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Portrait of Berthe Morisot (1872)
By Edouard Manet.
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Biography
Morisot was born in Bourges, Cher, into
a highly cultured upper-middle class family with artistic connections.
Her grandfather was Jean-Honore
Fragonard (1732-1806) who, along with Francois Boucher and Jean-Antoine
Watteau, was one of the most famous French artists of the Rococo style.
Her sister, Edma Morisot, also became a full-time painter. In the early
1860s, both Morisot sisters were informal pupils of the Romantic genius
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
(1796-1875), who as well as persuading them to take up plein-air
painting also introduced them to other artists within his circle.
As a result, in 1868, Morisot met Edouard Manet (1832-83), who became
her principal artistic mentor. After he died, when Morisot was 42, she
also learned from Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).
Meantime, Berthe and Edma worked closely
together until such time as Edma married and started a family, after which
her painting activity declined - a situation much regretted by her sister.
At The French Salon
In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first
time at the Paris Salon,
the prestigious annual art show of the French Academy of Fine Arts in
Paris: two of her landscape paintings were selected. Thereafter, she showed
at six further Salons - attracting favourable reviews from the critics
- until 1874, when she joined the Impressionists in the first of their
own exhibitions, which also included works by Claude
Monet (1840-1926), Alfred Sisley (1839-99),
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Pierre-Auguste
Renoir, Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and Paul
Cezanne (1848-1903).
Meets Manet
In 1868, Morisot met and befriended Edouard
Manet with whom she enjoyed an especially warm relationship. He became
a key formative influence on her art, and painted several portraits of
her during the course of their friendship, including the striking study
of her in a black veil, after her father's death. In turn, she influenced
him to take up plein-air painting and adopt the rainbow colour
palette of the Impressionists. In addition, she was instrumental in drawing
the older Manet into the Impressionist group. In 1874, she married his
brother, Eugene, with whom she had a daughter, Julie. Many of Morisot's
works were autobiographical in subject, and her daughter Julie was to
feature in several of her paintings.
Impressionist Art
Morisot's art blossomed with the growth
of Impressionism during the later 1870s and early 1880s. As a strong opponent
of traditional Academic art, as taught in the official academies of Europe,
she was a champion of Impressionist doctrine, putting her daily experiences
onto canvas. Her pictures reflect her upbringing and class: eschewing
the nude, as well as urban and streetscapes scenes, she concentrated on
garden settings, boating scenes and portraits using family and friends
as models. Above all, she portrayed the comfort and intimacy of family
life - as in her masterpiece The Cradle (1872). The fact that she
excelled in watercolour painting,
pastels, and drypoint, as well as oil painting,
gives some indication of her exceptional painterly talent.
Paintings by Berthe Morisot
Works by Berthe Morisot hang in several
of the world's best art museums, notably
the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and the National Gallery of Art in Washington
DC. In addition, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art owns her outstanding
painting View of Paris From the Heights of the Trocadero (1872),
in which she combines her two main themes - landscape
painting and women with children.
- The Harbour at Lorient (1869) National
Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
- The Mother and Sister of the Artist (1869-70) National Gallery Washington.
- On the Balcony (1872) Metropolitan Museum of Art New York.
- The Cradle (1872) Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
- View of Paris From the Heights of the Trocadero (1872) Santa Barbara.
- Reading (1873) Cleveland Museum of Art.
- Chasing Butterflies (1874) Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
- At the Ball (1875) Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris.
- Lady at her Toilette (1875) The Art Institute of Chicago.
- Eugene Manet on the Isle of Wight (1875) Private Collection.
- The Dining Room (1875) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
- Summer Day (1879) National Gallery, London.
- Winter (Woman with a Muff) (1880) Dallas Museum of Arts.
- Child among Staked Roses (1881) Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.
- Rose Tremiere (1884) Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris.
- The Bath (Girl Arranging Her Hair) (1885-86) Clark Art Institute.
- Julie Manet et son Levrier Laerte (1893) Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris.
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