Philadelphia
As far back as the mid-1500s, when Catharina van Hemessen, age 20, became the first known artist to portray herself at an easel, many women—and men like Goya and Manet, too—have taken brush to canvas to create similar images, intent on promoting their skills, their professionalism and their seriousness of purpose. Mary Cassatt, one of the few women and the only American admitted to the Impressionist circle in 19th-century France, never did so.
"Maternal Caress" |
At the same time, curators Jennifer A. Thompson and Laurel Garber imply in their writings and choice of works, Cassatt made female labor an abiding subject of her art, as long as domestic duties are considered to be work. Contrary to lore, they say, much of her output of familial scenes didn't capture actual mothers and children but was painted using models who were nannies or other paid workers, household staff and neighborhood kids.
Judging by the evidence on view, the latter idea seems a bit forced. Not much of the art here unambiguously depicts work. Four prints titled "The Fitting" (1890-91), which show a seamstress attending to a client in a long day dress, and "Children in a Garden (The Nurse)," an early impressionistic painting (1878-79) that pays as much attention to the landscape as to the figures, fit the category. Maybe "Gathering Fruit" (1893), a print of two women in flowery dresses picking pears, qualifies. But it's straining to say that pictures featuring women reading, writing a letter, crocheting, or—in "Driving" (1881)—holding the reins of a horse-and-carriage, portray women at work.
Instead, and to the delight of many visitors, the galleries are lined with Cassatt's celebrated paintings of mothers and children, staged or not. Oils including "The Family" (c. 1892), "Maternal Caress" (1896), "Children Playing on the Beach" (1884) and "The Child's Bath" (1880) showcase Cassatt's tender touch with the subject.
Even better, the exhibition presents 19 pastels, which are rarely on view because of their fragility, including several ostensibly of mothers and children. Cassatt's talent shines brightly in works like "Mother and Child (Maternal Kiss)" from 1896—notice the natural strands of the mother's hair—and in the charming "Sailor Boy: Portrait of Gardner Cassatt as a Child" (1892), "Baby John Nursing" (c. 1908), and "A Goodnight Hug" (1880), which is as warmhearted a picture as there can be.
But to this array the curators give a different interpretation: Rather than citing the sentimentality for which these artworks are known, they suggest that Cassatt is often capturing the work and the drudgery involved in childcare. The women are bathing, feeding, or entertaining the children. Texts call out their "reddened, work-worn hands"—noticeable in "The Child's Bath" and "Mother and Sara Admiring Baby" (1901-02). The youngster's fussiness in "Pattycake (Mother and Child)" from 1897 illustrates one constant challenge of childcare. And "Maternal Caress," where an adult's firm hand on the toddler may well be a restraint, hints at tension. Also, pay attention to what the women are wearing—would a Parisian mother be garbed in the practical dress seen in "The Child's Bath"? The curators say no. Believe their thesis or not, credit them for encouraging visitors to look closely at these artworks.
The exhibition is more convincing in illuminating Cassatt's own toil. She was a virtuoso printmaker, known for her innovation and for enduring the physical aspect of the process, working with metal, acid, inks and many tools—much more than her peers. At one point, she even bought her own press, pulling her own prints. Her labor is most visible in a section called "Making the 'Set of Ten'" (1890-91), a series chronicling the lives of upper-class Parisian women—riding a bus, attending an afternoon tea party, and the like.
For one scene, of a woman preparing a bath for a baby, the exhibition displays an initial drawing and 10 of Cassatt's 17 intermediate versions—colors change, details are added, and so on. The series ends with the final print of "The Bath," whose spareness and block shapes honor the simplified Japanese woodblock prints Cassatt admired.
In a technical study of its own works by Cassatt, the museum also discovered changes in her oils and pastels. In "At the Theater" (c. 1879), for example, an X-radiograph revealed that Cassatt altered the fan to show more of the house; she made several changes in "Driving" to enhance the sense that the carriage was moving.
Many artists do the same, of course, and the exhibition does not suggest that Cassatt put more effort into adjusting her works than some of them did. But she did work very hard to ensure that she was viewed as self-supporting and professional at a time when women's hopes and horizons were still largely confined to the home.