Cassatt vs Eakins Gender Roles in Impressionism

Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins were American painters that migrated from the United States and moved to Paris.  Both were Impressionist painters who were influenced by gender roles and depicting specific moments on to the canvas.  Both Cassatt and Eakins were focused on capturing moments of time, movement, a visual representation of their experience, with the use of the brushstroke as quickly painted canvases.

Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of fifteen.   She grew impatient with the method of teaching and felt that the men had a patronizing attitude towards teaching and art making.  Despite her father’s objections she moved to Paris in 1866 where she became part of the Impressionists.  She also studied with artist Thomas Couture who portrayed mostly romantic and urban scenes.  The Parisian art scene was going through changes where artists soon began to veer away from the accepted Academic tradition of painting.

Mary Cassatt’s Woman in Black at the Opera, 1880 is Cassatt’s signature stamp on her views of the importance of the feminine role in art.  Not only does she crop the image into a strikingly interesting composition where the foreground is flooded with the dark black dress of the woman’s attire, the light of the canvas is portrayed in the background which points to a man who is gazing at the woman in black.  In this depiction, Cassatt is able to make a commentary that the female gaze is not only as important but perhaps even more important than the male gaze.  No longer is the female the subject of men’s interest but the very figure which directs and controls what is being looked at.  Prior to this moment women were mostly portrayed as nude figures or objects that are placed on the picture plane for the male viewer.  Cassatt decides to incorporate her feminist rendition of what painting should be in a group filled with dominant male painters.  

In her painting, Cassatt shows a woman hunched in a a masculine form, fiercely independent sitting alone in a lodge, and attending the opera alone which was taboo in this particular time.  She is isolated and defiantly does not invite anyone to join her because she is intellectually absorbed in the act of observing.

                                          Mary Cassatt Woman in Black at the Opera, 1880

Thomas Eakins, also a native of Pennsylvania studied drawing and anatomy at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  He also attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and took on to the Impressionist movement.  His work differed from Cassatt in that his dominant theme was comprised of a focus on the male model.  There is some speculation about Eakins’ sexual preferences but I will remove that from this observation. 

           

In Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871, America’s economic and cultural transition into modernity is best portrayed.  Here Eakins highlights the celebration of champion oarsman Max Schmitt a personal friend of Eakins.  Eakins depicts himself in the distant boat in the background rowing away from Schmitt.  Eakins depicts a specific moment, representing what he saw as an artist and uses light being captured.

                                                       Male Gender Roles

Eisenman, Stephen M. Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History. 4th ed. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson, 2011. Print.