Marika Sat was the other figure who was equally important. Casat came along to the whole thing later, only in the late 1870s, early 1880s. But Morisso, as we've heard from the 1860s, was already involved in various networks which positioned her in a space in which she could take advantage of those. Because she was independently wealthy, she had the kind of freedom to push things. She did not want to be seen as somebody who was just an accomplishment painter. And her sister, Edma, after marriage, who was equally talented as she was, as a young woman, gave up painting. It was a much more conventional trajectory.
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