I think people have a very limited notion of modernity, because we're so associated with the public sphere. I mean, that is actually what underpins the very capacity of men to move differently through the city. It's not true, and as we've already said, of course, women from different social classes had different ways of accessing the city. But it is really important to remember that Morisso comes from this upper-middle class - modesty and chasteness and being a good wife were so very important. This is part of why she was so revolutionary,. That she managed to turn that work, that world, that big a part, into a universe of painting. So I think
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