Mary Cassatt once said, “There’s only one thing in life for a woman; it’s to be a mother…A woman artist must be…capable of making primary sacrifices.” Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Her father was a highly respected real estate and investment broker, and this resulted in her family’s high social class. Her schooling provided an opportunity for her to become a proper wife and mother. She took multiple classes in areas such as homemaking, embroidery and music. Even though women during her time were discouraged from pursuing a career, Mary Cassatt did not let that stop her (Mary Cassatt, para 1-2). At age 16, she enrolled in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She eventually left …show more content…
She once wrote this to a friend, “I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art. It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.” Mary’s admiration of Degas eventually formed a very strong friendship. She eventually began to work with the Impressionist painters. In one show, she exhibited 11 of her own paintings. She was also one of only two women to work with the Impressionists (Cassatt, pg. 1). Even though many Impressionists focused on landscapes and street scenes, Mary focused on women in everyday settings. Mothers with children were her primary focus. Mary did not have any children, but she was able to portray the love of a mother with a child in her paintings (Mary Cassatt, para 6-7). The Child’s Bath is one of Cassatt’s masterworks. This work uses many different devices such as bold patterns and outlines, and a perspective that is leveled. The bold patterns play off one another and center on the nakedness of the child, whose white legs are as straight as the lines of the woman’s striped dress. The high point allows the viewer to observe, but not be involved in, this affectionate scene. This masterwork again focuses on Cassatt’s main subject, the tender love of a woman with a child (The Child’s Bath, para
Annie Turnbo Malone was an entrepreneur and was also a chemist. She became a millionaire by making some hair products for some black women. She gave most of her money away to charity and to promote the African American. She was born on august 9, 1869, and was the tenth child out of eleven children that where born by Robert and Isabella turnbo. Annie’s parents died when she was young so her older sister took care of her until she was old enough to take care of herself.
...t way, like Varley’s 1930 Vera, she remains a mystery, a forgotten artist, best known for he work as a muse, model, and wife. It is often wondered what kind of work she would have done if she had remained single mindedly focused on her art like the famous Emily Carr
When that room is entered all voices are hushed, and all merriment silenced. The place is as holy as a church. In the centre of the canvas is the Virgin Mother with a young, almost girlish face or surpassing loveliness. In her eyes affection and wonder are blended, and the features and the figure are the most spiritual and beautiful in the world's art.
An influential American printmaker and painter as she was known for impressionist style in the 1880s, which reflected her ideas of the modern women and created artwork that displayed the maternal embrace between women and children; Mary Cassatt was truly the renowned artist in the 19th century. Cassatt exhibited her work regularly in Pennsylvania where she was born and raised in 1844. However, she spent most of her life in France where she was discovered by her mentor Edgar Degas who was the very person that gave her the opportunity that soon made one of the only American female Impressionist in Paris. An exhibition of Japanese woodblock Cassatt attends in Paris inspired her as she took upon creating a piece called, “Maternal Caress” (1890-91), a print of mother captured in a tender moment where she caress her child in an experimental dry-point etching by the same artist who never bared a child her entire life. Cassatt began to specialize in the portrayal of children with mother and was considered to be one of the greatest interpreters in the late 1800s.
The painting depicts a mother and her four children, who are all leaning on her as she looks down solemnly, her tired, despondent expression suggests she felt trapped in her roles as being a mother and a wife. The woman and her children are clearly the focal point of the artwork as the bright colours used to paint them stand out impeccably against the dull, lifeless colours of the background. This painting appears to be centred around the ideology that women are home-keepers, whose main role is to satisfy and assist her husband while simultaneously minding the children and keeping the home tidy and ready for his return. The social consequences of this artwork could have been that the woman could have been berated for not taking pleasure out of being a mother and raising her children, as a woman should. She could have been made redundant as her husband may have felt as though she is no longer useful if she couldn’t adequately adhere to her roles as a mother and a
Mary Kate Smith is a name that many Mississippians remember from her high school days. Smith played soccer and football for the South Jones Braves during her high school days. Starting her career as a soccer star for the Braves, Smith decided to give football a chance after his junior year in high school.
