53.3 x 72.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The nude was no less important as an object of study for Degas: he drew it tirelessly all his life. “The same subject has to be done ten, a hundred times. Nothing in art should look like an accident, even movement” (J. Bouret, op. cit., p. 58). Movement, still more movement, always movement… Professional models would pose for Degas; his demands seemed absurd to them. Instead of sitting the young woman down or placing her, standing, in a well defined pose, he asked her to dry herself and do up her hair. Was the painter even drawing her? No: he stood standing against the wall, arms folded across his chest, watching her. Occasionally he climbed on a stool and watched her from above. Only after the model left would he begin to draw. Degas gained access to a world that, until then, had never let people from the outside come near: he represented women in their private surroundings, which belonged to them alone. He drew them in poses in which it is impossible to pose. She washes, squatting, in the bathtub. She combs her long hair, which a moment later she will toss back. Twisting around clumsily, she dries her back. Each drawing and each pastel seems to represent one image from an endless film of women washing and grooming themselves.
As he grew older, Degas made more and more sculpture. “With my eyesight going,” he said to the dealer Vollard, “I now have to take up blind men’s work” (J. Bouret, op. cit., p. 209). He modelled, in wax, what he knew best: ballet dancers, horses and nudes. Ambroise Vollard was crestfallen to see how Degas would destroy his wax masterpieces so he could have the pleasure, as he put it, of starting them again. In his last years Degas was almost completely blind. He died 27 September 1917. Among the group of several friends who came to accompany him to Montmartre cemetery there was only one Impressionist: Claude Monet. The other friend who had survived him, Renoir, was confined to an invalid’s armchair. In the midst of the First World War, the painter’s death went almost unnoticed.
151. Edgar Degas and Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard,
The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, between 1921-1931.
Colored bronze, tutu in tulle, pink satin ribbon in the hair,
base in wood, 98 x 35.2 x 24.5 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
152. Edgar Degas, Ballet Rehearsal on Stage, 1874.
Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
153. Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872.
Oil on canvas, 56 x 46 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
154. Berthe Morisot,
Woman and Child on a Balcony, 1872.
Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm. Private Collection.
BERTHE MORISOT
A woman painter was a rare phenomenon in the mid nineteenth century and in the aesthetic camp hostile to official art, there was only one. Berthe Morisot participated in most of the Impressionist’s exhibitions.
Berthe Morisot was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Jean-Honoré Fragonard and the artist painter Marguerite Gérard were distant relatives on her father’s side. Her father, Edmé Tiburce Morisot, held senior administrative positions. Berthe was born on 14 January 1841 in Bourges, in the administrative region of the Cher, because her father was then prefect of the Cher. Her mother, Marie-Cornélie Thomas, also from a prominent family, was the daughter of an inspector of public finances. Mrs Morisot oversaw her four children’s education, inviting teachers into their home. But it was upon the initiative of their father, an art collector, that three Morisot sisters started drawing lessons.
The girls’ first professor took them to Camille Corot. He did not give lessons per se; he gave advice, and this advice formed the basis of Berthe’s Impressionism. The Morisot sisters regularly went to the Louvre to copy the old masters. The museum was the site of constant meetings between painters. It was there they met Henri Fantin-Latour around 1860. He introduced Berthe and Edma to the engraver Félix Bracquemond, who became a faithful friend of the Impressionists.
It was only in 1867, while she was copying Rubens at the Louvre, that Berthe was introduced to Édouard Manet by Fantin-Latour. Soon afterwards, Manet and his wife and the Morisot family were constantly inviting themselves to each other’s homes. Berthe met Degas at Manet’s house and from that moment on Degas came nearly every Tuesday to Mrs Morisot’s. From their first meeting, Manet preferred Berthe and in 1868, she posed for him in The Balcony. Berthe’s letters show at what point Manet’s opinion became important to her. She was unable to remain indifferent to his lack of attention.
Berthe was always prone to self-doubt and torment. Finally the Salon opened and she saw her painting had been included. The late 1860s and the early 1870s was an especially painful period for Berthe. Her two sisters were married; only Berthe, now thirty, still lived with her parents, although she was much courted. No one knows her true relationship with Édouard Manet, but in early summer of 1870 she posed for him again.
155. Berthe Morisot,
Portrait of Madame Boursier and her Daughter, c.1873.
Oil on canvas, 74.5 x 56.8 cm.
Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Manet’s 1870 Repose (Portrait of Berthe Morisot), is a remarkable psychological study of a young woman. Executed in the style of a sketch, the painting makes for a particularly vivid portrait. The model has flung herself against the back of a sofa; one gets the impression she just sat down for an instant and became lost in thought. The expression on her face was not meant to be seen; sadness had momentarily covered her eyes.
Two years later, Manet painted Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (private collection), which depicts a completely different Berthe. She looks younger here, her huge eyes in shadow gaze distractedly and her lips are poised to release a pensive smile. The stray hairs that fall from under her eccentric hat (“the latest fashion”) indicate she participated in bohemian culture. The predominance of black in the painting lends a mysterious character to the image of the young woman. The psychological complexity and many nuances of feeling that are difficult to put into words expressed the very essence of Berthe Morisot’s remarkable individuality and uniqueness. With his eleven portraits, Manet contributed as much to the memory of Berthe Morisot as she did for herself through her own painting.
