Berthe Morisot, Afternoons in the Garden
Berthe Morisot, a key figure of Impressionism, brought an intimate and feminine gaze to the modern art of the 19th century. With a unique sensibility for light and color, she portrayed everyday scenes with an unprecedented freshness, raising the domestic and the natural to a poetic category. Her daughter Julia, her husband Eugene Manet and the gardens of Bougival were muses of a body of work in which the instant and emotion merge with elegance and modernity.
In a world of men in frock coats, top hats and canes, an elegant and introverted woman appears on the scene, Berthe Morisot; a charming painter endowed with great talent for the use of color and light who brought her feminine vision to the great Impressionist legacy.
The Impressionist movement arrived controversially and with no little rejection on the part of the traditional academics, only to later establish itself as a revolution that opened up modern painting.
But what produced this initial confusion? One of the fundamental reasons was the choice of subjects. These painters no longer placed their attention on illustrious men, nor on their great feats, as in the past. The artistic modernization was to capture the everyday, the habits and customs of common and anonymous people. Their gaze and their thought turned with veneration toward nature, painting everyday elements and scenes such as seascapes, beaches with rough or calm waters, tree-lined walks, etc.
Spring days. The works The Butterfly Hunt and Eugene Manet and his daughter in the garden at Bougival, by Berthe Morisot, both from the late 19th century.
These innovative artists shared reminiscences of the style of the Realist landscape painters: painting the elements of what was observed directly. But what set them apart was a gaze attentive to luminous effects, to the visual “impression” of an atmosphere, with the variations of tones, nuances or colors that occurred when they took their canvases outdoors to capture a pure instant. For this to happen, it came about that oil paint could now be transported in tin tubes, which prevented the industrial colors from drying and allowed them to be carried outdoors. To capture this unique instant, form was created with a quick, short, juxtaposed brushstroke, applying pure colors directly, capturing the essence of the motif.
Eugene Manet with his daughter in the garden (1883).
In an artistic and controversial Paris like that of the second half of the 19th century, a world of men in frock coats, top hats and canes, an elegant and introverted woman, full of charm, appears on the scene: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). This painter, endowed with great talent in the use of color and light, was welcomed by this Impressionist group. Her work full of beauty and harmony is an intimate book of her life.
Berthe Morisot, daughter of the magistrate Tiburce Morisot, was born in the French city of Bourges, but moved to Paris when her father was appointed councilor of the Court of Auditors. Berthe shared her artistic vocation with her sisters Yves and Edma. Her parents, lovers of the arts, encouraged their daughters’ passion for drawing and painting by placing them under the advice and teaching of Corot, among other masters.
Summer Day (1879).
Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872)
The park of the Bois de Boulogne, a former royal hunting reserve near her home, was enough to provide her with all the motifs of nature she needed for her landscape scenes. Her husband, friends and relatives, who accompanied her daily life, served as models. But her great muse was her daughter Julia, born in 1878, the fruit of her marriage to Eugene Manet, brother of Edouard Manet. The poet Paul Valery wrote that Manet, besides having often taken her as a model, held her in such regard and admiration that her style influenced him significantly. In Manet’s final years, Degas, Renoir and Mallarme gathered at his house in lively conversation, where Berthe left a record of her thought. The poet says: “That trio, not of amateurs but of masters, was captivated by that attentive and introverted person whose grace and remoteness composed an extraordinary charm”.
The Psyche Mirror (1876), exhibited at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.
– Berthe Morisot, Afternoons in the Garden – – Alejandra de Argos –
