Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, (1872), oil on canvas
Mary Cassatt, Cup of Tea, (1880), oil on canvas
One of the things that concerns me when others view my art is that it might be taken as feminist. Sound irrational? Nope, happens all the time. Women have fought long and hard to be equal in the world, and while I agree that we are in fact different from men in many a way, why so often is my gender made an issue in my work? I remember showing my work to an instructor once, and they referred me to check out an artist based on the fact that our work was similar: black and white photography, nude, movement, feminist… FEMINIST?!? Just because I am a woman doesn’t mean my work is about that! It was about ME, my emotions and experiences as a human being, that’s it.
Guerrilla Girls Inc., Advantages, 1989
So when studying impressionist art, one comes across the work of Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt- some of the first females to appear in European art history. Yay- women can do things besides make babies and pies! Ha ha but don’t you go thinking that they would get to paint something other than those things. A majority of their art captures the world to which they were relegated. Having broken into the boys’ game, it’s not surprising that Cassatt would later take part in the women’s suffrage movement. (It is somewhat noteworthy that both Morisot and Cassatt’s families were quite well-to-do, or one could expect the women would never have been afforded the opportunities they were.)
1 comment:
Hey Annie,
Interesting post! For me, a huge part of feminism is acknowledging that the experiences of women count as part of the human experience in general. It seems pretty obvious, but even your instructor's comments show that people don't get it. The fact that a woman doing art is perceived as some sort of activism signifies to me that activism is still necessary.
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