The New Wave in Design

Various artists designed soundproof wall panels in The Next Wave, 21st century design show

Congratulations to the Artisphere in Arlington, Va. for showcasing the latest in contemporary industrial design.  The Next Wave: Industrial Design Innovation in the 21st Century is an exhibition curated by Douglas Burton of Apartment Zero.  It's a kaleidoscope of many different designers from around the world, brought together in a pleasing, well-integrated exhibition. 

Stacking Drawers by Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay, Israel

The objects and furniture taken together become a peaceful setting to make us dream and think about where and how good design and convenient living can come together.  Sleek black and white are mixed with a selection of greens, reds and yellows.  This exhibition's design is superb; it's a treat for the eyes.  Considering that these designers did not plan their pieces to be shown with other designers, this installation is one that shows well as an ensemble.



Most objects were functional, but the only "machine" to catch my eye was a vacuum cleaner. My photos show some objects, but there was also a selection of light fixtures which didn't make the pictures.


According the Burton, the curator:  "Industrial design is the creation and development of concepts that optimize the function, value and appearance of products for our mutual benefit."  Since the Bauhaus was founded in Germany in the early 20th century, the marriage of  form and function in industrial design has been strong.  At times, architects have enjoyed playing the role of sociologist and have gotten into the process, too.  Good industrial design propelled Apple Computer to great success, because its founder, Steve Jobs, was obsessive about good design.  It paid off!

Bodo Sperlein of Germany designed  the Re-Cyclos Equus Set, while Lladro of Spain made it.

The cleverness of designers always intrigues me, and ingenious ideas abound in this show.  Josh Owens' SOS Stool doubles a stool with cup holders, or as a table (photo on bottom).  The Re-Cyclos Equus Set (above) features teapots and cups composed of horses' heads and legs.  It puts an ultra modern spin on an age-old practice in furniture design, reminding me how the ancient Egyptians uses lions' claws for the feet of their chairs.  

Happy Family by Beau Oyler, Jared Aller

Admittedly, I like all of these designs but am slow to buy it and live with it.  It is so clean, so perfect and how many of us actually live so orderly?  Most of these designs are a great look for urban apartment living.    Even if I wouldn't necessarily buy the products, it's inspiring to think about good design and restful to ponder the results.  As Burton asserts at the entrance to the exhibit: "It is innovation in design that allows us to experience moments of engagement and inquiry."

There are several examples of fiber arts.  Many of the designers work with recycled materials.  One of the most interesting was a rug made out of the inner tubes of used bicycles.  Mani Marquina and Ariadna Miguel of Spain designed Bicileta Rug.  Made of rubber, it's easy on the feet. I'd like to have it on my kitchen floor to cushion my feet while cooking.  If I need more shelf space, or a places to put  utensils, books and plants, Happy Family (shown above right) is a modular hanging shelf made of recyclable polypropene and connected with magnets.  When there is company, Kaleido-Trays (below) is colorful and makes for easy storage.

Clara Von Zeigbergk of Denmark designed Kaleido Trays,  while Thomas Shiner designed Seminar Bench

 

A mix of accessories by various designers

Arlington is to be congratulated and thanked for its commitment to supporting the arts, with its numerous theaters, gallery spaces for emerging artists and for educational outreach. The Artisphere Yarn Bomb is up now, too, carving a trail for pedestrians to follow with its vivid colors.  Just across the Potomac from Washington, DC, Arlington's art scene, along with the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, add to the rich art scene that's already in DC.

The exhibition closes on Sunday, May 19th. It has already been up around 3 months, so I thank designer friend Amanpreet Birgisson for telling me about it. For more information contact: info@artisphere.com or www.apartmentzero.com.

Josh Owen designed the SOS stools; behind is the Passion Chair by Philippe Starcke

 

Photos in the Flux of Nature

Rosamond Purcell, Field of the Cloth of Gold, 2010

A group of pictures in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s exhibition this past fall, Very Like A Whale, fooled me.  I thought artist Rosamond Purcell’s medium was some inventive watercolor, ink or acrylic technique.  Was the room too dark, or are my eyes are going bad?  To my surprise these pictures were photographs!

It was an imaginative way to portray Shakespeare, and artist whose myriads of visions who give us such a breadth of humanity.  Very Like a Whale took its exhibition name from a quote in Hamlet showing the human ability of interpreting single objects in multiple ways.  (Hamlet and Polonius saw different images in the same cloud.) Purcell curated the show, along with Shakespeare scholar and Folger Director Michael Witmore. This pair also collaborated on a book, Landscapes of the Passing Strange, using her photographic images with evocative quotations from Shakespeare. This great review is by an English teacher.

Rosamond Purcell, Twenty Shadows

The exhibition covered scientific knowledge in Shakespeare’s time using objects and prints created during the Renaissance.  Quotes from various Shakespeare plays and Purcell’s color photographs were interspersed with these more scientific images in a suggestive and imaginative display. For example, Twenty Shadows, above, was one way of seeing Shakespeare, and the graphic presentation of viewing instruments is another. Near the demonstrations of refracting light and perspective was a quote:

“Each substance of grief hath twenty shadows
Which shows like grief itself but is not so;
For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears,

Divides one thing entire to many objects

Like perspectives, which rightly gazed up

Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry

Distinguish form”   --- Richard II, Act 2, scene, lines 14-20

Rosamond Purcell, Awake Your Faith, 2010

Purcell’s photos make me think of change and of flux, but they also can be enjoyed as abstract compositions without the quotes from Shakespeare.  Does she have a unique developing technique with strange chemical solutions?  Probably not, but she takes her photographs from images reflected on antique mercury glass jars.  The colors are beautiful, and the forms as they mesh and flow together are evocative.  Surreal has been a word used to describe some of these works.   Awake Your Faith, right, is a photo of a statue in The Winter’s Tale.

