Delphi Complete Paintings of Berthe Morisot (Illustrated)

By Peter Russell and Berthe Morisot

Today Berthe Morisot is recognised as the first lady of Impressionism, who left behind her an exceptional body of work, including oil paintings, pastels, watercolours, prints, sculptures and several hundred drawings. The only woman to join the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their exhibitions, she was also a close friend and colleague of Édouard Manet. Her paintings are celebrated for their delicate and subtle quality, brimming with exquisite colour, winning her the admiration of her fellow Impressionists. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Morisot’s complete paintings in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* The complete paintings of Berthe Morisot – over 300 paintings, fully indexed and arranged in chronological and alphabetical order
* Includes reproductions of rare works
* Features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information
* Enlarged ‘Detail’ images, allowing you to explore Morisot’s celebrated works in detail, as featured in traditional art books
* Hundreds of images in colour – highly recommended for viewing on tablets and smart phones or as a valuable reference tool on more conventional eReaders
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the paintings
* Easily locate the paintings you wish to view
* Includes a selection of Morisot's drawings – explore the artist’s varied works
* Features a bonus biography – discover Morisot's artistic and personal life

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CONTENTS:

The Highlights
Thatched Cottage in Normandy
The Artist’s Mother and Sister
The Harbour at Lorient
The Artist’s Sister at a Window
The Cradle
On a Balcony
Hide and Seek
Chasing Butterflies
Summer’s Day
Winter
The Wet Nurse
Manet and His Daughter in the Garden at Bougival
Self Portrait, 1885
A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du Bois
The Quay at Bougival
The Cherry Tree
Young Girl with a Cat
Julie Daydreaming

The Paintings
The Complete Paintings
Alphabetical List of Paintings

Selected Drawings
List of Drawings

The Biography
Berthe Morisot by Théodore Duret

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Classics Ltd
• Release date: Oct 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781788779241

Book preview

Berthe Morisot

(1841-1895)

Contents

The Highlights

Thatched Cottage in Normandy

The Artist’s Mother and Sister

The Harbour at Lorient

The Artist’s Sister at a Window

The Cradle

On a Balcony

Hide and Seek

Chasing Butterflies

Summer’s Day

Winter

The Wet Nurse

Manet and His Daughter in the Garden at Bougival

Self Portrait, 1885

A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du Bois

The Quay at Bougival

The Cherry Tree

Young Girl with a Cat

Julie Daydreaming

The Paintings

The Complete Paintings

Alphabetical List of Paintings

Selected Drawings

List of Drawings

The Biography

Berthe Morisot by Théodore Duret

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2018

Version 1

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Masters of Art Series

Berthe Morisot

By Delphi Classics, 2018

COPYRIGHT

Masters of Art - Berthe Morisot

First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2018.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 924 1

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

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The Highlights

Bourges, a city in central France on the Yèvre river — Morisot’s birthplace

Bourges Cathedral

Morisot as a young lady, c. 1865

The Highlights

In this section, a sample of Morisot’s most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special ‘detail’ reproductions and additional biographical images.

Thatched Cottage in Normandy

A forerunner of the Impressionist Movement, Berthe Morisot was born in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family. Her father, Edmé Tiburce Morisot, was the senior administrator of the department of Cher, in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France, while her mother, Marie-Joséphine-Cornélie Thomas, was the great-niece of the grande Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. She had three siblings: two older sisters and a younger brother. When she was eleven years old, the family relocated to Paris. At the time, it was commonplace for bourgeois daughters to receive an art education, so Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma were taught privately by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph Guichard — the latter became the director of École des Beaux Arts where Morisot’s father earned his degree. Morisot and her sisters initially began lessons to enable them both to make a drawing for their father for his birthday. In 1857 Guichard, who ran a school for girls in Rue des Moulins, introduced Berthe and Edma to the Louvre gallery where they could learn from the Old Masters and they were taught the practice of copying paintings. They were forbidden to work at the museum without a chaperon and they were barred from all formal training. However, their experiences at the museum did not prevent them from forming important friendships with young male artists, including Manet and Monet.

After a few years Guichard introduced Berthe to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a French painter, as well as a master printmaker in etching. Corot is now regarded as a pivotal figure in the history of landscape painting and his vast output references the Neo-Classical tradition and also anticipates the plein air innovations of Impressionism. A landscape painter of the Barbizon School, Corot’s work would have a lasting influence on Morisot’s landscape paintings and her approach to technique. Though Morisot was excluded, as a woman, from nude life-drawing classes, her gifted ability as an artist would emerge in paintings of the outdoors and domestic scenes.

Berthe and Edma worked closely together as art students until 1869, when Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer, and subsequently moved to Cherbourg, where she had less time to paint. Surviving letters between the sisters reveal a loving relationship, underscored by Berthe’s regret at the distance between them and Edma’s withdrawal from painting. Nevertheless, Edma continued to support her sister’s work and their families always remained close.

Under Corot’s guidance, Morisot took up the En plein air (outdoors) method of working, which became a staple method for almost all of the Impressionists. Painting outdoors, Morisot experimented with capturing the light and time, often favouring the use of watercolours, which were easy to carry around. By 1863 she was studying under Achille Oudinot, another Barbizon painter. It is difficult to trace the early stages of Morisot’s development and the precise influence of her teachers as she was seldom pleased with her work, destroying almost all of the paintings she produced prior to 1869.

However, one rare survival is Thatched Cottage in Normandy, one of the very few pure landscapes that have survived in the artist’s oeuvre. Housed today in Paris’ Marmottan Monet Museum, the 1865 canvas forms part of the Denis and Annie Rouart’s bequest of 1993, containing a large set of Morisot pieces. The collection was directly inherited from Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet — Denis Rouart being their grandson by his mother Julie Manet. The museum is now in possession of over eighty of the artist’s pieces, including oil paintings, watercolours, pastels, drawings, and seven sketchbooks.

Although the following plate is named after a thatched cottage, it is ten birch trees that immediately gain our attention in this early work. These almost vertical shapes slightly twist and bend, giving the scene a more peaceful mood, compared to severe straight lines cutting across the landscape. The cottage can only just be glimpsed through the foliage and grass, as though human life is subordinated in favour of the natural world surrounding it. We can, of course, detect Corot’s deft touch and fondness for the countryside, yet Morisot’s own distinct approach to the subject matter is clearly evident. The grass is depicted with a remarkably realistic quality, appearing to shimmer with the summer light. Individual strands of grass are effortlessly conjured by the application of curved, basic lines. The calmness of the scene appears poised, as though expecting at any moment for an intruder to emerge from the cottage and shatter the illusion of tranquillity.

Detail