Post 5 - Impressionism - Iris G

Mary Cassatt, Summertime, 1894

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in A Blue Armchair, 1878

Berthe Morisot, Woman at Her Toilette, 1875-1880

Berthe Morisot, Self Portrait, 1885

Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot were two impressionist artists from the 19th century. Both of them made paintings focusing on the ordinary and private lives of women, particularly upper middle class. They also focused on relationships between mothers and their children and domestic scenes and scenarios.

As impressionists, their paintings consist of loose brush strokes, unblended colors, and a focus on ordinary and everyday things like people and scenes. These scenes also felt fleeting, like they were captured in the moment.

Impressionist were able to get this effect by using a bright color palette and painting from life, typically outdoors. They'd rush to keep up with the natural change in light, and so their strokes were quick and unblended. This gives the painting movement by making it less grounded or solid looking.

H.W. - 2 Quotes from readings and responses 10/15

Chadwick (class text)

Devotion to her art and devotion to home and family are her consuming passions, but after first choosing art, Persis discovers that as a True Woman she cannot deny her feelings and her desire for domestic life.

It makes me very uncomfortable that the idea of being a "true woman" is so heavily linked to being a wife and mother, and that there's this widely held belief that this is a natural or instinctive desire that all women have. Even though we're in the 19th century, people still believe these things today sadly.

The building’s (The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876) existence as a segregated display area had been contested from the beginning. “It would, in my opinion,” wrote the Director of Grounds, “be in every respect better for them to occupy a building exclusively their own and devoted to women’s work alone.”

If I understood the situation correctly, then I think I understand the conflict here. The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, is finally giving women artists some needed exposure. However, the building also segregated the women artists and their art from other buildings and museums. The director said it was out of respect and was better for "them" to be separate, but that just creates division between people. It reminds me of when I went to a gallery or museum where they dedicated a single wall to queer Artists, in an entire building full of different art. I was happy to see it, but also disappointed that it was pushed to a sad corner, almost like it was left out or thrown in last second.

Ch. 6 & 7 quotes 10/08

Anatomy, physiology, and Biblical authority were repeatedly invoked to prove that the ideal of modest and pure womanhood that evolved during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901) was based on sound physiological principles.

This sounds very familiar, because to this day we still deal with this. These exact arguments are used against women and also trans people in so many aspects of our lives and by people who want to police and control what we can and cannot do, and how we exist. It's frustrating and exhausting to see that these arguments are still being used today when they're so outdated and flawed.

“Does it pay, for a young lady of a refined, godly household to be urged as the only way of obtaining a knowledge of true art, to enter a class where every feeling of maidenly delicacy is violated, where she becomes so hardened to indelicate sights and words, so familiar with the persons of degraded women and the sight of nude males, that no possible art can restore her lost treasure of chaste and delicate thoughts...?”

Professor, this made me want to stop reading because it infuriates me to no end. Anyway, this quote shows someone, a member of the public to the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Academy, trying to pretend to care about the "sensitivities" and delicacies of women, when in reality they're simply trying to enforce their control over what women should be allowed to do.

Guerrilla Girls

"You could be used to symbolize democracy e.g. the statue of Liberty, but you weren't allowed to vote.."

This is something I remember questioning when I was young and a freshman in highschool. Why is it that women and female bodies were used to represent strong influential ideas and symbols, but actual women weren't seen as strong or influential? We have the statue of Liberty, Manifest Destiny, Lady Justice, etc. Which are well known powerful statues and symbols of freedom, equality, discovery and yet real life women weren't given these things as people.

During the decade they spent together, she helped him with some of his most important commissions and created most of her own best work. Their sculpture expressed an overt sexuality that became Auguste's claim to fame the history of modernism. But that same eroticism in the work of a woman was shocking and indecent. Camille lost commissions because of it.

It's very depressing to read that this happened to Camille Claudel. She was young, got involved with a man a lot older than her, and he took advantage of her in both her company, her body, and her skills. In the end, she was left to die in an asylum, which weren't great when it came to humane practices. She never got the fame she deserved as a female artist because people thought that as a woman she shouldn't have been creating art so sexualized, yet Auguste Rodin could get away with it because men weren't held to the same standards.