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Art Training
in Paris
Travelling to Paris with her mother, Cassatt planned to continue her studies
in whatever way she could. As women were not eligible to enroll at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, she settled for private tutorials from masters
of the school. She was accepted as a student of Jean-Leon Gerome (1825-1904),
a French painter, teacher of academic
art. His range of subjects included historical painting, Orientalism,
Greek mythology, and portraits. He also taught Eakins a few months later,
when the young artist was in Paris. Cassatt also studied by copying the
Masters in the Louvre. As young ladies of society were not to be seen
in the cafes where artists socialised, the museums formed an alternative
gathering place. It was here that Cassatt met and befriended fellow female
artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1837-1922), who became the first woman
to exhibit at the Paris Salon, and who incidentally married the famous
academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
Genre Studies
In 1866 Cassatt joined a painting class taught by the painter and engraver
Charles Joshua Chaplin (1825–1891). Chaplin conducted art classes
specifically for women in his studio. In addition to Cassatt, he also
taught the English artist Louise Jopling. Cassatt also studied with the
artist Thomas Couture (1815-1879), an influential French history painter
who also taught Edouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour,
John La Farge and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. On trips to the countryside
with her class, Cassatt made genre studies of peasants and children going
about their daily lives.
Paris Salon
In 1868, one of Cassatt's paintings, A Mandolin Player (private
collection), was selected for the first time for the Paris
Salon. It is romantic in style, and shows a young girl playing a mandolin,
in the manner of Courbet. In fact, it is only one of two paintings that
remain from the first decade of her art career. While Paris was fermenting
with new artistic ideas - the Impressionists were breaking with traditional
academic styles - Cassatt stayed within the remit of Academic art, submitting
works to the Salon with increasing frustration for the next 10 years.
During the 1870 Franco Prussian War, Cassatt returned briefly to America
and lived with her parents. While continuing to study, she tried, without
much success to sell her paintings in a New York Gallery. Despairing of
ever making a living, she was tempted to give up on her art career. Then,
in 1872, she attracted the attention of the Archbishop of Pittsburgh who
paid for her to travel to Italy and copy two paintings by the Renaissance
painter Antonio Correggio (1490-1534). Overwhelmed with joy, Cassatt headed
back to Europe.
Impressionism
After completing her commission in Italy for the Archbishop, Cassatt travelled
to Spain where she painted numerous Spanish themes, including Spanish
Dancer Wearing a Lace Mantilla (1873, Smithsonian Institute). In 1874
she moved to France where she remained, except for brief trips home, for
the rest of her life. Over the next few years she submitted several works
to the Salon, but was continuously rejected. In 1877 she met Edgar Degas,
who invited her to exhibit with the Impressionists as an alternative.
The Impressionists rejected traditional subject matter and painterly techniques,
and adopted the practice of plein
air painting, using vibrant colours and expressive brush strokes which
were mixed by the eye, rather than pre-mixed by the artist. The Impressionists
had been receiving mixed reviews for years, but their radical opinions
made a strong impression on Cassatt, changing her life in the process.
Berthe Morisot, another female Impressionist
became one of Cassatt's closest friends. Cassatt hoped for commercial
success by adopting the avant-garde techniques of Impressionism, painting
the sophisticated Parisians in the district. Her style gained a new spontaneity
over the next few years. She would go on to exhibit with the Impressionists
again in 1880, 1881 and 1886 (the year that fellow American Impressionist
Childe Hassam arrived in Paris). Degas also introduced Cassatt to pastels
and etching, the two often worked
side by side and her drawing skills improved considerably under his watchful
eye.
For more details, see: Impressionist
Painting Developments. For details of specific pictures, see: Best
Impressionist Paintings.
Financial Support
Cassatt was an important player in the financial support of many of the
Impressionists. She bought Impressionist paintings herself and encouraged
many wealthy Americans to do the same, most notably the Havemyeyers, who
bought a significant number of the major Impressionist works (including
those by Monet and Degas) which now hang in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art. She also loaned money to the art dealer Paul
Durand-Ruel (1831-1922), whose support of artists like Claude Monet
(1840-1926), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Renoir (1841-1919), Manet and
Degas was critical. After 1886, Cassatt started exhibiting her works in
New York, but with little success. It was not until after her death in
1926 that her paintings gained popularity in her homeland. Today she is
one of America's most popular female artists. After 1886, Cassatt no longer
identified herself with the Impressionist movement and experimented with
a variety of styles. In recognition of her contribution to arts, Cassatt
was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1904 and became a member of the National
Academy of Design in New York in 1910.
Mature Years
The last two decades of Cassatt's life were her most commercially successful.
She focused primarily on mother and children themes, and these remain
her most enduring works. A prime example at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art is Mother and Child (c.1899). She also made a series of highly
original, coloured dry point and aquatint prints (influenced by Japanese
prints). The Smithsonian Institution notes that these coloured prints,
"now stand as her most original contribution adding a new chapter
to the history of graphic arts as technically they have never been surpassed."
Very few of Cassatt's mother and child paintings actually show related
people, she preferred to select models and match physical types to achieve
her desired results. In 1912 the artist became partially blind, and by
the time she died, she was completely blind.
Today, Cassatt's paintings can be seen in the best
art museums across America - such as the Smithsonian American Art
Museum, Washington DC - and in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France.
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