The North Phineas, it was called, the non-finish. The notion of spontaneity is itself sometimes very contrived. So that becomes part of the language of impressionism. She often grabs ideas in pencil drawings and watercolours before she thinks about them fully formed. And I think one thing that's really interesting we haven't spoken about is where she painted - her studio is often part of her own. It'soften part of her domestic environment. This resonates with a lot of women nowadays who want to keep their children under their watchful eye,. so the painting materials are in a cupboard, and she takes them out and then puts them back in.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the influential painters at the heart of the French Impressionist movement: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). The men in her circle could freely paint in busy bars and public spaces, while Morisot captured the domestic world and found new, daring ways to paint quickly in the open air. Her work shows women as they were, to her: informal, unguarded, and not transformed or distorted for the eyes of men. The image above is one of her few self-portraits, though several portraits of her survive by other artists, chiefly her sister Edma and her brother-in-law Edouard Manet.
With
Tamar Garb
Professor of History of Art at University College London
Lois Oliver
Curator at the Royal Academy and Adjunct Professor of Art History at the American University of Notre Dame London.
And
Claire Moran
Reader in French at Queen's University Belfast
Producer: Simon Tillotson