Mary Cassatt, an American printmaker, and painter was born in 1844 in Pennsylvania. Cassatt’s family perceived traveling as an essential part of the learning process thus she had the advantage of visiting various capitals such as Paris, London, and Berlin. Cassatt studied to become a professional artist and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She later went to study in France under Thomas, Couture, Jean-Leon Gerome, and others. She spent a significant part of her adult life in France. When in France, she initially befriended Edgar Degas, a famous French artist, and later her works were exhibited among other impressionists. Afterward, Cassatt admired artists that had the ability to independently unveil their artwork and did not
Mary Cassatt was most widely known for her impressionist pieces that depicted mother (or nanny) and child. She was faced with many struggles throughout her life and received much criticism, even after her death in 1926. She found it difficult to receive appropriate recognition for her pieces during her early career. Many were unaccepted by the Salon. Cassatt lived for many years in France after her successful career, which ended abruptly when she went blind. Her talent placed her pieces in many famous museums throughout the world and landed her name among the famous artists of her time. As well as paving the way for powerful women, like herself. She lived during a time of suffragettes searching for equality.
The painting, in its simplest form, consists of a naked woman lying elegantly upon stately and rich cloths, while a young, also nude boy, is holding a mirror which contains her reflection. Upon first glance of this work, I was quickly able to make out the identity of the two subjects. ...
In the painting Beside the River by Agnes Gardener King (Book 1, p. 22) the girl portrays the Romantic view of childhood which sees a child as an innocent and guiltless. That approach is mainly observed in Victorian fine art and book illustrations. Like the girl in the painting, romantic view looks for the goodness in the child. The white dress, the girl, the tress and lamb are symbols of the innocence. The painting looks peaceful, the colours are calm; the girl walks slowly and smiles gently. That type of image was the main massage of the Romantic discourse of childhood. The concept was greatly influenced by the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who wrote a book ‘Emile’ which became one of the most important textbooks of French ...
Adèle Ratignolle uses art to beautify her home. Madame Ratignolle represents the ideal mother-woman (Bloom 119). Her chief concerns and interests are for her husband and children. She was society’s model of a woman’s role. Madame Ratignolle’s purpose for playing the pia...
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
During the Renaissance, the Virgin Mary was prevalent theme throughout this period where artists such as: Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Bothicellical and Perugino were inspired to paint the Virgin Mary. The paintings show a motherly pleasant looking women holding or caring for her child. The paints are capturing the Mary as a human but giving her a divine appearance. The child being Christ shows her power by giving birth to him and by caring for the Son of God. In essence providing love, caring, and protection for the young child of God. For example, plate 15 and frame 23, these plates show a compassionate caring mother that is humanistic in depiction but larger or more encompassing of the painting than the Christ child. This is implying her importance in the early life of Christ. This also shows the power or her earthly influence over the child even though she is a human and not a deity. This gives her a special place in the church as the earthly Mother that is the most perfect of humans, other than Christ.
During the feminist movement women sought to gain gender equality and they turned to art to get their message out there. Feminist art set the bar higher for women so they can be seen more equal to men. It redefined the way women were seen and gained them a lot more power in the world. Women were able to use feminist art to be able to show the world that they were just as capable of being successful artists just like men were. Artist like Judy Chicago help set ideas of gender equality become a reality. “Inspired by the women 's movement and rebelling against the male-dominated art scene of the 1960s.” (the art story). Judy Chicago stood for women being equal to men and fought against how men were the ones in charge of the world. She used her art as a weapon to combat gender equality. Many other artists like Chicago used their art to fight gender equality. Feminist art helped explore ideas of gender equality and exchanged it around the world. Her art served as a way of breaking societal expectation by incorporating controversial
Rossetti’s use of repetition emphasizes the idea that the artist is able to set expectations for women by controlling who they are, what they do, and what they feel by recreating them through art. Rossetti shows us a woman who is repeatedly being depicted in the artist’s paintings. Repetition of the word “one” (1,2,8) conveys a sense of homogenization: many women