne, Clarendon Press, 1996.

Simon, Matila, Shorewood Art Reference Guide, Shorewood Reproductions, 1970.

World Book Encyclopedia, World Book, 2000.

Periodicals

Art Journal, September 22, 1994. Entertainment Weekly, July 13, 1990.

Online

"Berthe Morisot," art.com,http://www.hearts-eas…h-c/impressionist/morisot/bio.html (November 24, 2000).

"Berthe Morisot," WetCanvas.com,http://www.wetcanvas.com/Museum/Artists/m/Berthe-Morisot/ (November 24, 2000).

"Berthe Pauline Morisot (1841-1895)," crossview,http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~mal…Impression/Morisot/Morisot1cv.html (November 24, 2000).

"Morisot, Berthe," Britannica.com,http://www.britannica…cle/3/0,5716,55113+1+53761.00.html (November 24, 2000).

Morisot, Berthe (1841-95). French painter. While concentrating on a more limited range of subjects (notably domestic and garden scenes) than many of her male colleagues in the Impressionist movement, Morisot made a discreet but decisive contribution through her influence on Manet during the 1870s, her efforts on behalf of the Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886, and her own audacious adaptation of its formal innovations. Mallarmé paid tribute to her achievement in his preface to the catalogue of the exhibition held in 1896 on the first anniversary of her death.

[James Kearns]

Berthe Morisot
Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, 1872
Birth name	Berthe Morisot
Born	January 14, 1841(1841-01-14) Bourges, Cher, France
Died	March 2, 1895 (aged 54) Paris
Nationality	French
Field	Painting
Movement	Impressionism

Berthe Morisot (January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. Undervalued for over a century, possibly because she was a woman, she is now considered among the first league of Impressionist painters.

In 1864, she exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Sponsored by the government, and judged by academicians, the Salon was the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris. Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons^[1] until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. It was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar.

She became the sister-in-law of her friend and colleague, Édouard Manet, when she married his brother, Eugène.

Contents 1 Education 2 Manet and impressionism 3 Gallery 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

Education

Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872, Musée d'Orsay

Morisot was born in Bourges, Cher, France into a successful bourgeois family. Both she and her sister, Edma Morisot, chose to become painters. Once Berthe Morisot settled on pursuing art, her family did not impede her career.

She was born into a family that, according to family tradition, had included one of the most prolific Rococo painters of the ancien régime, Fragonard,^[2] whose handling of color and expressive, confident brushwork influenced later painters. By age twenty, she had met and befriended the important, and pivotal, landscape painter of the Barbizon School, Camille Corot, who excelled in figure painting as well.

The older artist instructed Berthe and her sister in painting and introduced them to other artists and teachers. Under Corot's influence, Morisot took up the plein air method of working. As art students, Berthe and Edma worked closely together until Edma married, had children, and no longer had time to paint so intensely as Berthe. Letters between them show a loving and cordial relationship, underscored by Berthe's regret at the distance between them and about Edma's withdrawal from painting. Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthe's continued work and the families of the two sisters always remained close.

Manet and impressionism

Berthe Morisot, Grain field, Musée d'Orsay

Morisot's first appearance in the Salon de Paris came at the age of twenty-three in 1864, with the acceptance of two landscape paintings. She continued to show regularly in the Salon, to generally favorable reviews, until 1873, the year before the first Impressionist exhibition.

Berthe Morisot, L'Enfant au Tablier Rouge, a sketch

Meanwhile, in 1868 Morisot became acquainted with Édouard Manet. He took a special interest in Morisot, as is evident from his warm portrayal of her in several paintings, including a striking portrait study of Morisot in a black veil, while in mourning for her father's death (displayed at the top of the article). Correspondence between them bespeaks affection. He once gave her an easel as a Christmas present. He also interfered in one of her Salon submissions when he was engaged to transport it. Manet mistook one of Morisot's self-criticisms as an invitation to add his corrections, which he did, much to Morisot's dismay.

Although traditionally Manet has been related as the master and Morisot as the follower, there is evidence that their relationship was a reciprocating one.^[3] Morisot had developed her own distinctive artistic style. Records of paintings show Manet's approval and appreciation of certain stylistic and compositional decisions that Morisot originated. He incorporated some of these characteristics into his own work.

