Oppositional Tension: Cassatt and Eakins, Subject, Artist, and Technique

Alejandro Hincapie

Mary Cassatt. Five O'Clock Tea. 1880.*

                  If both tension and opposition existed in American and European painting in the late 19^th century, it is observable in the delicate relationship between artist, their subject, and his or her technical approach to their work. Indeed, Impressionism in France as an artistic movement and mode of expression faced criticism regarding the seemingly contradicting interplay between its very sensibility and its chief practitioners—a criticism whose basis rested on cultural constructed notions of femininity and what their translation into technical sensibilities in art ought to look like. The warmly intimate work of Mary Cassat, an American born Impressionist painter, provides a unique unraveling of these notions. Meanwhile, American painting itself, long grounded in the tradition of landscape, began a shift of focus towards figural subjects long favored by the European art establishment--a change heralded by the work of Thomas Eakins. While his work slightly referenced French Realism in technique, it did not follow that genre’s bent towards depicting social reality and conditions. Rather, it was vaguely heroic and measured in probity as it rendered “in the moment” Impressionistic reality, as well as offering a distinct take on male subject matter. 

                  Before examining Cassatt’s work, it’s important to consider the conditions under which she was able to reach recognition and praise as an Impressionist painter. A reaction to the sweeping and massive changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution that transformed French life in often brutal and chaotic ways, Impressionist works were created in an attempt to, as Kleiner states in Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, “capture a fleeting moment… by conveying the elusiveness and impermanence of images and condition” (Kleiner 823). This desire by Impressionist artists to capture the fleetingness of everyday life in light of the rapid and dissonant changes spurred on by industrialization was also formed by the onset of photography—a medium that effectively rendered accomplished the long held goal of Western oil painting to depict scenes as realistically as possible. The convergence of these factors led Impressionist painters to create works that sought to capture the nature of everyday life’s fleeting moments—the “impression” of those moments— through ways the camera could not and in ways European oil painting had never attempted. Largely focusing on brushstroke, from, shape, and color, the Impressionists rejected traditional formal elements in chiaroscuro and accurate perspective and modeling in favor of focusing on the effects of light on color and texture to capture distinct, passing moments in time. With brushstroke, color, and mere impression of form taking prominence, Impressionist works appear flat, wholly embracing the canvas as a two-dimensional medium and plane. This new abstraction and rejection of tradition spurred much criticism towards Impressionist works—namely, that, as Eisenman puts it in Nineteenth Century Art – A Critical History, “they were merely unfinished sketches” (Eisenman 368). The “impulsiveness, sensuousness, and lightness of touch” of Impressionist works were deemed more characteristic of women’s nature and therefore at tense, opposing odds with the fact that Impressionism’ leading vanguard consisted almost entirely of male artists (Eisenmen 368).  And precisely because women created them, the works of Berth Morisot and Mary Cassatt escaped much of this criticism and instead, were “praised for possessing charm, sensibility, grace, and delicacy” (Eisenman 368). 

                  That their work was praised for its Impressionist technical sensibility while Impressionist works my male artists were designated as “unfinished sketches” for that same sensibility is not to say that the works of Morisot and Cassat did not bring their own subjective, emotional tug distinct from male artists to their work. Cassat’s work of female subjects, in particular, contains a certain warm intimacy achievable only perhaps through a women’s point of view. Her work Five O’Clock Tea, for example, is a candid depiction of a pair of women “as they are.” Depicting Cassatt’s sister Lydia and a visitor involved in “the ceremony of innocence” of tea drinking, the painting is set in the artist’s Parisian drawing room and candidly portrays bourgeoisie everyday life, specifically the female domestic sphere. (Eisenman 374). There is no sense in the work that both female subjects are in display for the supposed male viewer. Indeed, neither of them is beckoning the viewer nor acknowledging him with a glance. They are made entirely free of the burden of being a passive, female subject to an active, male viewer because, again, the latter is not acknowledged by them and therefore, rendered unimportant, if not nonexistent. Both women are depicted “in the moment,” creating a sense of warm intimacy which is only heightened by the lack of cold, logically-based formalized sense of perspective and modeling in the work. The combination of subjective brushstroke, from, and color, candidness and immediacy of the scene, as well as Cassatt’s own nuanced rejection and lack of acknowledgment of a male spectator creates a work that is wholly Impressionistic, but distinct to the artist and in the way she presents gender. 

Thomas Eakins. The Swimming Hole. 1883-5.*

                  The work of American painter Thomas Eakins also demonstrates an interplay between technical sensibility and subject matter, namely the male subject. While creating a work at the same time as the French Impressionists, Eakins was a more formal painter, still retaining elements of traditional formal technique as is evident in his painting Max Schmitt in a Single Skull. Referencing the Realists before him, Eakins still employed accurate, three-dimensional space with a near (foreground), middle, and distant (background) space as well as a subtle modeling of forms through light chiaroscuro. But while he may have lightly nodded towards Realism through technicality, his work was at tense odds with Realism’s portrayal of acute social conditions. Rather than depicting things “as they are,” Eakins imbued his work with a certain heroism, honor, and allegory even if the portrayal was Impressionistic in it’s capturing “a moment in time.” 

                  This nuanced sense of heroism and allegory is best observed in Eakins’ work The Swimming Hole. Depicting a group of young, male nudes out for a swim outdoors, the work is an allegory comment on American characteristic freedom, and vitality. The young, male body in American scenery becomes a symbol for these values. As Eisenman states, “democratic freedom is signified by the youthful male American body n the American landscape: to be American is to be natural and to have a privileged relation to Nature”  (Eisenman 373-374). With notions of national identity and representation being so intertwined with patriarchy in the 19^th century, it becomes clear to view Eakins work as a portrayal of the male experience from a distinct male perspective. 

                  In the works of both Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins, the opposition and tension present in European and American painting in the late 19^th century is visible in the relationship between the artist, subject, and technical sensibility employed. While notion that Impressionism suited a “woman’s touch” unraveled in the recognition Cassat enjoyed for her warmly, intimate works of female subjects that a wrought with her own female sensibility, completely independent of Impressionistic technique. Eakins, while nodding to Realist technique, deviated from Realist subject matter in his portrayal of heroic, allegorical, and honorable male subjects while still mantaining  “in the moment” Impressionistic sensibility. Juxtaposed, the work of both artist reveals different takes on gender in 19^th century artist.  

Works Cited

Eisenman, Stephen, and Thomas E. Crow. Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. Print.

Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner's Art through the Ages. a Global History. Boston, MA: Thomson, 2009. Print.

*Image descriptions link to image source. 

**New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art houses an extensive collection Eakins work. Vist the Met's website here.