Happy Birthday Mary Cassatt - A True Feminist

Mary Cassatt, A Woman and A Girl Driving, 1881
(Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Mary Cassatt was a maverick among her peers that broke all the conventions of 19th century society while living a perfectly respectable life (which was the most important thing at her day and age) and enjoying success and acceptance as an American Impressionist artist in Paris.   When we are still discussing gender discrimination and social gendered roles, Cassatt managed to work as a professional artist, exhibit with the Impressionists and  leave behind an exceptional legacy for all American artists to follow.  Some might argue at this point that she was born into a privileged background allowing her to pursue her career as an artist in Paris but  I would like to point out that she was from a wealthy family in Philadelphia which was a conservative area with very strict expectations from a woman of her position.  Like all women of her class, she was expected to marry and have children, not go traipsing about in Europe learning to paint and displaying her talents for all the world to see.  


She must have had a very strong will for her to convince her family not only to support her financially but also to leave behind their home and country to live by her side.  She moved to Paris since she was dissatisfied with the academic training she was receiving at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where women were not allowed to work from live models.  She had to take classes in a private studio in Paris, since women were not allowed to attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.  She befriended Edgar Degas, who said "No woman has a right to draw like that!" and was invited to exhibit with the Impressionists.  


Knowing all of this does not change the fact that we always concentrate on Cassatt's Mother and Child scenes.  She was the preeminent artist of maternal scenes although she was not a mother herself.  Cassatt mostly used her relatives and friends as models for her paintings and depicted scenes from what the art historian Griselda Pollock refers to as "Spaces of Femininity". The spaces Cassatt chose for her paintings were places men would not be allowed into like the nursery.  

Although the subject matter is perfectly Impressionistic, that of a scene from daily life, in her painting, A Woman and a Girl Driving,  Cassatt once again completely upends all the traditional roles and the classifications she has been put into.  I find the concept of the woman driving the carriage which would be considered quite risque in 19th century with a groom sitting idly in the back perfectly entertaining.  While the woman has a very serious expression on her face, attesting to her concentration, the groom gets to watch the scenery go by from his backward facing position sitting behind her.  Cassatt's mastery is not only in her choice of subject matter but also in her brushwork as well. While the sketchy brushwork of Berthe Morisot, the other famous female Impressionist artist is always referred to as feminine, no one makes the mistake of considering Mary Cassatt's bold application of paint as befitting her gender.  


I think we have a lot to learn from this brave woman who succeeded against all odds and garnered fame and glory even when all the odds were stacked against her.  She should be presented as the perfect example of what feminism should look like.  If Cassatt managed to get all she set out to do more than one hundred and thirty years ago, I wonder what is stopping us now. 


References:


Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism, and Histories of Art, London: Routledge, 1988

Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrunn and Jean Metzinger - A Dialog About Maternite

Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrunn, Madame Vigee LeBrunn and
Her  Daughter, Jeanne Lucie Louise, 1789
(Musee du Louvre)

Jean Metzinger, Femme a la Fenetre (Maternite), 1911
(Private Collection, Switzerland)

 Last week was mother's day and since I was busy celebrating as a mother, sister and an aunt, I could not find the time to sit and write.  Just because I have been remiss does not mean I can pass up an opportunity to write about the most utilized theme in art history, Mother and Child.


The layers of meaning that can be discovered within a work of art have always fascinated me but when there is a dialog involved between two artists that spans more than 120 years, the conversation becomes simply irresistible. 


Jean Metzinger, one of the principle theorists of Cubism chose to recall  Madame Vigee LeBrunn and Her Daughter, Jeanne Lucie Louise a painting in the Louvre that was very well known due to its widely reproduced engravings, for his cubist work, Femme a la Fenetre from 1911. The Cubist artist has ironically chosen an 18th century neoclassical work to reference for his 20th century modernist work. 


