Audreya Jackson's Post 2

Late nineteenth century artists Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins are both from Pennsylvania and were born in 1844.  Cassatt and Eakins both studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts as teenagers, and later became the first two American artists to study under the French artist and instructor Jean-Leon Gerome in Paris during the 1860’s to 1870.  Both artists were also dedicated painters of the portraiture of human subjects, but their artworks tell a story of two artists who took separate paths in issues dealing with art and gender.

Mary Cassatt experienced issues with gender early in her childhood when her father protested her becoming an artist.  Although she was allowed to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, she suffered opposition from her male classmates and instructors who did not want to teach her art skills.  Eventually, that opposition forced her to study on her own the skills of the Old Master Artists of the 1800’s, and she learned how to do engravings, etchings and drawings.  Later, Mary Cassatt applied to art schools in Europe, but could not get in because she was a female, so she independently studied under the French artist and instructor Jean-Leon Gerome. 

However, artist Thomas Eakins did not suffer the opposition in learning art as Cassatt had experienced.  Despite, the fact that Cassatt is from a high-middle class family and Eakins was not, Eakins was given the opportunity to learn art at Pennsylvania Academy and the French art school Ecole des Beaux-Arts because he was of male gender.  Eakins was also Jean-Leon Gerome’s second American art student and he and Cassatt studied under the French instructor together.  Later, Eakins was able to return to America and teach at Pennsylvania Academy’s newly built Frank Furness (an American architect from the Victorian era in Philadelphia) designed building.  When Cassatt returned to America to find economic success as an artist, people with money would view her art with fascination, but would not purchase it.  Unlike economically successful Eakins, Cassatt could not establish an art career in America.  Instead, she was commissioned by an Archbishop from Pittsburgh to travel back to Europe, and paint copies of two artworks by artists Corregio in Parma, Italy.  It was in Italy where Cassatt’s artwork gained her recognition, fame, money and a career as an artist.  Although Cassatt, due to her being a female, did not have as many opportunity options availed to her as Eakins, she was still able to manifest her dream of having a career as an artist.  Cassat decided to reside in Europe and Eakins decided to reside in America.

Eakins and Cassatt were famous painters of the 19^th Century, but they both possessed their own painting styles of the human figure.  Cassatt chose to paint the female gender and show how a woman existed in a natural yet social and private way.  It would be safe to say that due to the silent discrimination and misrepresentation woman suffered during Cassatt’s time (herself included) she felt it was imperative to use her art talent and skills to display how woman experienced everyday life in their domestic habitat from a woman’s perspective.  Eakins preferred to paint his subjects in the nude, and although he found the female subject beautiful, he believed the female and her qualities were inferior to men, and the female was an inactive passive object.  As one can see, both Cassat and Eakins focused on the construction of gender as theme in their compositions, but from different perspectives. 

Cassatt chose to paint a lot of her female subjects with children to highlight the one of the most important elements of womanhood, being a mother and the existence of children in relation to the mother.  To capture a woman in the moment as they were in the artist’s eye, Cassatt used small, thin but visible brushstrokes, used unusual visual angles, open composition and more light and less chiaroscuro to show subjects performing in the passage of time.  Her method of painting also captured the soft and delicate element that exists in the feminine world.  Cassatt’s paintings display the techniques used by the Impressionists during the Impressionists art movement in Paris because she was a member.  However, although Thomas Eakins attended Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a school of the Impressionist Art Movement, he took no interest in Impressionism.  Instead, Eatkins chose to practice the Classical methods modeling and solid anatomical form in his paintings; therefore, Eakins paintings posses a masculine quality and sturdiness that does not exist in Cassatt’s paintings.  Although it is clear that both artists are painting human subjects, Eakins focuses on making sure the human proportions and perspectives are accurate but Cassatt does not.  For instance in Cassat’s Self Portrait and Eakins Self Portrait are different because Cassatt’s Self Portrait has vivid colors, small, thin brushstrokes and her body is situated in an unusual twisted position at the waistline, due to the lack of display of musculature under her clothing, and she is not appealing to her spectator or male audience with a gaze (displaying autonomy of the woman).  However, Eakins Self Portrait displays a man gazing with a serious and affirming look of authority toward his spectators (a hint at male dominance and control), and his painting is in black and white to display a masculine quality.  Still, regardless of how Cassatt and Eakins are similar or different in their approaches as artists, they are both outstanding and popular artists of their time, and today.

Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins "Self Portrait" and info taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cassatt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Eakins

and textbook: Eisenman, Stephen. Nineteenth Century Art A Critical History.  4th Ed. Thames & Hudson, New York.  2011.