Mother About To Wash Her Sleeping Child Analysis

Mother About to Wash Her Sleeping Child:
Mary Cassatt

Lauren Eddie Gierard

Art History 318
Professor Enholm
April 2nd 2015 Mother About to Wash Her Sleeping Child, is an oil painting by Mary Cassatt painted in 1880.1 It is currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, on the third floor of the Art of the Americas Building. 2As the title states the painting depicts a motherly figure bathing a sleepy child. The arrangement and treatment of these figures embody many of the characteristics of the impressionist movement; from its loose brushwork, bold use of color, and depiction of contemporary life at that time. Note the influences from photography and Japanese prints that were popular during the late 1800s. Mary
Cassatt was one of the few female painters associated with the impressionist movement, as well as the only American artist. This paper will discuss not only her contributions to this movement, but also examine how her experience as a female artist in 19th century France differed from her male counterparts, such as her friend and colleague Edgar Degas. In addition, this paper will study how her work was reflective of the strict code of social rules imposed upon all females at the time and her own personal reaction to these social constructs.
On my visit to LACMA to see Mother about to Wash Her Sleeping Child, I was surprised at its large size, about 39 by 25 inches.3 I had expected it to be smaller; more of a study piece, quickly produced while sitting with the two subjects. I found myself imagining the setting of her painting and wondering; did she first draw several sketches or did she immediately dive into painting, like a pleinare painting? Did she possibly work from a photograph? I imagined the child as restless, not wanting to sit still. Upon taking a closer look at her composition, one notices telling details; such as a skewed perspective on the front table, an unclear light source, and the tight cropping of the figures. This could imply that she did attempt to paint or draw the scene from life. She may have moved around the subjects, while drawing them from multiple angles, and then combining them into the current arrangement for the painting. The shadow casted from the mother’s chin onto her chest, in contrast to the lack of shadows elsewhere implies that the lighting was changing as she worked. The tight cropping creates a snap-like quality you would expect from photos today. That is not to say she worked from a photo, but there is a clear influence of photography in this piece. Photography and Japanese prints are also suggested by the treatment of dark outlines on parts of the figures, in particular the child’s legs and the woman’s hand causing a flattening effect on the overall image. The brushwork over all is extremely loose and seems vigorous in movement, suggests she painted each stroke rather thick, bold, and quickly in a pastel palette. The greatest detail on the figures is at the optical center of the piece, in their faces, and becomes increasingly abstract as it works its way to the edges of the painting.
To better understand how Mary Cassatt’s experience as a female artist in the 19th century differed from her male counterparts, we must first examine her life.
She was born on May 22, 1844 into favorable circumstances, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh.4 Her father, Robert Cassatt, was a successful stockbroker and her mother, Katherine Johnston, came from a wealthy banking family.5 As a child, she traveled often overseas with her family and resided in England, France, and Germany for extended periods. 6During this period, she was exposed to some of the finest art of the time. When attending the Paris World Fair of 1855, she had the privilege to view many French artists’ work; such as Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, Eugene Delacroix, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro. Two of these artists, Degas and Pissarro, would later become her colleagues, friends, and mentors.7 During her childhood travels, she would receive her first lessons in art, and sparked her life long passion.8 At the age of fifteen, against her family’s wishes, she began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.9 Women made up only twenty percent of the school’s student body. It immediately became apparent to Mary that most of them were not there with the aim of making a career in art but more as gaining a socially valuable talent. 10Cassatt on the other hand was determined to have an art career and become
economically independent of her family. She decided she would never marry because of this desire to have a career. Her father is noted for saying to Mary he would rather see her dead than pursue a career in art.11 She quickly became aware that she wanted and needed more instruction and found the attitude of her male students and teachers patronizing. Unlike her male counterparts, she was not allowed to draw from live nude figures, instead drew and painted from casts. Consequentially she decides to drop out of school without achieving her degree and hopes to move to Europe to study from the masters.12 In 1866, her father allowed her to move to Paris using her mother and family friends as chaperones. Even in Paris, women were not permitted to attend the Ecole Beaux-Arts School, therefore Mary applied for private lessons with masters from the school such as Jean-Leon Gerome. She augmented her training by the daily copying artwork from the Louvre. This is where she would network with fellow artists because unlike male artists she could not attended cafes where the avant-garde socialized. It would be seen as improper for a woman of her stature.
