Manet is the key example there, because one thinks of Manet as such a figure who generates almost a world on his own. But actually Manet was very much influenced by her and particularly by the kind of airiness of her touch and the use of the brush. I mean, I think Renoir and Manet as well, you know, they of course had their own language as well. And it was very much in dialogue with her. She's as influential as any of the others, absolutely. Is there any painting you want to bring to the fore here, what you can tell? It isn't exactly the medium to show paintings, but I'm sure you can get around
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