In this interesting juxtaposition, the red ribbon in the mother's hair and the embrace help make the connection between the two paintings more clear even though the subject matter and style of representation are vastly different.  Vigee Le Brun's painting is a traditional work produced using the age old edicts of perspectival techniques  while Metzinger has employed  passage and multiple views typical of cubist works creating a dynamic, durational pictorial space.   The pictorial surface is divided into planes, baring both the frontal and profile view of the two figures concentrated mostly in the middle of the canvas in front of a flattened schematic  space in Metzinger's painting.  According to Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten "Metzinger has purposefully based his work on the 'familiar' in order to provide viewers with a point of access."1  


Elisabeth Vigee LeBrunn, favorite and portraitist to Marie Antoinette, courtier, member of the Academie de peinture et de sculpture and a royalist  portrays herself as a mother in a warm embrace with her daughter.  I have already written a previous post about another painting with the mother and child subject matter from the same artist, Self Portrait with Daughter Julie from 1786.  This image may be another representation in light of the enlightenment philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau about the caring of children.  


Having said all of that, if we are to take into consideration the date of the painting, 1789,  and the costume Madame LeBrunn is wearing we can draw some very interesting conclusion that diverges from the above argument.  Metzinger has chosen to represent his figure in contemporary dress even though  Vigee LeBrunn is seen in neoclassical attire in her self-portrait, which had become the fashion in 18th century France.  The diaphanous white gowns  were worn by French women ever since they had donned them on September of 1789 when they donated their ornaments to the state in order to distance themselves from aristocratic ostentation.  It is nteresting to contemplate the reasons for an artist so closely related to the crown, associating herself with such revolutionary ideals.  Taking into account Vigee LeBrunn's monarchist politics,  we can assume Metzinger may have perversely chosen to use the red, white and blue of the revolution in his painting. 


In French society, the role of culture in political discourse was often disguised beautifully beneath conventional imagery as can be seen in the two paintings above.  Metzinger's Matenite also corresponds to the Cubist conceptions of mixing tradition with contemporary signs which is related to the Bergsonian ideas of duration.  In regards to using traditional imagery, Metzinger and Gleizes, in Du Cubisme published in 1912,  stated:

"...It is impossible to write without using cliches, and to paint while disregarding familiar signs completely... For this reason, it is up to each one to decide whether he should disseminate them thorougout his work."

Madame Vigee LeBrunn and Her  Daughter, Jeanne Lucie Louise and  Femme a la Fenetre (Maternite) may have many layers of meaning regarding the social and political contemporary events of their respective times but for our purpose now, we can delight in them just as the visual manifestation of the most primal bond between two human beings, a mother and her child in a warm embrace.

Resources

1 Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten, Cubism and Culture, Thames and Hudson, New York

The Sacred Made Real in Zurbaràn's Crucifixion

Francisco de Zurbaran, The Crucifixion, 1627
(Art Institute of Chicago)

We contemplate, analyze and even fall in love with works of art, but encountering them in sterile museum settings, away from their original locations, original intent, something vital of their true essence can get lost.  Especially when trying to recreate a narrative about people and events from four centuries ago involving the most sacred of subjects "feeling the love" can be quite challenging.  Zurbaràn’s Crucifixion however, is such a phenomenal painting that it can enchant a viewer despite differences in religion, culture, geography even centuries.    

   Zurbaràn’s life and career coincided with a time when the Catholic Church and its various religious orders were the main patrons of the arts in Spain.  What had started in the sixteenth century with the Catholic Reformation to reassert the doctrine, structure and social role of the Catholic Church in response to the threat of Protestantism had resulted in utilizing art, (the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols so aptly refers to as) “…an invitation to faith." The religious orders commissioned works of art with a didactic intent focusing on the history of the order or the exaltation of its founder or significant members.  Zurbaràn excelled in capturing the spirit and the distinctive features of so many religious orders’ sacred images that he became known as the ‘painter of monks.’  Only one year after his first commission in Seville, Zurbaràn painted Christ on the Cross (The Crucifixion) for the oratory of the sacristy of San Pablo el Real. The Crucifixion was the first of many paintings that placed him among the cannons of Spanish Golden Age painting.   This magnificent work was the perfect embodiment of the expressive power of Zurbaràn to make the  sacred as realistic and accessible as possible.  Designed specifically for an alcove in the sacristy of the church, to be encountered in a poorly lit chapel, illuminated only by the light coming from the window on the right, the lone figure of the crucified Christ against a dark background without any distracting narrative is simply overwhelming.  The dramatic lighting heightens the sense of reality by pronouncing the details so carefully crafted in the body and the drapery of the loin cloth of Christ.    Zurbaràn  is actually showing an idealized image of the crucified Christ that deducts the tormented, gruesome details. 

