The role of women in public and in the workplace seems to many of us an endless debate that often ends right back where it started. For women artists in the mid-to-late 19th century France, such as Berthe Morisot, the nature of being a female artist automatically implied to her viewers and contemporaries that her art was intertwined with her femininity. Furthermore, the expected identity for women was closely knit to roles as a mother and homemaker. Women artists, seeing as their art was always going to be interpreted as feminine, were governed by social norms to keep the subject matter of their art largely domestic. However, for male artists, art was seen as universal, allowing them to depict spaces and topics that were private, intimate, or immoral in an objective way. We can see this stark contrast between the subject matter in women and men’s artwork in the work of three core Impressionist painters from the late 1800s in France: Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, and Edouard Manet.
While her wealthy parents and husband supported her, Morisot still faced social norms of domesticity and femininity that bled into her professional career. For example, Morisot faithfully showed in all Impressionist exhibitions except one, due to the birth of her daughter and postpartum period of recovery. Morisot’s personal letters and writing reveal that she tangibly felt the tension between her role in the home and her work as an artist. In all, we, as viewers of the French Impressionists, can acknowledge the nuance in Morisot’s role as a well-established and female artist in a world of male contemporaries. In the following set of artworks, can you see the difference in these impressionists’ depictions of women? Can you tell how Degas and Manet are societally allowed an objective access to women that Morisot is simply not given?
Berthe Morisot, Young Woman Seated on a Sofa, 1879. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.103.2
In the painting above and the two to follow (first set of three), we see a young woman depicted within a home.While the colors blend together, Morisot’s artistic choices highlight her central female figure because her triangular form sits in the center of the composition. Morisot paints this woman in a setting where she is open to being observed by all who come into her home. She is well dressed, poised, smiling, inviting, perhaps even patting the seat next to her for you to join her. This is the image of femininity associated with Morisot’s societal sphere. She chooses to keep her paintings within the world of women that she is, in a way, confined to.
Edgar Degas, A Woman Ironing, 1873. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.46
Degas, on the other hand, shows us an image of domestic life that sees beyond what a guest might see upon entering a home. Degas’ male-ness gives him access in his day and age into a more private setting, yet instead of this being scandalous, it is seen as an objective or universal way to highlight and celebrate everyday French life. Even though the subject is female, the fact the artist brings his own masculinity to the art allows him to see the “rougher” side of domestic life than Morisot.
Eduard Manet, Woman With a Tub, 1878-79. Pastel on linen. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MD.113
In Woman With a Tub, Manet goes almost another layer deeper than Degas by portraying the female nude. The intimate act of bathing is exposed and brought under examination by a male artist who has the ability to reflect on this woman’s figure and life from a supposedly impartial perspective. Do you see the difference in the upright, prepared stance of Morisot’s woman and Manet’s, who is hunched over and looking down? Manet is praised for exploring, almost scientifically, the woman’s role, while Morisot remains in a space where simply her womanhood keeps her from making what critics of her day consider true art.
Berthe Morisot, A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue de Bois, 1885. Watercolor over traces of graphite. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 48.10.8
Next, let us move into a space outside of the home. For Morisot and other women artists in her era, one of the only few acceptable spaces to paint other than domestic scenes was in public and private gardens. The Impressionists as a whole embraced the out-of-doors in their work, but Morisot especially rendered many outside scenes during her career. In this piece, we see, once again, a woman seated. This time, instead of looking at the viewer, we follow her gaze out into the bustling Avenue. The use of space here actually separates the woman from the larger society. Could this be interpreted as Morisot’s own feelings of separation from or tension with other aspects of life?
Edgar Degas, Dancer, 1880. Pastel and Charcoal. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.202.2
Once of Degas’ famous locations to paint was the ballet studio. Dancer, as well as many other works of Degas, give us a glimpse into the world of the ballerina. In his day, it was known that ballet was largely interconnected with prostitution. Once again, we see Degas allowed access to an area of life that would have been deemed inappropriate for a woman to depict in art. Degas’ male perspective gives him entrance into almost the back stage life of these women. If Morisot had exhibited paintings such as these, critics would have seen it as an attack on the “inherent” masculinity of art.
Edouard Manet, The Cafe-Concert, 1879. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MD.001
While a central figure is not readily available, the line of the man’s top hat does point our gaze to the woman in the middle-ground who is having a drink. We see Manet’s ability as a man to render a woman who is not ready to fulfill her domestic responsibilities, but rather is making herself vulnerable. In all, we see that Manet is allowed to bring to life this scene of a cafe (a space outside of the home), which is something it seems Morisot is not. We can continue to wonder if the pressure of her societal norms kept Morisot’s artistic spaces confined, or rather if she also chose to lean into what it meant to be a woman in her era. Either way, Manet emphasizes to us his ability to enter into intimate scenes with an objective outlook, universalizing the male experience to his viewers.
References
Havice, Christine. “The Artist in Her Own Words.” Woman’s Art Journal vol. 2, no. 2 (1981): 1–7.
Mathieu, Marianne. “Watercolours, Pastels, and Drawings in the Work of Berthe Morisot.” In Berthe Morisot: 1841-1895, 11-15. Paris: Musee Marmottan Monet, 2012.
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