Happy Birthday Mary Cassatt

     Today is artist Mary Cassatt’s birthday (born May 22, 1844 – died June 14, 1926).  I have long admired her work, and I wanted to share something about it here.  Mary Cassatt was an American impressionist painter and printmaker.  She was born in Pennsylvania, but she studied and lived most of her life in France.  This is where most of her work was exhibited. 

     Impressionism has always been one of my favorite artistic styles.  I love the magical quality of these works.  It is hard for me to believe that impressionist works were once considered radical, ugly and unskilled pieces by their early critics.  This was mostly due to the obvious brushstrokes in the pieces and their unexalted subject matter; often either landscapes or ordinary people engaged in everyday activities.  In its early days, impressionistic works were often not even considered to be “real” art because they did not portray royal, historical, religious or mythological figures/scenes. 

     I wonder how Mary Cassatt’s work must have seemed during her own time.  She was highly successful, but clearly she can be classified amongst theses artistic non-conformists.  She was part of a revolution in the art world.  Although, looking at her pieces now, it can be difficult to imagine this.  Mary Cassatt’s pieces are serene, lovely and delicate.  “Revolutionary” or “radical” are certainly not the first words that pop into my head when I look at them.  Her style is clearly impressionistic in its characteristic use of light, color, form, technique and subject matter.  Besides the remarkable fact of her success in male dominated art world of her time, her subject matter is deeply feminine.  Her work featured female subjects, and they primarily show us a mother and child and emphasize the bond between them.

     Also unique to her time, Mary Cassatt didn’t paint religious works of Madonna with child, which was the traditional, albeit idealized, mother/child image in Western art up until then.  Her mother/child pieces are not religious subjects, not glamorous women and not depictions of anyone famous.  These works portray ordinary women and their ordinary children.  Yet, Mary Cassatt’s creations demonstrate the significance, the true holiness, to be found in loving human relations.  She shows us that subjects which may be traditionally considered secular can be transformed into the sacred if they are seen through different eyes.        

     As the Metropolitain Museuam of Art describes her: "Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was a unique artist because she was a woman who succeeded in what was in the nineteenth century a predominantly male profession, because she was the only American invited to exhibit with a group of independent artists later known as the Impressionists, and because she responded in a very distinctive way to their mandate to portray modern life."

     Here are just a few examples of Mary Cassatt's work. 

 

Mother Feeding Child, 1898
Pastel on wove paper, mounted on canvas, 25 1/2 x 32 in. (64.8 x 81.3 cm)
Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, 1922 (22.16.22)

  

 

Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly, 1880
Oil on canvas, 26 x 37 in. (66 x 94 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Gardner Cassatt, 1965 (65.184)

 

 

 

 

Maternal Caress, 1891
Drypoint, soft-ground etching, and aquatint, printed in color, 14 3/8 x 10 1/2 in. (36.5 x 26.7 cm)
Gift of Paul J. Sachs, 1916 (16.2.5)

 

All pictures are courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art - for more information and more examples of her work see their website ---   http://www.metmuseum.org

 

 Until I type again,

 Kami