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Overcoming Obstacles in Late Nineteenth-Century France: Part I, Berthe Morisot

© Jessica Cresseveur

The last half of the nineteenth century was not a particularly easy time to be a woman artist. This was the age of Victorian morality, which restricted the lives of women in general. For instance, women of the middle and upper classes were expected to remain within the confines of the home. They were to be obedient wives and devoted mothers. Since many of their husbands were wealthy enough to employ domestic help, even a trip to the local grocer's was out of the question. A proper lady would never venture out of the home without her husband, and even then, the appropriate destinations were limited. Locations such as the theatre or the opera were deemed acceptable, while cafés and brasseries were off limits.

In addition to confinement to the domestic sphere, women were expected to keep their gazes averted. To return the gaze of a man would imply loose morals. For a woman to direct her gaze toward a man who was not looking in her direction was even deemed improper. The roots of this old norm are imbedded in psychoanalysis, in which the man actively looks and the woman passively appears.(1)

Both of these norms served as obstacles to aspiring women artists. They developed gradually as the bourgeoisie accumulated enough wealth to "allow" the women of this social class to retire to the domestic sphere.(2) By mid-century, the numbers of professional women artists (at least those exhibiting at the Paris Salon) had dropped significantly. This period of time also witnessed the birth of a new style that would eventually be called Impressionism. (This name was given to the style by an art critic when he viewed Claude Monet's Impression Sunrise.) While not yet popular with the upper classes, the style was gaining popularity among artists. It almost necessitated spending one's time outdoors (usually in public places) and observing people. (Those who engaged in frequent people-watching were called flâneurs.)

Despite these obstacles, a handful of women managed to enjoy successful careers as artists in late nineteenth-century France. Two of them were Berthe Morisot and American-born Mary Cassatt. Morisot's paintings were mostly produced within the confines of the domestic sphere, with subjects including her sister Edme, daughter Julie, Julie's wet nurse,(3) and husband Eugène Manet (brother of artist Edouard Manet). Her individual style was more advanced than those of her contemporaries, looking forward to early twentieth-century styles such as abstraction. In 1874, she accepted an invitation by artist Edgar Degas to join the Impressionists and remained in the group while some of her contemporaries lost interest. Twelve years later, she single-handedly organised the final independent Impressionist exhibition. Eventually, she would live to see her own solo exhibition.(4)

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