Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot, Portrait de Mme Morisot et de sa fille Mme Pontillon ou La lecture (The Mother and Sister of the Artist – Marie-Joséphine & Edma) 1869/70

Morisot was born in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family. Her father, Edmé Tiburce Morisot, was the prefect (senior administrator) of the department of Cher. He also studied architecture at École des Beaux Arts.[4] Her mother, Marie-Joséphine-Cornélie Thomas, was the great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, one of the most prolific Rococo painters of the ancien régime.[5] She had two older sisters, Yves (1838–1893) and Edma (1839–1921), plus a younger brother, Tiburce, born in 1848. The family moved to Paris in 1852, when Morisot was a child.

It was commonplace for daughters of bourgeois families to receive art education, so Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma were taught privately by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph Guichard. Morisot and her sisters initially started taking lessons so that they could each make a drawing for their father for his birthday.[4] In 1857 Guichard, who ran a school for girls in Rue des Moulins, introduced Berthe and Edma to the Louvre gallery where from 1858 they learned by copying paintings. The Morisots were not only forbidden to work at the museum unchaperoned, but they were also totally barred from formal training.[6] Guichard also introduced them to the works of Gavarni.[7]

As art students, Berthe and Edma worked closely together until 1869, when Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer, moved to Cherbourg, and had less time to paint. Letters between the sisters show a loving relationship, underscored by Berthe's regret at the distance between them and Edma's withdrawal from painting. Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthe's continued work and their families always remained close. Edma wrote "… I am often with you in thought, dear Berthe. I’m in your studio and I like to slip away, if only for a quarter of an hour, to breathe that atmosphere that we shared for many years…".[8][9][10]

Her sister Yves married Theodore Gobillard, a tax inspector, in 1866 and was painted by Edgar Degas as Mrs Theodore Gobillard (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City).[8][9][11]

As a copyist at the Louvre, Morisot met and befriended other artists such as Manet and Monet.[6] In 1861 she was introduced to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the pivotal landscape painter of the Barbizon school who also excelled in figure painting. Under Corot's influence she took up the plein air (outdoors) method of working.[12] By 1863 she was studying under Achille Oudinot, another Barbizon painter. In the winter of 1863–64 she studied sculpture under Aimé Millet, but none of her sculpture is known to survive.[7]

Because she was a female artist, Morisot's paintings were often labeled as being full of "feminine charm" by male critics, for their elegance and lightness. In 1890, Morisot wrote in a notebook about her struggles to be taken seriously as an artist: "I don't think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that's all I would have asked for, for I know I'm worth as much as they." Her light brushstrokes often led to critics using the verb "effleurer" (to touch lightly, brush against) to describe her technique. In her early life, Morisot painted in the open air as other Impressionists to look for truths in observation.[18] Around 1880 she began painting on unprimed canvases—a technique Manet and Eva Gonzalès also experimented with at the time[19]—and her brushwork became looser. In 1888–89, her brushstrokes transitioned from short, rapid strokes to long, sinuous ones that define form.[20] The outer edges of her paintings were often left unfinished, allowing the canvas to show through and increasing the sense of spontaneity. After 1885, she worked mostly from preliminary drawings before beginning her oil paintings.[21] She also worked in oil paint, watercolors, and pastel simultaneously, and sketched using various drawing media. Morisot's works are almost always small in scale.

Morisot creates a sense of space and depth through the use of color. Although her color palette was somewhat limited, her fellow impressionists regarded her as a "virtuoso colorist".[21] She typically made expansive use of white to create a sense of transparency, whether used as a pure white or mixed with other colors. In her large painting, The Cherry Tree, colors are more vivid but are still used to emphasize form.[21]

Inspired by Manet's drawings, she kept the use of color to the minimum when constructing a motif. Responding to the experiments conducted by Manet and Edgar Degas, Morisot used barely tinted whites to harmonize the paintings. Like Degas, she played with three media simultaneously in one painting: watercolor, pastel, and oil paints. In the second half of her career, she learned from Renoir by mimicking his motifs.[18] She also shared an interest in keeping a balance between the density of figures and the atmospheric traits of light with Renoir in her later works.[22]

