Refined elegance: berthe morisot | thearticle

The recent Morisot exhibition at Dulwich emphasised the influence of 18th-century French painters — Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard and Watteau — on her art. But in the catalogue — _Berthe

Morisot: Shaping Impressionism _Ed. Marianne Mathieu and 3 others (Paris: Musée Marmottan Monet and Dulwich Picture Gallery, £25) — its French feminist authors undermine their own thesis and

exaggerate Morisot’s achievement. They claim that she “stands shoulder to shoulder with her fellow ‘founders’ of Impressionism: Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Renoir” and celebrate Morisot “as a

leading light in the history of art.”  This is propaganda, not scholarship.  Morisot, though an accomplished and delightful artist, is not equal to the genius of Monet and Degas. Joseph

Conrad famously wrote, “My task is, before all, to make you _see_.  That—and no more, and it is everything.”  But in a cloud of unknowing and premeditated blindness, these authors see only

what they want to see, not what is actually in front of their eyes.  They try to show similarities between pictures in the catalogue, but all their comparisons reveal the obvious

differences.  The visual evidence constantly contradicts their argument. Their first massive example, Lagrenée’s _The Abduction of Déjanire _(1755), portrays Hercules rescuing his wife from

the centaur Nessus.  The mythical subject, executed with sharply defined draftsmanship, has a half-naked woman and three nude muscular men, a rearing horse and swirling sea, violent action

and dramatic gestures.  By contrast, Morisot paints gentle domestic scenes of women and children, emphasises the spontaneous sketch — often in _plein air_ — rather than the finished

composition, has a vivid palette and visible brush strokes, and creates colour contrasts, strong light and a cloudy ambience.  By trying to detach Morisot from the Impressionists who

inspired her, they diminish her achievement and make her seem derivative rather than original. Louis Jean Lagrenee – The Abduction of Deianeira by the Centaur Nessus The argument for the

influence of 18th-century English painters is also far-fetched.  The authors reproduce Morisot’s _Julie Daydreaming, _showing her pensive young daughter in a conventional pose, facing the

viewer with her hand on her cheek.  They claim that it shows the influence of George Romney’s sensual and sophisticated _Emma Hamilton_, but the style, dress, model and mood of the two

pictures are all quite different. The authors also  state that reproductions in magazines of Thomas Gainsborough’s popular _Blue Boy _“could perhaps have piqued Morisot’s interest in English

art.”  Perhaps.  But the elaborate dark satin costume of the standing rosy-cheeked boy, with white stockings, beribboned shoes and ostrich-feather hat has—to use Orwell’s mock-cockney

expression—“nudding whatefer to do wif”— Morisot’s young _Lucie Léon at the Piano_. Thomas Gainsborough –  The Blue Boy A third example, as the authors strive to find a likeness, is the most

absurd.  Goya’s great _Clothed Maja_ is a sexy young woman with fringed hair, curved eyebrows and rosy cheeks.  Wrapped in lace and tightly bound with a pink sash, she’s bosomy and

voluptuous.  Her hips are wide, her feet apart, her crotch at the very center of the painting is noticeably indented.  Morisot’s much older _Madame Marie Hubbard _also lies on a cushioned

couch, but that’s the only resemblance.  The product of a cosmetic mortician, she is sick-looking and can barely hold her fan.  Her body is covered in a billowing white muslin dress and her

feet are modestly crossed. Francisco Goya – The Clothed Maja  One author mentions Goya’s _The Meadow of San Isidro _(1788) without noting the real influence on Morisot.  Max Seidel writes of

Goya: “It was the custom on May 15 for all Madrid to gather along the banks of the Manzanares for a rendezvous in the open air to honor the city’s patron saint.  The widened perspective

shows a meadow occupied by groups of picnickers [with parasols].  A bridge leads to the city, to [the spires of] the royal palace and the impressive dome of the Church of San Francisco el

Grande.  In the middle lie the low meadows along the river; here, long rows of festive people walk, drive their coaches, and encamp in front of tents.”  Morisot’s _View of Paris from the

