Mary Cassatt (American,
1844-1926). Mother Combing Her Child's Hair, ca. 1901.
Pastel on gray
paper, 25 1/4 x 31 5/8 in. (64.1 x 80.3 cm).
Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Mary
T. Cockcroft, 46.102 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 46.102_SL1.jpg)
"I have touched with a sense of art some
people - they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare
that to the joy for an artist?" ~Mary Cassatt
Biography:
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born in America in an upper-middle-class family. Her father was a successful stockbroker, and her mother belonged to a prosperous banking family. In 1851 through 1855, Mary gained exposure to European arts and culture during their stay in France and Germany.
In 1860, at the age of 16, Cassatt began two years of study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1865, she asked her parents to let her continue her artistic training abroad. Her parents allowed her to move to Paris where she studied with Jean Leon Gerome.
Ager a brief return to the United States from 1870 through 1871, during which she was frustrated by a lack of artistic resources and opportunities, she set out again for Paris. In the early 1870's she also traveled to Spain, Italy, and Haolland, where she familiarized herself with the work of such artists as Diego Velazquez, Peter Paul Rubens, and Antonio da Correggio.
By 1874 Cassatt had established herself in a studio in Paris. Three years later, her parents and her sister Lydia joined her in France. Her family frequently served as models for her work of the late 1870's and 1880's, which included many images of contemporary women altho theater and the opera, in gardens and parlors.
In 1877, Edgar Degas invited Cassatt to join the group of independent artists known as the Impressionists. Working close with Degas she was able to socialize with other fellow artists in this circle such as Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot.
Cassatt exhibited her work with the Impressionists in Paris from 1879 onwards, and in 1886 she was included in the first major exhibition of Impressionst art in the United States, held at the Durand-Ruel galleries in New York.
By the 1880's, Cassat was particularly well known for her sensitive depictions of mothers and children. These works, like all her portrayals of women, may have achieved such popular success for a specific reason: they filled a societal need to idealize women's domestic roles at a time when many women were, in fact, beginning to take an interest in voting rights, dress reform, higher education, and social equality.
Cassatt never married or had children, choosing instead to dedicate her entire life to her artistic profession. Bertha Honore Palmer, a businesswoman and philanthropist invited Cassatt to paint a mural for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and felt that "women should be someone and not something."
After 1900, Cassatt suffered from failing health and deteriorating eyesight. In 1904, Cassatt as recognized for her cultural contributions by French government, which awarded her the order of Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur.
By 1914, Cassatt eyesight worsened and was no longer able to work, although she continued to exhibit her art in exhibitions including the Suffrage Loan Exhibition of Old Master and Works by Edgar Degas and Mary Cassat at the Knoedler Galleries in New Yourk in 1915. She died in in Le Mesnil-Theribus, fifty miles northwest of Paris on June 14, 1926.
Artist Statement:
In the late 19th century,
Impressionist painting was the avant-garde style coming out of Paris. This
style explored the formal qualities of color and light through loose brushwork
and open compositions. Yet Impressionists painters, such as Edgar Degas and
Edouard Manet, were not just painting pretty pictures. They depicted
contemporary urban life in Paris, and the subject matter scandalized art
patrons who were more accustomed to classical scenes.
Among the notable painters of
this movement, there was one woman– an American woman, Mary Cassatt. As the
daughter of a wealthy family, Cassatt was able to attend the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts to pursue her career. But she grew tired of drawing
from plaster casts and set off toward Paris in search of a new, less
traditional education. She permanently settled in Paris, and in 1877 was
invited by Degas to show with the Impressionists. Of similar disposition and
painterly inclination, Cassatt’s rejection of the academy made her an easy fit
into the Impressionist scene.
Cassatt is most famously known
for her mother and child paintings. The Wichita Art Museum holds an exemplary
painting by Cassatt, simply titled “Mother and Child.” Cassatt devoted many
canvases to this relationship, but in this painting, viewers can see that she
does not elevate the status of the pair through religious or divine
iconography. Instead, she reveals the quieter moments of beauty exchanged
between mothers and their children. Commonplace, ordinary, yet captivating,
Cassatt’s ability to convey these intensely private moments through an
exquisite painterly technique places her as a key figure of American
Impressionism.
Art Elements:
Cassatt uses a light color palette and loose brushwork of Impressionism and is influenced by Japanese art, as well as by European Old Masters. Impressionists are some of the most significant, and among the most popular artists in the history of art. Impressionism suggests a lack of realism and realistic representation was the standard of the day. Cassatt was not fond of the likes of realistic art and joined the Impressionist artists who had common philosophies about painting. They studied the dramatic effects of atmosphere and light on people and objects. They attempted to duplicate the visual phenomena of colors being altered by different lighting effects on canvas through a varied palette. They use a combination of colors to make shadows instead of black and gray. Her choice in color allows the emphasis of the painting to be the emotions being displayed through the subjects of the painting.
Connection:
I chose "Mother Combing Her Child's Hair" because Cassatt captures mothers and children in everyday moments in an insightful display of motherhood. Her ability to capture the connection of mother and a child in her paintings are profound. The use of soft coloration allows the viewer to concentrate on the subject of the scene and the close relationship between the mother and child in her paintings. Their intimacy is demonstrated by the way the mother holds the child's face as she combs through the knots in the child's hair, and the comfort of the way the child fold's her hand on her lap. This painting displays the daily routines a mother endures with her daughter and captures the emotions of the activity.
