Interpretive Resource

Overview: Cassatt's Career and Artistic Style
Quick facts about the artist and her tender painting of a woman bathing a child.

Art Institute of Chicago. With Open Eyes: Images from The Art Institute of Chicago. CD-ROM. New York: Voyager, 1994.

Degas introduced Cassatt to the Impressionist painters, and she was the first American artist to exhibit with them. Like Degas, Cassatt experimented with unusual viewpoints and the play of color and pattern. Are you looking down, or up, or straight at this scene? Where do you see patterns? The little girl’s bath takes place in a bowl, not a modern tub or shower. Where did the water come from? How does the artist emphasize the closeness and tender relationship between the woman and child?

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