Berthe Morisot, The PInk Dress, 1870 and YOung Woman Sitting on a Sofa, 1879 - Research Paper Example

However, a woman artist also belonged to this group but was not acknowledged in the art history or by the contemporary critics. She is Berthe Morisot, with more than 400 paintings to her credit. Most of Berthe Morisot’s paintings apart from her landscape paintings have women in her family as the subject. There is an underlying paradox in the contemporary as well as modern view points and criticisms of Berthe’s works of art and Berthe as an artist. While books on art history do not list her as a major Impressionist, or associate her as a disciple or student of Manet, and her works to follow his style, feminist art and history critics look upon these as essentially patriarchal.

However conflicting the views are, it should be considered that nothing else could be a better source of learning the techniques of Berthe’s art than her paintings themselves. The critiques are interpretations painted in different social and ideological colors. Berthe Morisot’s gender, social status, personal relationships had a huge influence on her as an artist, from the choice of the subject matter to the painting techniques adopted. This paper looks into Berthe Morisot painting technique and compares two of her paintings “The Pink Dress” (1870) and “Young Woman Seated on a Sofa (1879) to deduce the developments and changes in the latter painting from the earlier one.

Also, it analyses her art from a perspective of Berthe as a woman, impressionist and a bourgeois. [Thesis statement after finishing the essay] A few have shown interest in studying the art technique and the social background of Berthe Morisot. This has happened after her works gained international reputation post-death. A close observation of the characteristics of the period in which Berthe lived would be of great help to contextualize her as a woman artist of nineteenth century. Anne Higonnet’s biography of Berthe Morisot is a significant work that throws light on Berthe as an individual and