Existing comment:
Intimate Impressionism:
Although impressionism is associated most closely with the breezy immediacy of landscapes and city views painted outdoors, this gallery focuses on avant-garde artists who explored domestic interiors and the world of women: mothers and sisters, wives and daughters, housemaids and launderers. Female artists such as Cassatt and Morisot were restricted in their ability to venture into the streets and suburbs of Paris for modern subjects by the social mores of their privileged backgrounds. They turned by necessity to family members and friends within the sphere of domestic life. In these intimate settings, they found wide scope for experimentation and innovation, matching and sometimes anticipating the most daring work of male colleagues. Cassatt and Degas, in particular, collaborated and challenged each other. |