MORISOT, Berthe (Bourges, 1841 – Paris, 1895)
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was born on 14 January 1841 into a bourgeois upper-class household in Bourges. Due to her family social status her mother educated both her sister Edma and her in the taste of what were considered appropriate women’s activities such as music and painting. The two sisters trained initially as amateurs under the guidance of the painters Geoffrey-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph-Benoît Guichard, refining their technique by copying the masterpieces of the Louvre galleries where she met Henri Fantin-Latour. In
a short time, Berthe revealed her artistic talent and was strongly encouraged to pursue further studies. In 1861 the artist was introduced to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and his pupil Achille-François Oudinot from whom she acquired the taste for painting naturalistic compositions “en plein air”. In 1868, while Berthe was at the Louvre executing a copy of Rubens’ Arrival of Maria de’ Medici in the Harbour of Marseille, Fantin-Latour introduced her to Édouard Manet. The result of their encounter is embodied by Manet’s 1868 composition Le Balcon (Paris, Musée D’Orsay), for which Berthe posed and which he presented at the Salon the following year. Besides Édouard Manet, Morisot also maintained both intellectual and friendly relationships with Alfred Stevens, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and Edgar Degas, who helped her translate her pictorial impressions of real life to canvas, preparing her future role in the Impressionist movement. Her themes progressively focused on women and children featured within outdoor as well as indoor domestic settings. In all probability her role as a woman painter was safeguarded and unusually appreciated due to her choice of a subject-matter that was often associated with maternity and female sensibility. Berthe Morisot exhibited at the Salon from 1864 until 1873 presenting
a series of tranquil landscapes that initially recalled Corot’s manner, as exemplified by Thatched Cottage in Normandy (1865, Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) and The Seine below the Pont d’Iéna, (1866, Private Collection). In 1874 Morisot participated in the first Impressionist exhibition with nine pieces, including Hide-and-Seek (1873, Las Vegas, Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art). Thereafter her works were show at all but one of the Impressionist exhibitions (1874–1886). On 22 December 1874 Morisot married Eugène Manet, Édouard’s brother and in 1879 she gave birth to her only daughter Julie. Apart from her favourable outcome within public exhibitions, Berthe also succeeded in being greatly represented by galleries such as Durand-Ruel and Petit that extended her fame abroad. She died on 2 March 1895 in Paris.
Dominique Lora
<< back