In 1868, her first painting, titled A Mandolin Player, was accepted into the Paris Salon.13 In 1870, when Cassatt returned to the states, her father still resisted her chosen career path. He was willing to support her, but he refused to pay for any of her art supplies.14 Although her art was well received, Mary became frustrated by bad fortune. First, when she exhibited some paintings in New York and none were purchased. Then again, she tried her luck in Chicago only to lose several of her paintings in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.15 Mary briefly considered giving up art and finding another career path, but as a woman, there were not many avenues available to her. It was not until the Archbishop of Pittsburgh took notice of her work and commissioned her to paint two copies of paintings by Antonio da Correggio in Parama, Italy that she saw her way back to Europe and back on to her path as an artist.16 In 1872, her second painting Two Women Throwing Flowers During Carnival was well received at the Paris Salon and purchased. By 1874, Cassatt decided to take up permanent residence in France.17 This is also, when she starts to criticize the Salon, and their treatment towards women artists. She stated that unless they had a friend or protector on the jury, women were often over looked or dismissed with contempt.18 In 1875, the Salon refused two of her paintings, only to accept one the following year after she merely darkened the background. This is when Cassatt moved away from romantic genre paintings, onto subjects that were more fashionable. It was her hope to attract more commissioned work from American socialites abroad.19 In 1877, the Salon again refused two more of her paintings. However that same year, she became acquainted with Degas, and he invited Cassatt to show her work with the Impressionists.20 The Impressionists were a group of artists who had begun showing their work independently from the Salon and eventually became known as a movement. Impressionists no longer were trying to depict subject of elevated character or grandized scenes from history, but focused on the everyday contemporary life.21 They also were no longer focused on achieving objective details that could be captured in a photo, but a more stylize painterly effect where the viewer could appreciate the individual application of each stroke of paint.22 This was exactly what Cassatt was seeking when she rejected academic style painting and pulled away from the Paris Salon. She accepted Degas’ invitation and presented eleven pieces of art with the group for the first time in April of 1879, at their forth exhibition.23 Her art also went through a dramatic change during this period. She had previously been a studio bound artist, and now she would carry a sketchbook with her everywhere to record scenes she saw outdoors and at the theater like many of her fellow impressionists.24 Unlike male artists, she was extremely limited to where she could practice her art. While the other impressionist hung out in brothels and cafes, she was painting or drawing at afternoon tea and domestic scenes common to women beyond the unwelcome gaze of strangers.25 It was even inappropriate to draw a male subject that was not from her immediate family circle of friends. 26Degas became a profound influence on Cassatt. She became proficient in the use of pastels, and he introduced her to the method of copper engravings. 27These mediums were used in some of her later successful pieces of art. As the Impressionists gained notoriety so did Mary Cassatt, and finally she was able to independently support herself and purchased property in the French countryside.28 She showed with the Impressionists until 1886 and achieved a reputation equal to those of her French counterparts.29 She then slowly began to explore printmaking and give advise to friends and family on collecting art.30 In fact she encouraged many of her friends and family; such as her brother and longtime friend Mrs. Havenmyer to buy impressionists artwork.31 Many have credited Cassatt influence on collectors to spread of Impressionism to the United States. Impressionism didn’t gain popularity in the states until 1890.32
Mother About to Wash Her Sleeping Child was one of eight paintings Mary Cassatt showed at the Fifth Impressionist Exhibit in April of 1880.33 The painting is one of the earliest examples of her popular mother and child images. This was only Cassatt’s second exhibit with the Impressionist artists and shows the movements influence on her artwork. She went from romantic genre paintings that had a fine finish of detail, to scenes from contemporary life using a loose, vigorous brushstroke and a bolder palette. This painting reflects the strict code of social rules imposed upon all women of the time because of her subject matter. Again unlike her male counterparts who were doing pleinare paintings, scenes in brothels and cafes, she was restricted to places and subjects appropriate for a woman, such as indoor domestic scenes. From the 1880s onward, the mother and child subjects become part of her signature work. 34The mother and child unlike in the Renaissance period does not have any religious connotation, such as Madonna and Child, but is about the crucial role women fulfilled in contemporary society.35 Many of the impressionist artists were influenced by Japanese prints and Mary Cassatt was actually a collector of Japanese prints.36 One of her favorite Japanese artists was Kitagawa Ultamaro, whose woodcuts also depicted beautiful woman in common daily events.37 In fact, Mary Cassatt’s painting may have been directly influenced by a specific piece titled Midnight: The Hours of the Rat; Mother and Sleepy Child. This print shows a woman getting out of bed in the middle of the night to attend her waking child. It also has a portrait composition, with a cropped figure, compressed into the foreground, featuring contour lines, solids blocks of color with flat patterns. All of which can be found in Mother About to Wash Her Sleeping Child, as well as several of her later pieces after her time with the impressionists, when she turned her attention to dry point printmaking on copper plating.38 An example even more reminiscing of Kitagawa Ultamaro’s Mother and Sleepy Child is Cassatt’s print titled Maternal Caress made in 1891.39 It depicts the contemporary version of a mother tending to her child in a bedroom. This time she has completely flattened the image with the use of contour lines, a block of limited pastel colors, and patterns mimicking the style of Japanese prints.
The intention of this essay was to examine Marry Cassatt’s work, in particular her painting titled Mother about to Wash Her Sleeping Child, as well as her life.
Both illustrate not only how she fit into the Impressionist movement itself, but also how her experience as a woman artist in the 19th century differed from those of her male counterparts. We discuss that through the subject matter of her work we can see a clear distinction of who and where she could paint in comparison to male artists and how that created her own signature mother with child painting style. We examined her progression as an artist, independent thinking at the time, and her self-determination against the cultural norms for women. Thus, in the end she became not only a prominent Impressionist artist, but also an advocate for the movement through promoting the investment of impressionist artwork to affluent Americans. Cassatt actually helped spread the movement to the United States. Although she gained notoriety equal to her French counterparts in her art, not until the movement had passed and women’s rights had become the norm that she was fully valued and appreciated as an
artist.

