Some people think that Morisso's influence on Manet was as profound as Manet's influence on Morisso. There was a feeling that impressionism was good for women because it was a softer option, and the women's nature would incline to it more readily than that of Manet. So how did she push her way through to become central to the impressionist movement? Was she the only woman doing this at the time? I mean, at that level. And that's a long time ago.
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