Berthe Morisot, Child among Staked Roses, 1881, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

It was Morisot who convinced Manet to attempt plein air painting, which she had been practicing since having been introduced to it by Corot. ^[4]

She also drew Manet into the circle of painters who soon became known as the Impressionists. In 1874, Morisot married Manet's brother, Eugene, and they had one daughter, Julie. Julie Manet became the subject for many of her mother's paintings and a book of her memoirs Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet, was published in 1987.

As a doctrinaire Impressionist as well as a member of the haute bourgeoisie, Morisot painted what she experienced on a daily basis. Her paintings reflect the 19th century cultural restrictions of her class and gender. She avoided urban and street scenes as well as the nude figure and, like her fellow female Impressionist Mary Cassatt, focused on domestic life and portraits in which she could use family and personal friends as models. Paintings like The Cradle (1872), in which she depicted current trends for nursery furniture, reflect her sensitivity to fashion and advertising, both of which would have been apparent to her female audience.

Her works include not only landscapes, portraits, garden settings and boating scenes, but also subjects portraying the comfort and intimacy of family and domestic life, as did her colleagues, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Mary Cassatt.

Berthe Morisot died on March 2, 1895 in Paris and was interred in the Cimetière de Passy.

Gallery

The Harbor at Lorient, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1869	The Mother and Sister of the Artist (Reading), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC c.1869-70	On the Balcony, New York 1872	Reading, Cleveland Museum of Art 1873
Chasing Butterflies, Musée d'Orsay, Paris 1874	At the Ball, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 1875	Lady at her Toilette, The Art Institute of Chicago 1875	Eugene Manet on the Isle of Wight, Private Collection 1875
The Dining Room, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC c. 1875	Summer Day National Gallery, London 1879	Winter aka Woman with a Muff, Dallas Museum of Arts 1880	Dame a L'ombrelle 1881
Rose Trémière, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, 1884	Young Girl with Cage, 1885	The Bath (Girl Arranging Her Hair), Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts 1885-86	Julie Manet et son Lévrier Laerte, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 1893

See also

• Women artists
• Western painting
• History of painting
• Julie Manet

Notes

1. ^ Denvir, 2000, pp. 29-79.
2. ^ Higonnet, p. 5
3. ^ Turner, 2000, p. 319.
4. ^ "Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)". Paul van Rensburg Gallery of Art. http://www.paulvanrensburg.com/morisot.html. 

References

• Denvir, B. (2000). The Chronicle of Impressionism: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and World of the Great Artists. London: Thames & Hudson. OCLC 43339405
• Higonnet, Anne (1995). Berthe Morisot. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20156-6
• Turner, J. (2000). From Monet to Cézanne: late 19th-century French artists. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-22971-2
• Manet, Julie, Rosalind de Boland Roberts, and Jane Roberts. Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet. London: Sotheby's Publications, 1987

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Berthe Morisot

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Berthe Morisot

• Berthe Morisot at the WebMuseum

v • d • e Impressionism Originators Frédéric Bazille · Eugène Boudin · Gustave Caillebotte · Mary Cassatt · Paul Cézanne · Edgar Degas · Armand Guillaumin · Édouard Manet · Claude Monet · Berthe Morisot · Camille Pissarro · Pierre-Auguste Renoir · Alfred Sisley Patrons Gustave Caillebotte · Henry O. Havemeyer · Ernest Hoschedé Dealers Paul Durand-Ruel · Georges Petit · Ambroise Vollard Artists in USA Frederick Carl Frieseke · Childe Hassam · Willard Metcalf · Lilla Cabot Perry · Theodore Robinson · John Henry Twachtman · J. Alden Weir Other artists Lovis Corinth · Max Liebermann · Max Slevogt · Konstantin Korovin · Valentin Serov · Francisco Oller y Cestero · Laura Muntz Lyall · Władysław Podkowiński · Nazmi Ziya Güran · Chafik Charobim Other media Music · Literature · French Impressionist Cinema See also Post-Impressionism

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