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Women Impressionist Section - (after "Content and Composition" section)

Women Impressionists
Impressionists, in varying degrees, were looking for ways to depict visual experience and contemporary subjects. Women Impressionists were interested in these same ideals but had many social and career limitations compared to male Impressionists. In particular, they were excluded from the imagery of the bourgeois social sphere of the boulevard, cafe, and dance hall. As well as imagery, women were excluded from the formative discussions that resulted in meetings in those places; that was where male Impressionists were able to form and share ideas about Impressionism. In the academic realm, women were believed to be incapable of handling complex subjects which led teachers to restrict what they taught female students. It was also considered unladylike to excel in art since women's true talents were then believed to center on homemaking and mothering.

Yet several women were able to find success during their lifetime, even though their careers were affected by personal circumstances -- Bracquemond, for example, had a husband who was resentful of her work which caused her to give up painting. The four most well known, namely, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, and Berthe Morisot, are, and were, often referred to as the 'Women Impressionists'. To varying degrees they participated in the series of eight Impressionist exhibitions that took place in Paris from 1874 to 1886: Cassatt and Morisot participated in about half of the exhibitions, Bracquemond took part in three and Gonzalès did not participate.

These four were called 'women Impressionists" by the critics of the time, lumped together without regard to their personal styles, techniques, or subject matter. Critics viewing their works at the exhibitions often attempted to acknowledge the women artist's talents but circumvented them within a limited notion of femininity. Arguing for the suitability of Impressionist technique to women's manner of perception, Parisian critic S.C. de Soissons wrote:"One can understand that women have no originality of thought, and that literature and music have no feminine character; but surely women know how to observe, and what they see is quite different from that which men see, and the art which they put in their gestures, in their toilet, in the decoration of their environment is sufficient to give is the idea of an instinctive, of a peculiar genius which resides in each one of them."While Impressionism legitimized the domestic social life as subject matter, of which women had intimate knowledge, it also tended to limit them to that subject matter. Portrayals of often-identifiable sitters in domestic settings (which could offer commissions) were dominant in the exhibitions and accounted for the majority of submissions at shows. The subjects of the paintings were often women interacting with their environment by either their gaze or movement. Cassatt, in particular, was aware of her placement of subjects: she kept her predominantly female figures from objectification and cliche; when they are not reading, they converse, sew, drink tea, and when they are inactive, they seem lost in thought. The women Impressionists, like their male counterparts, were striving for "truth," for new ways of seeing and new painting techniques; each artist had a painting style unique to them. Women Impressionists (particularly Morisot and Cassatt) were conscious of the balance of power between women and objects in their paintings - the bourgeois women depicted are not defined by decorative objects, but instead, interact with and dominate the things with which they live. There are many similarities in their depictions of women who seem both at ease and subtly confined. Gonzalès' Box at the Italian Opera depicts a woman staring into the distance, at ease in a social sphere but confined by the box and the man standing next to her. Cassatt's painting Young Girl at a Window is brighter in color but remains constrained by the canvas edge as she looks out the window.

Despite their success in their ability to have a career (see List of women Impressionists) and Impressionism's demise attributed to its allegedly feminine characteristics (its sensuality, dependence on sensation, physicality, and fluidity) the four women artists (and other, lesser-known women Impressionists) were forgotten from art history, and were largely omitted from art historical textbooks covering Impressionist artists until Tamar Garb's Women Impressionists published in 1986. For example:

Impressionism by Jean Leymarie, published in 1955:


 * The book included no information on any women Impressionists.

Women Impressionists by Tamar Garb, published in 1986:


 * The entire book focused on the four main Impressionists: Morisot, Cassatt, Gonzalès, and Bracquemond.

Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums by Marc Saul Gerstein and the Carnegie Museum of Art, published in 1989:


 * Morisot mentioned on pages 20, 21, 40, 60, 140, 166 and 1 image included - In Garden at Maurecourt.
 * Cassatt mentioned on pages 18, 19, 21, 60, and 2 images included - At the Theater and Young Women Picking Fruit.
 * Gonzalès supposedly on page 60 but not mentioned by name (likely in “and others” quote on page 60 when the book talks about Realists other than Manet).
 * No Bracquemond.

Impressionism: Beneath the Surface by Paul Smith, published in 1995:


 * Morisot: 11, 14, 57, 59, 66, 67, 68, 69, and 4 images.
 * Cassatt: 11, 14, 66, 68, 69 and 8 images.


 * Gonzalès: 1 image.
 * No Bracquemond.

Impressionism by Nathalia Brodskaïa, published in 2018:


 * 16 Morisot works are illustrated, including an entire chapter devoted to her, but there are no works by other women Impressionists.

To add to Eva Gonzalès page:
--Add right after first paragraph of work/later life---

According to Albert Boime, Maria Deraismes is said to have believed that, “Eva is no mere follower of the master [ Manet]. She had marked out her own road to success, distinguishing herself from Manet with a singular difference: ‘To the degree that he loves ugly, his student loves the beautiful.’”

However, in a 1940’s article about a work by her, a male critic described her merely as a pupil of Manet and added, “Truly feminine in her approach, Eva Gonzalès will be remembered as one of the most sensitive and charming artists of the 1870's.”

List of women Impressionists
The list of women Impressionists attempts to include women artists who were involved with the Impressionist movement or artists.

The four most well known women Impressionists - Morisot, Cassatt, Bracquemond, and Gonzalès - emerged as artists at a time when the art world, at least in terms of Paris, was increasingly becoming feminized. 609 works by women were shown in the 1900 Salon, as opposed to 66 by women in the 1800 Salon; women represented 20% of the artists shown in painting and graphic arts between 1818 and 1877, and close to 30% by the end of the 1890s.

Source: Women Artists in Paris 1850-1900


 * Anna Ancher, Danish, 1859 -1935
 * Harriet Backer, Norwegian, 1845-1932
 * Marie Bashkirtseff, née Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtsena, French, 1858-1884
 * Amélie Beaury-Saurel, French, 1848-1924
 * Cecilia Beaux, American, 1855-1942
 * Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowicz, Polish, 1857-1893
 * Marie Bracquemond, French, 1840-1916
 * Louise Catherine Breslau, German, 1856-1927
 * Lady Elizabeth Butler, née Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, British, 1846-1933
 * Mina Carlson-Bredberg, Swedish, 1857-1943
 * Mary Cassatt, American, 1844-1926
 * Mary Cazin, French, 1844-1924
 * Fanny Churberg, Finnish, 1845-1892
 * Elin Daneilson-Gambogi, Finnish, 1861-1919
 * Julie Delance-Ferugard, French, 1859-1892
 * Virginie Demont-Breton, French, 1859-1935
 * Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, American, 1837-1922
 * Eva Gonzalès, French, 1849-1883
 * Annie Hopf, Swiss, 1861-1918
 * Kitty Kieland, Norwegian, 1843-1914
 * Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, American, 1856-1942
 * Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick, Swedish, 1855-1932
 * Paula Modersohn-Becker, German, 1876-1907
 * Berthe Morisot, French, 1841-1895
 * Asta Nørregaard, Norwegian, 1853-1933
 * Elizabeth Nourse, American, 1859-1938
 * Hanna Pauli, Swedish, 1864-1940
 * Lilla Cabot Perry, American, 1848-1933
 * Marie Petiet, French, 1854-1893
 * Helene Schjerfbeck, Finnish, 1862-1946
 * Mary Shepard Greene Blumenschein, American, 1869-1958
 * Marianne Stokes, née Preindlsberger, Austrian, 1855-1927
 * Annie Louise Swynnerton, née Robinson, English, 1844-1933
 * Ellen Thesleff, Finnish, 1869-1954