Post ii (Eric Ng)

          During the late 19^th century, painting was going through changes due to the tension, opposition and technical developments. During this time, Impressionism was emerging and the invention of the camera was taking over how people would see current events. In order to out do the camera, Impressionist were determined to capture the moment of how light would hit the landscape, objects and people.  It was as if Impressionists were trying to capture a mood or memory that was present for a few seconds with quick brushstrokes. During this time was the art capital of the world. Because of that title, Impressionism was being developed there which made other painters want to travel there and explore Impressionism.   

            Mary Cassatt, who was an American painter from Pennsylvania, traveled throughout Europe and ended up in Paris during the middle of the Impressionistic age.  Learning the styles and being influenced by Impressionism, Cassatt became one of the greatest of the Impressionist painters. Because she was a female, it was harder for the viewers (whom were mostly men) to take her work seriously. Up until this point, women were almost always painted nude. This was done solely for the male gaze. The men sought pleasure in gazing upon the female body, which were always idealized.

            Mary Cassatt changed the way that woman were depicted in paintings.  Instead of showing the female body in its fullest, she would depict women in everyday life. In Cassatt’s, Woman in Black at the Opera, she challenges the male gaze. In the painting, Cassatt shows a woman who is dressed all in black, holding a pair of opera glasses to her eyes firmly. She paints the woman dressed in black (in public) to hide her in the shadows. The woman does not want to be seen.  

On the top right corner, Cassatt displays a man, leaning over the balcony, staring at her with his opera glasses.  She places the man diagonally to her. This was purposely done because she wants us to be drawn to him.  Cassatt has the woman holding the opera glasses firmly to her eyes because it represents the “…prototypical instrument of male secular power”. She wants her viewers to know that in this male dominant society, women do have a say in the art world and that the artist (as a woman) can control the male gaze. She is also acknowledging the male gaze by saying that it is not important in this instant. Because Cassatt was an Impressionist, she blurs and crops the painting. They picked up this technique due to the development of the camera.  Impressionists were known to blur their backgrounds to bring forth their subject to the foreground. This also led to the fact that they were Impressionist because they would paint blurred “Impressions” of people and scenes.

        


           Like Cassatt, Thomas Eakins was also an American painter from Pennsylvania who also ended up in Paris to learn about the Impressionist movement.  He, too, was an impressionist painter who challenged what the art world was about.  Like Cassatt, he would “… refuse to idealize or prettify…” his subjects.  But unlike Cassatt, Eakins would paint his subjects (male) nude. During this time, male figures would be painted nude only if it was portraying a mythical character or god. Eakins decides to challenge this idea in his painting, Swimming Hole. In this painting, Eakins “…projects a heady sense of escape from social constraint through sheer bodily freedom.” The painting depicts a scene of naked men relaxing by a pond or lake, swimming and having a good time. Eakins also portrays himself in the foreground of the painting.  The painting evokes “…moral qualities of honesty and purity in the out-of-doors context.” Unlike most painters who displayed their characters nude, Eakins was not objectifying these men. Instead, he shows them as very graceful people. In this, he was trying to show his viewers what the United States was like- young, new and free. He wanted to show them that the US was free from everything, even clothes. He wanted to show them the male experience and the reality of a man’s everyday life. He did all this in the Impressionist style, with quick, light brushstrokes, and a blurred and cropped out background.  

            In conclusion, Cassatt and Eakins both challenged the art world by doing things outside the norm. They both (in their own way) challenged their audience by making them think about what was really important. By doing so, Cassatt carved out a new path for woman (as an artist and as a gender) to be seen in a new light. Eakins challenged his male audience by making them think ordinary, everyday men could be displayed as nudes in art. Not only were they both influential to the art world, but they were influential to the Impressionist movement as well. Because of the quick brush strokes, the cropping and blurring techniques, Cassatt and Eakins got their message through in the only way they knew how- making Impressions of things they cared about. 








Work Cited:

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

Cassatt Woman in Black at the Opera
Eakins, Swimming Hole