Morrie was one of the first women artists to paint a man in the role of just a domestic father. Her career coincides with a rediscovery of 18th century painting, and collectors are particularly keen on what we might call boudoir scenes. Morrie so paints about 20 variations on that theme, and she'll depict her young model stepping out of a Louis XVI style 18th century bed from her own suite of bedroom furniture. But she has presented so demurely in a long white night gown. She's certainly not looking out flirtatiously at the viewer. There's a real introspection to it,. Renoir later described Morrie's work as having a kind of virg
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