Jeune Fille au Manteau Vert, oil on canvas, c. 1894

Morisot painted what she experienced on a daily basis. Most of her paintings include domestic scenes of family, children, ladies, and flowers, depicting what women's life was like in the late nineteenth century. Instead of portraying the public space and the society, Morisot preferred private, intimate scenes.[18] It somehow reflects the cultural restrictions of her class and gender at that time. Like her fellow Impressionist Mary Cassatt, she focused on domestic life and portraits in which she could use family and personal friends as models, including her daughter Julie and sister Edma. The stenographic presentation of her daily life conveys a strong hope to stop the fleeting passage of time.[18] By portraying flowers, she used metaphors to celebrate womanhood.[23] Prior to the 1860s, Morisot painted subjects in line with the Barbizon school before turning to scenes of contemporary femininity.[24] Paintings like The Cradle (1872), in which she depicted current trends for nursery furniture, reflect her sensitivity to fashion and advertising, both of which would have been apparent to her female audience. Her works also include landscapes, garden settings, boating scenes, and theme of boredom or ennui.[18] Later in her career Morisot worked with more ambitious themes, such as nudes.[25] In her late works, she often referred to the past to recall the memory of her earlier life and youth, and her departed companions.[18]

Grain field, c. 1875, Musée d'Orsay

Morisot's first appearance in the Salon de Paris came at the age of twenty-three in 1864, with the acceptance of two landscape paintings. She continued to show regularly in the Salon, to generally favorable reviews, until 1873, the year before the first Impressionist exhibition. She exhibited with the Impressionists from 1874 onwards, only missing the exhibition in 1878 when her daughter was born.[26]

Impressionism's alleged attachment to brilliant color, sensual surface effects, and fleeting sensory perceptions led a number of critics to assert in retrospect that this style, once primarily the battlefield of insouciant, combative males, was inherently feminine and best suited to women's weaker temperaments, lesser intellectual capabilities, and greater sensibility.[27]

During Morisot's 1874 exhibition with the Impressionists, such as Monet and Manet, Le Figaro critic Albert Wolff noted that the Impressionists consisted of "five or six lunatics of which one is a woman...[whose] feminine grace is maintained amid the outpourings of a delirious mind."[6]

Morisot's mature career began in 1872. She found an audience for her work with Durand-Ruel, the private dealer, who bought twenty-two paintings. In 1877, she was described by the critic for Le Temps as the "one real Impressionist in this group."[28] She chose to exhibit under her full maiden name instead of using a pseudonym or her married name.[29] As her skill and style improved, many began to rethink their opinion toward Morisot. In the 1880 exhibition, many reviews judged Morisot among the best, even including Le Figaro critic Albert Wolff.[30]

Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (in mourning for her father), 1872, Musée d'Orsay

Morisot came from an eminent family, the daughter of a government official and the great-niece of a famous Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard.[31] She met her longtime friend and colleague, Édouard Manet, in 1868. By the introduction of Manet, Morisot was married to Édouard's brother, Eugène Manet in 1874. On November 14, 1878, she gave birth to her only child, Julie, who posed frequently for her mother and other Impressionist artists, including Renoir and her uncle Édouard.

Correspondence between Morisot and Édouard Manet shows warm affection, and Manet gave her an easel as a Christmas present. Morisot often posed for Manet and there are several portrait painting of Morisot such as Repose (Portrait of Berthe Morisot) and Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet.[32] Morisot died on March 2, 1895, in Paris, of pneumonia contracted while attending to her daughter Julie's similar illness, and thus making her an orphan at the age of 16. She was interred in the Cimetière de Passy.