Bibliography
"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." The Printed Image in the West: Drypoint. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/drpt/hd_drpt.htm.

"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Mary Cassatt: Maternal Caress (16.2.5). Accessed April 1, 2015. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/16.2.5.

"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Japonisme. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jpon/hd_jpon.htm.

"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Kitagawa Utamaro: Midnight: The Hours of the Rat; Mother and Sleepy Child (JP1278). Accessed April 1, 2015. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/JP1278.

"Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child." Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://collections.lacma.org/node/233513.

"Mary Cassatt | LACMA Collections." Mary Cassatt | LACMA Collections. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://collections.lacma.org/node/167325.

"Mary Cassatt | Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child (1880) | Artsy." Mary Cassatt | Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child (1880) | Artsy. Accessed April 1, 2015. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/mary-cassatt-mother-about-to-wash-her-sleepy-child.

"Mary Cassatt: A Woman of Independent Mind | EDSITEment." Mary Cassatt: A Woman of Independent Mind | EDSITEment. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://edsitement.neh.gov/mary-cassatt-woman-independent-mind.

"National Gallery of Art." Degas/Cassatt. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/2014/degas-cassatt.html.

Grafly, Dorothy. "In Retrospect- Mary Cassatt." The American Magazine of Art 18, no. 6 (1927): 305-12. Accessed March 1, 2015. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/23930251.

Hyslop, Francis. "Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt." College Art Journal 13, no. 3 (1954): 178-84. Accessed March 1, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/772550.

Janson, H. W., Penelope J. E. Davies, and H. W. Janson. "Chapter 25." Janson 's Basic History of Western Art. 8th ed. Vol. 4. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. 860-74. Print. The Modern World.

Lewis, Jone. "Mary Cassatt Biography - Painting History." About.com. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/cassattmary/a/mary-cassatt.htm.

Strasnick, Stephanie. "Degas and Cassatt: The Untold Story of Their Artistic Friendship." ARTnews. March 27, 2014. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://www.artnews.com/2014/03/27/national-gallery-show-explores-artistic-friendship-of-degas-and-cassatt/.

Webster, Sally, and Mary Cassatt. Eve 's Daughter/Modern Woman: A Mural by Mary Cassatt. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.