The small Paris circle of artists who started what was to become known as Impressionism included a woman. Her name: Berthe Morisot (born 14 January 1841, Bourges, France—died 2 March 1895, Paris). By all indications, Morisot was liked and considered an equal by the other members of the group, which included the great Claude Monet. Even so, she had to put up with 19th-century male prejudice.
One critic described the artists (Morisot included) who took part in the second Impressionist exhibition of 1876 as “five or six lunatics, one of which is a woman.” It was a sexist comment — egregious yet not so surprising. As fate would have it, the pinhead has long been forgotten whilst Morisot’s name lives on. And rightly so. She was a painter of no mean talent. Although seminally influenced by Edouard Manet, a close friend whose brother she married, she developed her own distinctive style.
Théodore Duret, a French journalist and art critic, said of Morisot:
But while her work shows its derivation from Manet, she always preserved her own originality. She was a distinguished woman, of great charm and delicacy of perception. Her painting is refined, and though her feminine qualities are discernible in it, it is free from that mannerism and dryness which usually mars the work of women artists. She was destined to achieve a foremost place in that school, afterwards to take the name ” Impressionist,” which owed its birth to Manet’s influence.
(from ‘Manet and the French Impressionists’ by Théodore Duret, translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch (1910)
Morisot painted a wide range of subjects. Not the least notable are her seascapes and other waterside paintings, a few of which are shown below. For more about Morisot’s life and art, click here.
The Harbor at Lorient, 1869
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
On the Beach, Les Petits-Dalles, Fécamp, 1873
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of Santa Barbara Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons
English Seascape, 1875
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of WikiArt: Visual Art Encyclopedia
The Port of Nice, 1881–1882
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Enjoy more art by women in
Stronger than tea: Marine paintings by six British women
Le quai de Bougivall, 1883
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum of Norway)
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Le Port de Gorey, 1886
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of Sotheby’s via Wikimedia Commons
Girl in a Boat with Geese, c. 1889
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
On the Cliff at Portrieux, 1894
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Courtesy of WikiArt: Visual Art Encyclopedia
~ Barista Uno