The year 1870 formed a line of demarcation between two eras for Berthe, as it did for the other painters. She learned that Degas and Renoir had left to join the army. Her brother was taken prisoner by the Prussians. Berthe stayed in Paris like Édouard Manet. Manet was indignant and tried to persuade her to leave. But Berthe was steadfast in her decisions. The national guard requisitioned her studio and turned it into quarters.
Berthe applied herself seriously to painting. The Salon of 1872 included the portrait of her sister Edma that she had painted when Edma visited her parents to give birth to her daughter. Berthe travelled in the south of France and in Spain. It may have been during these trips that she understood how difficult it was to reproduce the effects of nature in painting.
1874 was a year of major change for Berthe. That winter, her father died in January of heart disease. Berthe, along with other painters, inaugurated the exhibition in Nadar’s studio, which earned her the label “Impressionist” and some friends for life. Her teacher, Guichard, was horrified that Berthe exhibited “in that deleterious environment,” (Correspondance de Berthe Morisot, op. cit., p. 76). The Manet and Morisot families spent the summer together in Normandy, in the little village of Fécamp. It was there that Édouard Manet’s brother Eugène declared his intentions to Berthe. In the autumn, Berthe was posing for several portraits again for Manet. On 22 December, the marriage of Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet took place at the Passy church. The quiet life with Eugène, who became a friend to her, enabled Berthe to devote herself entirely to painting.
156. Berthe Morisot, At the Ball, 1875.
Oil on canvas, 62 x 52 cm.
Musée Marmottan, Paris.
Berthe worked a lot in Normandy, especially around Fécamp; the landscape of this area remained her preferred motif
. It was one of the things that drew her closer to the future Impressionists. Berthe’s other motif was Paris. In 1872, she painted an amazing panorama of the city: View of Paris from the Trocadéro. The city stretches out below, immense and light. Berthe arranged in a single line the towers of Sainte-Clotilde and Notre-Dame, the profile of Saint-Sulpice next to the dome of the church of the Invalides, and finally the dome of the Panthéon. These silhouettes were symbols of the city’s history, which was changing before her eyes and it is the city in the midst of transformation that she painted, just like her Impressionist friends were doing. The canvas has remained a historical document of its genre.
Already in her youth, Berthe had chosen contemporary life as the fundamental theme of her work. Her subjects, however, were not as varied as those of Degas; she limited herself to the private circle of a Parisian woman. Every moment in her own family life was a subject for her work. Without her sisters, nephews, daughter, and husband, there would be no Berthe Morisot paintings. Her sister Edma, who was also her best friend, was the one that appeared most often in her canvases. Around this time, her palette did become as light as that of the other Impressionists.
In the first Impressionist exhibition at Nadar’s studio, Morisot showed The Cradle. The seated figure of Edma is depicted bent over the cradle of her second daughter, Blanche. In true Impressionist fashion, Berthe analyses the nuances of white: there are pink tones on the cradle’s muslin, blue and golden tones on the window curtain.
At the same time, Berthe was exhibiting pastels and watercolours. In these techniques she achieved definite success. The large portrait of Edma in a black dress with a background of white fabric decorated with delicate colour motifs is the work of a true master (Portrait of Madame Pontillon, Paris, Louvre). But the charm of Berthe’s work is most evident in watercolours, such as The Artist’s Sister, Edma, with Her Daughter, Jeanne (Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) and On the Sofa (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum). In these works she lays down a light, transparent layer of paint. Blue, pink, and gold reflections shimmer off the whiteness.
157. Berthe Morisot,
View of Paris from the Trocadéro, 1871-1872.
Oil on canvas, 45.9 x 81.4 cm.
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara.
It is an effect obtained through her style reminiscent of a sketch. The watercolour seems to run over the paper by itself. Berthe leaves some white space, and as she freely executes her casual brushwork she obtains the unfinished look of the Impressionists. Another category preferred by Berthe depicted scenes from women’s everyday life: young women doing their hair, reading, sewing, or looking at themselves in the mirror. In the second Impressionist exhibition, she showed the painting known as At the Ball. The model in a ball gown holding a fashionable fan is a young woman of the Paris society Berthe knew well. The painting is essentially a salon portrait, but it is remarkable in its pictorial style: loose, reminiscent of a sketch, and with beautiful colour effects in the white areas.
Now Berthe made her husband the central figure of her painting, which depicted something of a society picnic. Some Morisot biographers see in this painting the image of ideal family life as she saw it. Ever since he married Berthe, Eugène had become her constant model. In 1878, their daughter Julie was born, which explains the lack of Berthe’s paintings in the third and fourth Impressionist exhibitions. Morisot had an astonishing gift for expressing her own feelings through her painting with complete sincerity and spontaneity. Beginning in the late 1870s, Morisot’s pictorial style changed noticeably. Her brush strokes lengthened and became much more nervous and are applied in different ways. This created the impressionistic vibration of colour and light that was previously absent in her painting.
