Subject and Verb

Berthe Morisot "Self-Portrait"  1885  Musée Marmottan Monet

Berthe Morisot  (1841-1895) was one of the founders of the Impressionist movement. She showed artistic promise from childhood on and at age twenty-three a painting of hers was chosen for the highly selective Salon de Paris. She exhibited in six subsequent Salons until 1874 when she threw in her lot with like-minded art colleagues who (unlike herself) had been rejected by the official salon jury, and the group initiated the first impressionist exhibition. The rest is, of course, history. Morisot is often referred to as one of "les trois grandes dames de l'Impressionnisme" along with Marie Braquemond and Mary Cassatt. Morisot's skill was prodigious and seemed to be forever evolving in both subtlety and directness. On the occasion of the eighth and last Impressionist Exhbition in 1886 critic Jean Ajalbert said this about Morisot's technique, ``She eliminates cumbersome epithets and heavy adverbs in her terse sentence. Everything is subject and verb."

Morisot was one of three painting sisters, all raised in a comfortable and cultured french family who were unusually supportive of the young women's artistic ambitions. I have written about Berthe's close relationship with her sister Edma, but the oldest sister Yves, also displayed unusual talent for art, although she very early abandoned it as a serious pursuit. Yves' daughter Paule Gobillard (1867-1946) inherited both talent and ambition. She was often to be found working with Morisot in her home and studio. Indeed, when Yves Gobillard died in 1893 Paule and her younger sister Jeanne moved in for a time with their aunt Berthe and their cousin Julie Manet. Morisot's husband Eugène Manet had died the previous year and the doubly bereaved women drew together for mutual support and comfort.

Berthe Morisot "Paule Gobillard Drawing"  1886 Private Collection

Interestingly, both these portraits of Gobillard are dated 1886. In the first Gobillard's hair is still down her back in a childlike braid, whereas by the next piece she was wearing it up, a sign of maturity. Hair up or down could be of social significance or simply illustrate a random moment, perhaps a morning when the girl had not had time to dress her hair properly in her eagerness to get to the drawing board! 

Berthe Morisot "Paule Gobillard Painting"  1886  Musée Marmottan Monet

Paule Gobillard never married, but remained close to her sister Jeanne and her cousin Julie Manet, and was involved in the family life of her relatives. She continued to paint throughout her life and exhibited regularly at the Salon, as well as at private galleries in France and abroad.

Edma and Berthe

Edma Morisot "Berthe Morisot Painting" 1865 private collection

Edma Morisot (1839-1921) painted this portrait of her younger sister when Berthe was 24. Berthe had just had her first public success as an artist the year previously, when two of her pieces were accepted into the annual Salon de Paris. The sisters were raised in a cultured and prosperous French family and at that time painting was one of the accomplishments deemed necessary to the complete education of a young lady. However, this principle ran a bit amok in the Morisot household, where rather than simply a polite accomplishment painting became a career choice. In this, unusually, they were supported and encouraged by their parents. The Morisot family were said to be related to the Ancien Régime painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard and perhaps the Morisot parents simply assumed that "blood will out."

I can find very little biographical information solely on Edma, whose abbreviated career was so entwined with that of her more famous sister Berthe. What can be found of Edma's work online appears to be mainly Barbizon-style landscapes, which is not unexpected considering that both girls were taught for a time by Camille Corot. His stylistic influence on Edma's work was very strong. Several of Edma's landscapes can be seen here. 

The two artists enjoyed a close and mutually supportive relationship, but their artistic collaboration came to an end in 1869 when Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer. At that juncture Edma decided to forgo her artistic career and concentrate solely on family life. After her marriage she still occasionally posed for her sister, and although she apparently did indeed find great fulfillment in her domestic life, she may have had occasional  regrets about the end of the sister's artistic partnership. The two kept in contact by letter throughout their lives, and in one letter Edma wrote:
“…I am often with you in thought, dear Berthe.  I’m in your studio and I like to slip away, if only for a quarter of an hour, to breathe that atmosphere that we shared for many years…”