Examination: Cassatt's Impressionist Depiction of Contemporary Life

Examination: Cassatt's Impressionist Depiction of Contemporary Life

Meet Mary Cassatt and learn about her interest in capturing everyday moments of contemporary life.

Woman Reading in a Garden
Like her colleague Pierre Auguste Renoir, Mary Cassatt blurs the distinction between portraiture and genre painting in this intimate outdoor scene. Less an exploration of the sitter's character or state of mind, Woman Reading in a Garden is as its title states—a depiction of a person in her everyday surroundings, specifically a new type of woman as the modern era dawned.

This naturalistic expression of contemporary life was the goal of the Impressionists. Those such as Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), Monet, and Sisley who painted landscape wanted to capture the quickly changing world around them, to seize the fleeting moods of nature, its weather and light. Those depicting the figure such as Edouard Manet, Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) presented individuals and types in the midst of their daily activities and in the surroundings of contemporary Paris. At the invitation of her friend and mentor Edgar Degas, Cassatt joined the Impressionists' endeavor in 1878, painting this portrait the following year. She was the only American artist—and one of only three women (Berthe Morisot and Marie Bracquemond were the other two)—to exhibit regularly with the avant-garde French group.

Consistent with the Impressionists' intent to capture the moment, we seem to have just happened upon this woman in a garden setting as she reads a newspaper. Continuing to concentrate on her paper, she is oblivious to the viewer, so unposed that her finger seems ready to flip to the next page. Her casual, off-center positioning reinforces this sense of immediacy, as does Cassatt's loose handling of the paint, particularly in the background. Using bright colors, Cassatt conveys the flickering qualities of light observed en plein air.

Cassatt has also placed the sitter very close to the viewer, suggesting an intimacy appropriate for this outdoor domestic scene. As a woman, Cassatt did not have access to the public spaces of the male Impressionists—to their circuses, bars, racetracks, or cafes. During these early years with the Impressionists, she therefore painted the world she knew best—women at the theater, on balconies, in domestic interiors, or in gardens like this. With its lawn furniture and cultivated flowers, it is a circumscribed environment in which nature has been tamed. The enclosed garden symbolizes the gender-based limits of the sitter's—and artist's—world.

Cassatt's subject expresses the Impressionists' quest for modernity through apparel and occupation as well. With the confidence of someone entirely at ease, the woman wears a bright blossom as decorative accent over her delicately patterned dress. This fashionable attire reflects the comfortable status of the new middle classes. As one of its members, she also has the leisure to relax in the garden and the interest to peruse the daily news. During the period that Cassatt painted this pleasing and harmonious portrait, the number of Parisian newspapers had jumped from six in the 1860s to dozens, and this woman was obviously interested in keeping abreast of current events. Thus, although we do not know her identity—who she is, what she feels—this interest in the world around her is entirely consistent with the Impressionists' goal of presenting contemporary sitters in modern settings engaged in activities of everyday life.

Audience:	Grade 5 - Grade 12
Source:	Many Faces: Modern Portraits & Identities Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Education Department: Teacher Programs. Many Faces: Modern Portraits & Identities, 1997, p. 18-19.
Availability:	Available at the Elizabeth Stone Robson Teacher Resource Center
Subjects:	everyday life (genre), leisure, portraits, women.
Artists:	Mary Cassatt.