Bert Morisso painted portraits of her husband and daughter on their honeymoon in 1875. The only man we know that she painted was her husband, one of the monies,. Can you tell the listeners why she painted so few men or so little of a pin? Well, it wouldn't have been proper for a woman to paint a man in the 19th century - even to paint her husband. But whilst Morisso is in England, she makes another discovery that really changes her work.
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