RACQUEMOND, EVA GONZALÈS
“TOUTE TOILE QUI NE CONTIENT PAS UN TEMPÉRAMENT, EST
UNE TOILE MORTE”
_ZOLA_
AMONGST the artists who contributed paintings to the eight exhibitions
of the Impressionist group are four women, who were influenced by the
new methods: Mdlle. Berthe Morisot, Madame Marie Bracquemond, Miss Mary
Cassatt, and Mdlle. Eva Gonzalès.
The story of Berthe Morisot is romantic. She was the great
grand-daughter of Fragonard, a famous beauty, a pupil of Manet, then the
wife of his brother Eugène. Her position in the art world of France was
unique, and her death at the early age of fifty in 1895 cut short a
career devoted to a most charming and delicate style. She excelled above
all in two branches of her art—an exquisite draughtsmanship and a most
luminous and poetic sense of colour. Technical difficulties never
discouraged her. She was one of those rare and fortunate individuals who
can intuitively surmount any problem and consequently hardly require a
teacher. Madame Eugène Manet was an artist to her finger-tips. Her work
is charged with a feminine charm sympathetic to the temperament of any
painter. Her canvases are iridescent poems in paint, and she possessed
many qualities in common with her illustrious ancestor. “Only one woman
created a style,” wrote the novelist George Moore (who, it may be
remembered, had a close acquaintanceship with many of the
Impressionists), “and that woman is Madame Morisot. Her pictures are the
only pictures painted by a woman that could not be destroyed without
creating a blank, a hiatus in the history of art.” She was a woman of
great personality and charm, and took an active part in the furtherance
of the movement which was initiated by her brother-in-law. “My
sister-in-law would not have existed without me,” said Manet one day in
the Rue d’Amsterdam to George Moore, and the latter adds, “True, indeed,
that she would not have existed without him; and yet she has something
that he has not—the charm of an exquisite feminine fancy, the charm of
her sex. Madame Morisot is the eighteenth century quick with the
nineteenth; she is in the nineteenth turning her eyes regretfully
looking back on the eighteenth.”
Miss Mary Cassatt is an American subject. She was born at Pittsburg,
studied at the Philadelphia Academy, and then, after some work with
Degas, became an accomplished painter of children and the varied scenes
of maternity. A pastellist of note, with Raffaëlli she succeeded in
resuscitating the moribund art of etching in colour. Miss Cassatt’s work
shows evidence upon every side of unwearying years of effort. Its
dominant character is strength, and, with the single exception of Berthe
Morisot, the artist is probably one of the most virile woman painters
the world has seen. Strength is decidedly not the keynote of any of the
works of Angelica Kauffmann, Madame Lebrun, or even of the many women
who exhibit to-day, although they display other qualities worthy of
praise. Miss Cassatt has experimented in numerous directions, has often
tried to express herself in a fresh way. She has succeeded. Her
draughtsmanship is exceptionally firm, and her colour bright, pure, and
harmonious. She has worked in oil, charcoal, water-colour, pastel, and
etching, and has remained faithful to the inspiration of her master
Degas, and through him to the art of Japan.
The pastel drawing here reproduced is one of an extensive series devoted
to scenes from maternal life. Although from the nature of things all
such reproductions fall far short of the original, still a good idea is
conveyed of technique and composition. Miss Mary Cassatt, it may be
added, has travelled a great deal in search of subject inspiration, and
is the friend of the older members of the original group of French
Impressionists, to which she is allied by sympathy and the work of a
lifetime.
Madame Marie Bracquemond was also an “Impressioniste,” and joined
ardently in the movement. At first following the example of Ingres, her
first teacher, she received the most valuable help from her husband, an
engraver of the rarest talent. The field of her art ranges from a
colossal decorative panel (those exhibited in the Paris Exhibition of
1878 were about twenty-one feet by nine feet in size) to a most delicate
little etching. It may be understood that mere physical labour did not
appal her, for the Exhibition panels required assiduous and heavy toil.
[Illustration:
LE LEVER · BERTHE MORISOT
]
Of Eva Gonzalès there is, unfortunately, little to be said. At first
taught by Chaplin, she became the favourite pupil of Edouard Manet, and
commenced to display much talent as a pastellist. She married Henri
Guérard, the engraver, but death ended at an untimely age a career of
great promise. In the Luxembourg gallery she is represented by a pastel
drawing.
It has been often said that in art women cannot create: they can only
assimilate and reproduce. In one sense this is true both of Berthe
Morisot and Mary Cassatt, the two principal figures in this tiny
feminine group. The first was profoundly influenced by her
brother-in-law Manet, the second by her teacher Degas. Marie Bracquemond
and Eva Gonzalès married husbands in the practice of their art.
But these women introduced into the stern methods of the early
Impressionists a feminine gaiety and charm which were reflected upon the
canvases of their “confrères,” and produced a certain change of
attitude. There was little light-heartedness in the work of Manet before
these women-painters joined the group, and it is not altogether
improbable that some of the change is due to their example. In any body
of men feminine influence always makes for the good, and these women, of
strong but charming personality, must (it is idle to write any less
emphatic word) have had a strong influence upon the whole group. Their
industry was great, for they exhibited almost without intermission from
1874 to 1886. At times their talent touches genius, and for future
historians they will prove an interesting study. Modernity is the note
of Impressionism, and that movement was the very first artistic revolt
in which women took a prominent part.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration:
THE LAST RAYS · EMILE CLAUS
]