• 
  The Sisters, 1869, National Gallery of Art
• 
  The Artist's Sister at a Window, 1869, National Gallery of Art
• 
  The Harbor at Lorient, 1869, National Gallery of Art
• 
  On the Balcony, 1872, New York City
• 
  Reading, 1873, Cleveland Museum of Art
• 
  Le Berceau (The Cradle), 1872, Musée d'Orsay
• 
  Portrait of Mme Boursier and Her Daughter, c. 1873, Brooklyn Museum
• 
  Hanging the Laundry out to Dry, 1875, National Gallery of Art
• 
  Lady at her Toilette, 1875 The Art Institute of Chicago
• 
  Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, 1875, Musée Marmottan Monet
• 
  The Dining Room, c. 1875 National Gallery of Art
• 
  Jour d'été Summer's Day, 1879, National Gallery, London Alternative title: French: Le Lac du bois de Boulogne The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne
• 
  Winter aka Woman with a Muff, 1880, Dallas Museum of Arts
• 
  Child among the Hollyhocks, 1881, Wallraf-Richartz Museum
• 
  The Artists' Daughter Julie With Her Nanny, c.1884, Minneapolis Institute of Art
• 
  The Bath (Girl Arranging Her Hair), 1885–86, Clark Art Institute
• 
  Julie Manet et son Lévrier Laerte, 1893, Musée Marmottan Monet

• 
  Detail from The Balcony by Édouard Manet, with the portrait of Berthe in the foreground, 1868
• 
  Berthe Morisot posing for The Rest, 1870, By Édouard Manet
• 
  Berthe Morisot on a divan couch, 1872, by Édouard Manet
• 
  Portrait of Berthe Morisot with a Fan, 1874 by Édouard Manet
• 
  Portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1876, by Marcellin Desboutin
• 
  Portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1882, By Édouard Manet
• 
  Berthe Morisot au soulier rose, 1872 By Édouard Manet. Hiroshima Museum of Art
• 
  Berthe Morisot and her daughter Julie Manet, 1894, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• 
  Berthe Morisot, 1892, by Renoir

Morisot's work sold comparatively well. She achieved the two highest prices at a Hôtel Drouot auction in 1875, the Interior (Young Woman with Mirror) sold for 480 francs, and her pastel On the Lawn sold for 320 francs.[122][123] Her works averaged 250 francs, the best relative prices at the auction.[124]

In February 2013, Morisot became the highest priced female artist, when After Lunch (1881), a portrait of a young redhead in a straw hat and purple dress, sold for $10.9 million at a Christie's auction. The painting achieved roughly three times its upper estimate,[125][126][127] exceeding the $10.7 million for a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois in 2012.[125]

She was portrayed by actress Marine Delterme in a 2012 French biographical TV film directed by Caroline Champetier. The character of Beatrice de Clerval in Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves is largely based on Morisot.[128]

She was featured as the "A First Impressionist" in an article written by Anne Truitt in the New York Times on June 3, 1990.[129]

From Melissa Burdick Harmon, an editor at Biography magazine, "While some of Morisot's work may seem to us today like sweet depictions of babies in cradles, at the time these images were considered extremely intimate, as objects related to infants belonged exclusively to the world of women."[6]

• Women artists
• Western painting
• History of painting
• Julie Manet

Wikisource has the text of a 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article about Berthe Morisot.

• Denvir, B. (2000). The Chronicle of Impressionism: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and World of the Great Artists. London: Thames & Hudson. OCLC 43339405
• Higonnet, Anne (1995). Berthe Morisot. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20156-6
• Turner, J. (2000). From Monet to Cézanne: late 19th-century French artists. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-22971-2
• Manet, Julie, Rosalind de Boland Roberts, and Jane Roberts. Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet. London: Sotheby's Publications, 1987
• Shennan, Margaret (1996). Berthe Morisot: The First Lady of Impressionism. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-2339-3

External video
Morisot's The Mother and Sister of the Artist, (3:35)
Video Postcard: Woman at Her Toilette (1875/80) on YouTube, (1:58) Art Institute of Chicago

• Works by or about Berthe Morisot at Internet Archive
• Media related to Berthe Morisot at Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations related to Berthe Morisot at Wikiquote
• Edma Morisot, 1865, Berthe Morisot painting at her easel Private collection.
• Berthe Morisot at the WebMuseum
• Biography of Berthe Morisot
• Works by or about Berthe Morisot in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Berthe Morisot in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website