Post 2- Princess Hickmond

The mechanical advancements and social injustices of an era tend to be communicated through art both formally and conceptually; this is characteristic of nineteenth century artists Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins. During this period, Paris became a central place for the arts, photography emerged, and a time where a great deal of American artists began to migrate to other countries such as France and Japan. According to John O’Hagan and Christine Hellmanzik’s work Clustering and Migration of Important Visual Artists: Broad Historical Evidence, “Thirty-five of the period’s 72 prominent artists worked in Paris on a long-term basis”; they also state that “Throughout the period, Paris was the most important city by far. Initially, this was because Paris was the birthplace of many prominent artists; then it was because of internal migration to Paris”. Cassatt and Eakins both migrated from America to Paris during this time. As a result, both artists were involved in the Impressionist movement but portray opposing subject manner. This work will examine how Cassatt and Eakins utilize the liberty of Impressionism to communicate their experience and the developments of the social and artistic realms of France; it will also explore the tension caused by gender roles during this period.

In order to thoroughly comprehend the philosophy and methods employed by artists, one must expand their knowledge of the artistic movement the artist was involved in. Cassatt and Eakins’ were both Impressionist painters. Impressionism was commenced from a painting by Claude Monet entitled Impression: Sunrise. Impression: Sunrise. Critics referred to the work as being unfinished in comparison to the work of his advisories seeing that the painting and the art movement was subsequent to Realism. Realist artists focused on exact representation and contemporary subjects such as labor. Impressionist artists deviated from creating an exact representation of subject manner to showing how subject appeared and reflected on subject manner and displaying a visual representation of specific moments. In fact, they rejected the conventions of all prior art movements; as a result, these artists originally operated outside of the Academy. The central premise of Impressionist art was to convey the effects of light on subject manner, capturing the movement and essence of a moment, and concentrating on the application and relationship between specific colors. The formal qualities in Cassatt’s The Boating Party and Eakins’ Max Schmitt in a Single Skull show the Impressionist techniques used by both artists.

Max Schmitt in a Single Skull and The Boating Party are both oil paintings. Both paintings were both painted “plein air”, which according to Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History,  means painting outdoors. New paints made painting outside allowed simpler for artists. Each has a light underpainting with no application of chiaroscuro or three dimensional modeling which makes the paintings appears flat on a light-filled canvas. Also, they both unexpected cropped their paintings. This transformation was due to the influence of photography and also references to the flat format of Japanese wood block; with the development of photography, artists like Cassatt and Eakins could depend on photography to document the exactness of an event, which allowed them to focus more on other formal qualities of painting. For instance, both artists use water to convey the reflection of light. The paintings both have blurred brushstrokes that were more prominent than those of Realist painters. This directly alludes to the material used and how artists were now accentuating not only the formal qualities, but also the process used to create their works. However, both artists depict the scene with inaccurate proportion. In The Boating Party, the boat is on an improbable angle, and the boat is too foreshortened. In Eakins’ painting, the reflections are on the water too vivid; reflections on water are usually duller than they actually appear. Also, the bodies of water in both works don’t appear to have any depth; it almost appears as if they are on top of a glass or a mirror. Nonetheless, their utilization of both warm and cool colors adds to the variety of textures, showcases hierarchy of elements, and most importantly, shows the effects of the light at this specific time. There are slight differences such as the lack of landscape in Cassatt’s in comparison to Eakins, and the people being a central point in Cassatt’s and not as imperative in Eakins work. Nonetheless, each emphasized the distinctive traits attributed to Impressionist painters. However, though the paintings related formally, the paintings differ significantly conceptually.

As previously stated, each painting depicts the artist’s own experience. Eakins’ Max Schmitt in a Single Skull showcases an oarsman on the single scull enjoying a popular leisure of France. He uses his work to symbolize heroic, freedom. There are only oarsmen on their boats exploring and enjoying the grandeur of the French landscape. In contrast, Cassatt depicts a woman and her child as the focal point of her painting. There is a man present but his identity is insignificant and his sole purpose is to transport this woman and her child to their destination. Both paintings immediately address the fact that men how men typically were outdoors, and how women weren’t out unless they were in the presence of a man. The absence of women in Eakins painting just showcases his depiction of the moment; at the moment, there were no women-just men taking pleasure in an activity explicitly for men. This is an appeasing subject manner for their audience since most of the viewer would be men of the academy. However, Cassatt created her work to not only call more attention to the women but to also elevate a moment between mother and child. She takes an everyday moment and captures it which stresses the fact that this moment between mother and child is important enough to be painted; this wasn’t an aspect explored earlier. Berthe Morisot’s work Psyche also further explicates the gender roles of this era.

