Female Impressionism: the talented 'non-professional' painter Berthe Morisot

Devant la psychè - Berthe Morisot

Ph Credits

If you think of the epoch of Impressionism and the painters at the head of that movement, it is easy to associate Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Sisley and Cezanne - the masters of Impressionism.

It was nothing more than a group of artists, crazy but talented friends, who were tired of the rigid rules imposed by the academy of the time, and therefore decided to break those rules, which they considered too antiquated, so much so that they were restraining their creativity. So they decided to take to the streets, leaving their dark studios to paint and show with their own eyes how they saw their beloved city. Impressionism was born, in a Paris that today seems so romantic and sometimes melancholic, with painters intent on painting the Seine, palette in hand.

Yet there was also a woman among them, often never considered or mentioned, but no less important or less talented than her male colleagues: we are talking about Berthe Morisot.

Berthe Morisot is considered to be the feminine soul of Impressionism, one of the very few exponents of that movement, yet she is only remembered or mentioned as the wife and widow of Éugene Manet, as written on her tombstone. Berthe was more than this though, she was a respectable artist in a world of all male artists, who could not even attend the school of fine arts as it opened its doors to the fairer sex in 1897, only two years after her death, but she was also known for having approached the group of Impressionists, painters excluded from official circles.

Berthe was born in 1841 and began painting with passion and dedication as a child and never stopped, with the support of her family who supported her aptitude for painting, as she could not enter the academy.

Initially, she studied and deepened her technique under Geoffrey-Alphonse Chócarne, then with Joseph Guichard, a pupil of Ingres. Berthe then perfected her technique by visiting the Louvre countless times, observing the masterpieces of the great masters. Then, when Berthe joined the prestigious studio of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, she began to paint in the sunlight, en plein air, moving ever closer to Impressionism.

During her visits to the Louvre, she met Édouard Manet and the attraction between them was magnetic and inevitable, but he was married and made Berthe his model and muse, painting and portraying her 11 times. This encounter was fortuitous because it enabled the painter to enter the circle of the Impressionists, becoming one of the very few female exponents. Manet not only painted her, but also became her mentor, advising and encouraging her in her painting so that she could develop and improve her innate talent.

Frequenting the Impressionists and their world, she became the friend and respected artist of painters such as Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas and Renoir, and together they exhibited five oil paintings in the studio of the photographer Nadar at the famous exhibition of 15 April 1874, which coined the term, later to become universal, Impressionism.

Berthe was not interested in marriage, as her mother wanted her to be, she just wanted to paint, but she ended up marrying Éugene Manet, Édouard's brother, thus cooling her relationship with the painter who stopped painting her and devoted himself to other muses and models. Their daughter Julie was born in 1878, and would be portrayed several times by the painter. Her favourite subjects were also female and child portraits and gardens.

The house of the painter, who had become one of the most influential figures of Impressionism, was filled with painters, writers and musicians. Unfortunately, in February 1895, Berthe fell ill. Although the illness did not cause any concern at first, her condition worsened when she fell ill with pneumonia, which only allowed her time to give some of her works to friends and to entrust her daughter to her friend Mallarmé, and she died on 2 March 1895.

As has already been written, on her grave at Passy Cemetery, there is no mention of her career or life as a painter, and the death certificate states "without profession".

However, Berthe was acclaimed and respected by many of her friends and it was they and her daughter who honoured the painter a year after her death with an exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery. An exhibition to remember this woman without a profession, capable of showing with her long, impetuous and overwhelming brushstrokes, full of light and a fresh oil painting, a sensitive soul that welcomed difficulties and artistic and social changes of her time and at the same time showed her world within the warm domestic walls made of sweetness and love.

ILARIA PUDDU