Last week, I wrote about the Berthe Morisot retrospective in Dallas. It's a very good show presenting the work of a fine artist. Its sound scholarly and aesthetic points were nearly smothered by incessant assertions that Morisot, after all “a woman impressionist,” was thwarted and minimized during her lifetime and in the many years since, by misogynist critics, scholars, and the marketplace.
Neither is true. Morisot's work was in all but one of the impressionist rebel salons. She was favorably reviewed and got some digs. Her subject matter is limited, though, and that has affected her critical reception. She painted women and babies mostly, but that was her choice. She wasn't locked in a harem. She could have painted any subject she wanted, possibly with the exception of a brothel.
When I was a student, Morisot got as much attention in impressionist scholarship and classes as, say, Sisley, the purest of impressionists. Boudin, Caillebotte, and Bazille were in the big impressionist shows in the 1870s, Bazille after his early death, but each of these great painters figures far less in the established storyline of avant-garde art than Morisot or Mary Cassatt. Was Morisot unfairly advantaged because she was rich, or because she was married to Manet's brother? Who knows, and who cares. It's always best to let the work do most of the talking. Why make her gender so big a part of her story?
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