158. Berthe Morisot, On the Terrace, 1874.
Oil on canvas, 65.5 x 73 cm.
Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo.
159. Berthe Morisot,
Eugène Manet and his Daughter at Bougival, 1881.
Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm. Musée Marmottan, Paris.
On 28 December 1879, Édouard Manet gave his sister-in-law an easel. The gift was symbolic: the newborn, Julie, was eighteen months and it seemed that maternal duties might detract from artistic occupations. Berthe thought she bore a resemblance to Édouard Manet: “Mine is a Manet through and through; she already looks like her uncles, nothing like me.” (Correspondance de Berthe Morisot, op. cit., p. 99). In terms of Berthe’s art, her daughter was also a stimulus. Julie was naturally part of the household’s circle of friends, whose children formed lifelong friendships.
Julie was depicted in drawings and paintings by Édouard Manet, Degas, and Renoir. The family lived in Bougival for two years in a house surrounded by a park. When Édouard Manet was gravely ill at Rueil, they were able to visit him often. His death was a terrible blow for Berthe, who never stopped mourning. Given that Eugène’s diseased lungs required fresh country air, it was necessary to spend a lot of time in the Mediterranean region, in Normandy, and the outskirts of Paris. In 1887, they rented a villa in the village of Mézy, near Mantes, not far from Monet’s Giverny. Renoir came to Berthe’s house in Mézy to introduce his wife and firstborn son to her.
160. Berthe Morisot,
On the Lake of the Bois de Boulogne, 1884.
Oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm. Private Collection.
On the outskirts of the village, Berthe and Eugène discovered the chateau of Mesnil, which they bought in 1891. However, Berthe only lived there a short while and after her death, it became Julie’s residence. In 1892, Eugène Manet died. He had always helped Berthe. In 1893, Morisot painted a portrait of her daughter with her dog in an interior: Julie Manet and her Greyhound Laërte. The beauty of this freely painted work illustrates the artist’s maturity and mastery. Berthe was the only one who could see Julie in this way: serious and dreamy, simultaneously modest and self-confident. On 2 March 1895, Berthe died of influenza. Renoir was painting en plein-air with Cézanne in Aix when he received the telegram announcing the death of Berthe Morisot. He put away his things and went directly to the train station. “I had the impression of being all alone in a desert,” he told his son. And, even though Renoir, Degas, and Monet still had a long life ahead of them, upon the death of Berthe Morisot the group of Impressionists started to fade away.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Albert André, Renoir, Paris, 1919
J. Bouret, Degas, Paris, 1987
Charivari, 25 avril 1874
Collectif, L’Impressionnisme et le paysage français, Paris, éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1985
Collectif, Manet, Paris, éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1983
Correspondance de Berthe Morisot, Paris, 1950
François Daulte, Auguste Renoir. Figures (1860-1896), Lausanne, 1971
François Daulte, Frédéric Bazille et son temps, Genève, Pierre Cailler, 1952
François Daulte, Sisley. Paysages, Lausanne, 1961
Jean-Pierre Hoschédé, Claude Monet, ce mal connu, Genève, 1960, t. 1,
Charles Léger, Courbet, Paris, 1925
Camille Mauclair, Claude Monet, Paris, 1924,
Jean Renoir, Pierre Auguste Renoir, mon père, Paris, Gallimard, 1981
Tabarant, Manet. Histoire catalographique, Paris, 1931
Paul Valéry, Écrits sur l’art, Paris, 1962
Lionello Venturi, Les Archives de l’impressionnisme, Paris, Durand-Ruel éditeurs, 1939, vol. 2
D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet, Paris, 1971
INDEX
Edgar Degas
After the Bath
Ballet Rehearsal on Stage
Café-Concert at the Ambassadeurs (The)
Cotton Exchange in New Orleans (The)
Dance Class at the Opera, rue Le Peletier
Dancers in the Wings
Degas’s Father Listening to Lorenzo Pagans Playing the Guitar
Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli
Family Portrait (The), known as The Bellelli Family
In a Café (L’Absinthe)
Jockeys
Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (The) (and Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard)
Parade (Racehorses in front of the Stands) (The)
Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet “La Source”
Rehearsal on Stage (The)
Song Rehearsal (The)
War Scene during Middle Age
Woman Combing her Hair
Young Spartans Exercising
Édouard Manet
Absinthe Drinker (The)
Argenteuil
Autumn (Méry Laurent)
Balcony (The)
Bar at the Folies-Bergère (A)
Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama” (The)
Boating
Execution of Maximilian (The)
Execution of Maximilian (The)
Fifer (The)
In the Garden
Lola de Valence
Lunch in the Workshop (The)
Luncheon on the Grass
Masked Ball at the Opera
Monsieur and Madame Auguste Manet
Music in the Tuileries Gardens
Nana
Olympia
Portrait of Berthe Morisot with a Fan
Portrait of Georges Clemenceau
Impressionism Page 12