Trocadéro _(1872) — named for an 1823 French victory in Spain — has the same wide perspective, looking down from a distance at the city.  Fashionably dressed women with parasols stand in the

foreground.  A broad expanse in the middle has a coach, horsemen and strollers.  A bridge spans the Seine, and a cluster of trees stands on the far shore.  There’s a space between the trees

and town, which, beneath a cloudy sky, reveals a golden dome on the right and spires on the left. Francisco Goya – The Meadow of San Isidro The first chapter in this catalogue, which lists

24 names and dates in only two opening paragraphs, reads more like an index than an essay.  Vitiated by pure speculation — “has something of,” “may have seen,” “must have seen,” “hard not to

see” — this chapter is the worst of all.  The author contradicts her own argument and the dominant theme of French influence by admitting that Chardin scholars “do not make any particular

connection to Morisot’s work . . . [and she] did not follow in the footsteps of Chardin’s imitators. . . . Despite what the commentators said, the fashion for the eighteenth century does not

seem to have defined Berthe Morisot. . . . The rediscovery of eighteenth-century art did not mark her career. . . . Morisot persisted with her own aim: to learn to paint figures in the open

air.” The author concedes that, unlike Morisot, Boucher has “the qualities and defects of the pompous eighteenth-century school, all exaggerated with talent and excelled particularly in

decoration.”  Once again, Fragonard’s conventional subject of an elaborately costumed music teacher leering at his young female pupil in a dark room is poles apart from Morisot’s bright,

lightly sketched pastel of a little girl watching another girl playing the piano.  The author, in an awkward translation, concludes that “this painting, which Morisot never exhibited during

her lifetime and whose debt to Fragonard, which here has nothing to do with technique, was therefore unknown.” Though Fragonard’s “name was on everyone’s lips,” Morisot never mentioned her

supposed family connection to that painter.  The genealogical chapter on Fragonard and Morisot is deadly dull, but carefully examines the evidence.  It concludes, despite the myth started by

Jacques-Emile Blanche in 1892, that her family was _not_ related to Fragonard.  This torpedoes this particular supposed French Connection. Two of the paintings in this exhibition are worth

noting.  Morisot painted her _Self Portrait _in 1885 when she was 44 years old.  Intense and alert, she has a voluptuous figure, wild grey-streaked black hair falling over her dark shadowy

eyes, a handsome nose and sensual lips.  She wears a black scarf and tan floral-patterned dress, holds a brush and palette, and has a self-assured demeanour that challenges the viewer to

give her the recognition she deserves. Berthe Morisot – Self-Portrait _Julie and Her Greyhound Laertes _(1893) portrays Morisot’s fifteen-year-old daughter — round-faced, rosy-cheeked and

full-breasted — in a long blue dress with a black shoe pointing out beneath it.  She faces the viewer and rests one hand on the pink sofa, the other on the throat of the dog standing at her

feet.  The sinuous shape and tail curving between the legs of the sleek, sharp-nosed Laertes (named for the father of Odysseus) echo Julie’s wasp-waisted figure and streaming chestnut hair.

  Berthe’s maternal tenderness and adoration of Julie shine through this painting. Berthe Morisot – Julie and Her Greyhound Laertes The pointless 2-page duplication of Watteau’s _Les

Plaisers du Bal _and the reproduction of Morisot’s handwritten letters, quoted in the text, take up 10 more superfluous pages, in addition to the 12 blank pages that should have been used to

analyse her art, and to provide a chronology and index.  It would have been infinitely more interesting and revealing to quote her last letter, written the day before she died — a rare

instance of a parent mourning the child’s loss of herself and one of the most poignant letters ever written: “My little Julie, I love you as I die; I shall still love you even when I am

dead; I beg you not to cry, this parting was inevitable.  I hoped to live until you were married.  Work and be good as you have always been; you have not caused me one sorrow in your little

life.  You have beauty, wealth; make good use of them.  Do not cry; I love you more than I can tell you.” _Jeffrey Meyers, FRSL, has published five books on art: Painting and the Novel, The

Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis, Impressionist Quartet, Modigliani: A Life and Alex Colville: The Mystery of the Real.  _ A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s

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