Berthe Morisot

A French painter and printmaker, Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) was the only founding female member of the French Impressionist movement. A woman who joined the Parisian avant-garde despite the social norms of her time.  Berthe’s work captures the life of bourgeoise women in late 19th-century Paris from within a domestic sphere separated from life in the city even in bohemian Paris. Her canvases were characterized by vibrant brushstrokes and unusual figuration that nearly surpassed Impressionism into Abstraction, unlike her peers who were more experimental in their styles. Berthe's work was considered as important to the Impressionist movement as Renoir's or Monet's. In spite of this, Berthe's influence has been largely left out of the history of the movement. On Bidsquare's online auction platform, Berthe Morisot's paintings for sale are continually being offered at competitive prices. They are highly sought after by both avid collectors and bidders alike.

A member of the Barbizon School of painters, Berthe Morisot was taught how to paint en Plein air by Camille Corot.  It was Morisot's emphasis on design that makes her work more similar to Manet than to her fellow Impressionists, whose interest in experimentation with color and light she did not share. Morisot explored impressionist themes of modernity through her representation of the human figure, including the intimacy of contemporary bourgeois living, the desire for resorts and gardens, fashion, and domestic work for women. Though her works look sketchy and unfinished, they are not an unmediated reflection of her surroundings. As a conscious attempt to fix something of the passing moment, the paintings address the temporality of representation itself.

Like the other well-known female Impressionist painters of her generation - Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt - Berthe Morisot avoided the subject matter of urban street scenes and naked figures commonly depicted by the male Impressionists. Instead, her paintings depicted private moments and included her family, especially her sister Edma, such as Reading, and The Artist's Sister Edma and Their Mother, as well as boating scenes, garden settings, and interiors that convey the comfort and intimacy of home life, and her daily experiences and observations. In scenes such as flowering gardens and domestic life, her distinctive style of long, quick brushstrokes captured the spontaneity with great effect. Often with a subdued emerald glow, her delicate, subtle, exquisite paintings won her colleagues' admiration. Her late work shows a growing awareness of the emerging symbolist movement, characterized by a new expressiveness. A number of institutions and museums hold the artist's works, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Musée d'Orsay in Paris, , and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Interesting Facts about Berthe Morisot

• At the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, Morisot was the only woman to exhibit. In addition to her work, pieces by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet were displayed next to it.
• She seldom painted men despite being surrounded by male painters.