Berthe Morisot: The Eighteenth Century Modernised?
To celebrate Dulwich Picture Gallery's exhibition, we look into the legacy of the pioneering artist...
May 22, 2023
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
-min.jpg)
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Berthe Morisot participated in all eight landmark Impressionism exhibitions, save for 1879, when her daughter, Julie, had been born just five months earlier. A founding member of the movement, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were amongst her ‘artist friends’ who lavished praise on her; and yet, she remains overlooked in the history of the French art movement.
Morisot does better than most of her women peers; she was celebrated after her death in 1896 with a memorial exhibition. Yet, until now, she’s predominantly been represented by her privilege, and depictions of the interior, domestic lives of women. One wave in a deluge of recent and new shows rethinking the movement, Shaping Impressionism shifts the perspective to focus on Morisot’s engagement with 18th Century French culture - and in doing so, respects her more as an artist, and a woman.
Morisot’s influences - Fragonard, Chardin, Boucher, and the pastels of Perronneau - fell out of fashion after the French Revolution, cropping up again from the mid-19th Century in private collections, and later, the Louvre Museum. Travels to the UK and London (through her husband, and honeymooning) brought her into contact with English painting, and French émigres like James Tissot.
Through her notebook and letters, we are with her as she hurtles through the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); Dulwich suggests works she may have enjoyed there too. The Picture Gallery makes considered use of archive material; as with their previous exhibitions, much more information is available in all media on Bloomberg Connects. Shaping Impressionism too extends into their permanent collection, altering the captions – and curation - of her contemporaries and influences.
The artist is curated in an active conversation with the works of these artists ‘she most admired’ (Photographs stand in as substitutes for those harder to acquire). This deeply personal curation is balanced by directly-worded captions, and quotes from the artist in her own words; again, respecting Morisot’s status as an artist.
Most refreshing is the attention paid to the older (here, ‘mature') artist, a time of women’s lives often under-represented and stereotyped. But here, we see Morisot at her most confident and experimental; she never directly copies, but ‘translates’ the works of her influences. Indeed, Dulwich would have us think of her as a 19th century Nalini Malani, for her ‘updated’ take on Boucher’s ’Resting’.
This period of formal experimentation includes her use of colour and media; Morisot took the popular 18th Century medium of red chalk, but used it more loosely, to fit her Impressionistic vision. We find traces of her artistic process – in grid lines and near non-finitos – across the works. Her pastels serve as evidence as the ‘surest draughtsmanship’ for which she was praised by Degas. One work, acquired by Claude Monet, is implied to have influenced his more infamous Water Lilies paintings in colour and form.
Diversely curated, Dulwich also dives into 18th Century material culture, pointing out the objects of her paintings. Chinese porcelain pots, a gift and family heirlooms from her brother-in-law and fellow artist, Edouard Manet, are a recurrent motif. (We might spy another influence from Asia, in the Japanese painting in the background of her daughter’s portrait.) It’s a subtle reminder of the artist’s privileged position.
But, of course, the exhibition begins and ends with her portraits. Skip her landscapes; unlike the men of the Impressionist movement, Morisot opted to depict individual women, self-determined and thinking. Moments of ‘quiet introspection’, rather than the ‘amorous intrigue’ of crowded cities and ballrooms.
We read of how her ‘domestic’ paintings reflect the restrictions faced by women artists at the time, and how she perceived her own personal and professional life. Morisot had to adapt her practice to avoid unwanted attention from men, painting outdoors early in the morning, on the water, or accompanied by her husband. Whilst she was ‘one of few women who successfully combined art, marriage, and motherhood’, her sister Edma – whose works we see too – stopped practising to raise children.
But this is one moment where captions are almost unnecessary; these artworks, some strikingly modern, speak for themselves. We see women upright, dressed in colourful clothes covered in wiggly lines. More subtly sexual representations: women reclined, draped over chaise longues, with ambiguous, suggestive gazes. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, a frequent model, is depicted in mourning dress for her father, at the other end of the age spectrum, and presented as complex. It’s a painting which would pre-empt Morisot’s own death soon after, as she contracted the same illness from which she had nursed her child back to health.
Save for this final work, it is the first, her self-portrait as an artist, which stays with us on exit. Her direct gaze and bold brushstrokes speak of her own self-determination. She wears the red ribbon of the légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to male artists working in the traditional academic style. Morisot’s expectations for her career are clear – and at Shaping Impressionism, they are met.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is showing at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 10 September.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