There is an interesting detail in the iconography that sets this scene apart from its Italian counterparts.  Christ is crucified using four nails instead of three which was a subject that was the cause of great debate amongst contemporary theorists.    The details of the Crucifixion was one of the exegesis of the Counter-Reformation where it was decreed that painted or sculpted images of Christ on the Cross had to be historically accurate.  Francisco Pacheco, in his book, Arte de la pintura cited the earliest images of the crucifixion to corroborate his argument in support of the four nails and his suggestion seems to be the one those who commissioned the painting preferred. As a result of Pacheco's influence, four as opposed to three nails is the representation one finds in Sevillian paintings of this time. 
The argument of three or four nails concerns the representation of Christ with his legs parallel instead of crossed which can dramatically alter the character of the image.  Although it seems as if he is standing  Zurbaràn,  has managed to show the lifelessness in Christ's body by placing the head fallen towards his right shoulder, outstretched arms and straight legs fixed firmly to the cross.  Instead of physical suffering this image suggests  introspective agony and resignation. 
His earliest signed, documented work, Christ on the Cross was so commanding that it earned  Zurbaràn an invitation to settle in Seville.    In 1724 Palomino also wrote:

"In the sacristy of the Monastery of San Pablo ... there is a crucifix from his hand which is shown behind the grille of the chapel which has little light. and everyone who sees it and does not know believes it to be sculpture."

When I first set eyes on a picture of this painting, I was affected but when I saw a digital simulation of what it was like in situ I was spellbound.  It is a powerful image no matter in what context one encounters it but I can't help but wonder what a mystical experience it must have been for the monks who prayed in front of it and encountered it in their daily lives. 
Seeing a film about an exhibit shown at the National Galley in London two years ago, Sacred Made Real, focusing on the significance and the intentionality of these works of art plus their concurrent relationship to the incredibly realistic polychrome sculptures of similar subjects really brought the whole conundrum into focus.  According to the curators of the exhibit, the sculptures were not really known outside of the Iberian peninsula since they never left Spain because they were still part of the spiritual lives of the faithful and venerated at churches, monasteries, during processions.  
There is another aspect to this exhibit that calls to attention the role of the art historian and how a curator can "Make the Sacred Real". This exhibit seems to be the great success of Dr. Xavier Bray who communicates his deep love of the art so eloquently that one can't help but be moved by it.  With each work of art we get a chance to become more intimate with the past, the people who walked those lands, who prayed in those churches and who created those masterpieces.  Sacred Made Real seems to have been an exhibit that not only brought the viewer closer to the people and their beliefs but also what they must have felt.  
You can get a glimpse into this groundbreaking exhibit in the following videos, first by  Dr. Xavier Bray who gives an informal, behind the scenes tour and the second by Andrew Graham-Dixon where we can get closer to understanding and appreciating this esoteric art form from a culture within our midst yet still so far away. 

Now if only the Art Institute of Chicago was to build a small replica of the sacristy where the Crucifixion used to hang, wouldn't our world be a little bit more exceptional?

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Resources

Brown, Jonathan. Francisco De Zurbaràn, New York:  H.N. Abrams, 1974

Baticle, Jeannine, and Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez. The Artistic Milieu in Seville During the First Third of the Seventeenth Century,  Zurbaràn :  The Metropolitan Musuem of Art. New York, September 22- December 13, 1987: Galeries Nationales Du Grand Palais, Paris, January 14- April 11, 1988. New York:  Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987


Brown, Jonathan. "The Art Immediacy:  Seville 1625 - 1640."  Painting in Spain:  1500-1700. New Haven:  Yale UP 1998