Psyche represents a Greek deity Psyche becoming aware of her sexuality as she hesitantly gazes at herself. The issue s of women finding their identity, sexuality, and aging were topics widely discussed during the nineteenth century in paintings, poetry, and even medically in regards to sexual activity while married. For example, in Rachel Mesch’s text Housewife or Harlot? Sex and the Married Woman in Nineteenth-Century France, states that “Balzac's opposition between housewife and harlot reflected, I believe, a deeply felt cultural anxiety about the integration of female sexual desire into a broader female identity. It was an anxiety that stemmed in large part from the likely difñision of the husband's power over the wife resulting from the expansion of her identity.” Women, up until then, were not as avid about their roles in the social or inner realms of their homes. Consequently, men were not only mandating what they did but also who they were as women. When this was painted, more women were being to come to the forefront as artists and gender roles where being further discussed and portrayed in works. Morisot’s purposeful choice of that particular moment showcases the awkwardness of a symbolic woman apprehensively finding her identity and sexuality, without a man. After researching the topic of aging as well, one can say that Psyche, in reference to the average French women, was afraid of not only her growing sexually but also the idea of getting older. For instance, in Gretchen Schultz’s essay entitled Through the Looking Glass: Reflections of Aging Women in the Poetry of Nineteenth-Century France, she stresses that men tend to die earlier than women. As a result, women would face poverty along with physical and emotional illness when they eventually aged. Nevertheless, when a woman faces menopause, she’s no longer viewed as attracted although men her age can freely remarry. Schultz affirms that by saying that “Medical and popular opinion considered menopause (‘itself a catastrophic experience’, Stearns, p. 45) to bring about the loss of desire and, due to the cessation of the reproductive function, to signify old age for women. And yet men were deemed productive and still eligible for remarriage at a much later chronological age”. Women of the time rightfully feared aging due to the fact that most, without their husbands, were poor. They would be rendered unattractive, and could potentially die alone. In fact, the only prominent painting I found of an older woman was by fellow Impressionist painter Cezanne. The recording of these gender roles through artistic methods allows contemporary artists to further examine the state of sexism and evaluate the progression that’s actually been made up to date. However, this exploration of subject manner both conceptually and formally wouldn’t have been achievable without the flexibility of the Impressionist movement.

Though the artists present opposing views, both Cassatt and Eakins present a subjective perception of their experiences. Eakins’ works highlight the heroic, free, youthful pursuits of both French and American men whereas Cassatt vitalizes the events the average women encountered that were initially ignored by the art beforehand. Nonetheless, the deviation from conventions of prior art movements, like Realism, allowed French artists to showcase their works without it being based on social responsibility, war propaganda, emotion, or mathematical calculations. This freedom from art conventions allowed artists to be more expressive than ever before and highlight overlooked subject manner and new artistic methods; as a result, artists like Cassatt could more freely illustrate scenes of women who weren’t goddesses or depicted as objects.  This also allows contemporary artists to more thoroughly examine the lives of women as a part of society and also as artists. Comparing both Cassatt and Eakins’ works allows the viewer to become familiar with the experience of both male and female artists, American artists that migrated to Paris, and also the mechanical and social changes taking place during the nineteenth century.

References:

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

Mesch, Rachel. Housewife or Harlot? Sex and the Married Woman in Nineteenth-Century France. Journal of the History of Sexuality .2009

O’Hagan, John. Clustering and Migration of Important Visual Artists Broad Historical Evidence. Evidence Matters Historical Methods. Volume 41. Number 3. Heldref Publications. 2008. Print.

Schultz, Gretchen. Through the Looking Glass: Reflections of Aging Women in the Poetry of Nineteenth-Century France .Romance Studies, Vol. 26 (3). 233–248. July 2008