Impressionism

Much like many movements that came before it, Impressionism was born out of frustration with staunch traditionalism and a desire to break with the institution’s definitions of art. Rejecting the polished finish and historical or mythological subjects favoured by the official Paris Salon, Impressionists sought instead to connect with a world that was rapidly changing around them and so set out to capture the fleeting sensations of modernity, not just in terms of how it looked, but what it felt like to be a part of.

Open compositions emphasised the transient effects of light on the subject, whether that be a village, a park or the interior of a sitting room, and the loose, visible brushstrokes that led critics to dismissing these works as unfinished sketches gave them a sense of movement that reflected the ephemeral nature of the moments they were trying to capture and the spontaneity with which they did it.

Having gained access to academic training, women again found themselves excluded from intellectual conversation and exchange of artistic ideas when the site of these discussions moved from the academies to cafés, bars, brothels and the streets themselves, giving rise to the flâneur, a hallmark of bourgeois masculinity. Meanwhile, the women for whom social convention prohibited entry into these spaces, required a personal link to the men in the group which thus tied their creative output to which ever man formed this link. Furthermore, being unable to travel the city unchaperoned confined them to the home and their art to domestic interiors and scenes of motherhood, therefore visualising the ideological dichotomy between public and private spheres occupied by man and woman respectively.

For the most part self-trained, Marie Bracquemond (1840 - 1916) began exhibiting at the Paris Salon when she was just sixteen years old and went on to be a regular exhibitor from the 1860s onwards. Merging radiant colour and light with classical structure, her work was highly praised at the three Impressionist exhibitions she participated in, which led to her husband, Félix Bracquemond, growing increasingly jealous of her eclipsing his own Impressionist works and, in 1890, he prohibited her from painting, ending her career at the height of her success.

Berthe Morisot (1841 - 1895), one of the movement’s founding members and the only woman to participate in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, captured the private worlds of Paris’s upper-class women, lamenting their lack of independence and celebrating their small freedoms. She would go on to participate in all but one of the group’s eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886, achieving significant critical recognition during her lifetime and outselling her male contemporaries, including the likes of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley.

Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926) was the only non-European associated with the core Impressionists and was one of the groups’ leading figures, showing her work at four of the eight Impressionist exhibitions beginning in 1879. Best known for her paintings of women and children which depicted motherhood and the New Woman of the 19th century from a distinctly feminine perspective, Cassatt’s emphasis on women’s intellect and autonomy imbues her subjects with human emotion instead of displaying them as spectacles.

Eva Gonzalès (1849 - 1883), whose work had such “masculine vigor” that Salon jury members did not believe it was her own, was eventually celebrated by both conservative and liberal critics for her technical skill and ability to balance the academic style favoured by the Salon with the modernity of the Impressionists. Following her death, Gonzalès was often remembered for little more than her dark, Spanish features that made her the exotic subject of Manet’s infatuation.