We may see something today and it could be gone tomorrow.  What seems to be real may in fact not be real. That’s how nature works.   And, as a quote from Shakespeare that was in the exhibition, says: 

“Fortune is painted blind……….she is turning and inconstant, and mutability and variation;  and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls and rolls and rolls." -- Henry V, Act 3, scene 6, lines 29-36  (The Folger used one of their Library's images for this quote, but Durer also made an engraving of Fortune in the current National Gallery show.)

Purcell’s interest in science is a constant, though. She is a collector of objects found in nature and has always combined science with her art.  She is especially known for her photographic documentation of natural history collections. As an author, illustrator and/or photographer, Rosamond Purcell has written or illustrated 17 books.

Velázquez, Ovid's Myth and the "Spinners" of Fate

Diego Velázquez, Las Hilanderas (The Spinners), oil on canvas, H: 220 cm (86.6 in) x W: 289 cm (113.8 in)
The Prado, Madrid

The study of myths in all cultures, like the study of art, may seem obscure but it can illuminate some truths about humanity.  The beauty of weaving, in peoples across the earth, has some association with magic. So we look to Diego Velázquez's Las Hilanderas (also called The Spinners, The Tapestry Weavers or The Fable of Arachne) which focuses on the weaving contest between Pallas Minerva and Arachne described in Ovid's Metamorphoses.  The foreground scene is about a competition which includes spinning and carding, preparations that come before the weaving of tapestries. The final outcome of the story is implied, but not shown. With a complex composition of many diagonal lines, Velázquez weaves a tale about a fable that lovers of Charlotte's Web should appreciate.

Although Velázquez often put humor into his mythological scenes, The Spinners is not a satire. It's related in theme to Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), considered by a majority of art experts to be the greatest secular painting of all time.  The painterly effects of hair and material which dazzle us in Las Meninas go even further in The Spinners, which has a similarly complicated meaning.  Its format is horizontal rather than vertical, but it also features a foreground and background for two tiers of storytelling connected by an opening of light and stairs. As Las Meninas is a group portrait in the guise of everyday life at the palace of El Escorial where Velázquez had a studio, Las Hilanderas is a narrative which appears to be a genre scene in which everyone dresses in styles common to 17th century Spain.  It's dated one year after Las Meninas, 1657.

Detail of Pallas Athena (Minerva) and a "spinning" wheel

According to Ovid, Arachne was a girl born to humble parents in Lydia (an area of Turkey famous for beautiful weavings). She was reknown for her remarkable skill, but did not see her art as a gift from the goddess of weaving.  Arachne accepted praise that set her above Pallas Minerva (Pallas Athena--also the goddess of wisdom) in the art of weaving.  She said, "Let her compete with me, and if she wins I'll pay whatever penalty."  So Pallas Athena disguised herself as an old crone, saying "Old age is not to be despised for with it wisdom comes.....seek all the fame you wish as best of mortal weavers, but admit the goddess as your superior in skill."

Arachne wasn't humbled and said "Why won't (the goddess) come to challenge me herself?"  Athena then cast off old age and revealed herself.  Arachne was not scared and immediately took up the challenge of the competition.   In foreground of Velázquez's canvas, Athena (in a headscarf) and Arachne set up their spinning and carding operations in preparation for the weaving competition.  At least three assistants are helping in the task.  There are balls and balls of wool and thread and even a cat, but no looms in sight. 

Just as Shakespeare liked to insert plays within his plays to elucidate the story, Velázquez was fond of putting subsidiary stories in his paintings.  Another episode of the tale takes place in the he background, although Velázquez skipped parts and he only hints of the conclusion beneath the archway where Athena is dressed as a goddess in armor.  There are the same number of people in front as in back, five.  It would be reasonable to believe that the young women in the back are the same assistants who help in the foreground, but have changed their clothing into fancy dresses.  Only the lowly-born Arachne, furthest from the viewer, is modestly dressed.

From the girl "Fate" in shadow, we peer into a scene where Athena is about to strike Arachne.
Arachne's belly is the center of the painting, hinting of the spider's belly she will become.

According to Ovid's tale, when goddess and girl had completed their tasks, Athena revealed her tapestry with its central subject of Athena winning her competition with Poseidon to be the patron of Athens.  She wove an olive vine from her sacred tree into the tapestry's border. Secondary scenes showed the power of gods and goddesses as they triumphed over humans. Arachne had shown as her central subject the rape of Europa by Zeus in the form of a bull.  This scene is recognized in the back of this painting as a replica of Titian's famous painting of that subject in the Spanish royal collection.  Other stories she wove into tapestry were about the gods' trickeries or instances of gods and goddesses behaving badly.
 
"Bitterly resenting her rival's success, the goddess warrior ripped it, with its convincing evidence of celestial misconduct, all asunder; and with her shuttle of Cytorian boxwood, struck at Arachne's face repeatedly."  In the painting, Athena holds her shuttle in the foreground, not the background, but Velázquez cleverly placed it in Athena's left hand where it points to the next image of Athena in armor.  Velázquez highlighted the goddess's anger against a light blue background and emphasized the force of Athena's striking arm.  Arachne's head is nearly the center of the painting, but the viewer realizes she will exist no longer. "She could not bear this, the ill-omened girl, and bravely fixed a noose around her throat: while she was hanging, Pallas, stirred to mercy, lifted her up and said:

"Though you will hang, you must indeed live on, you wicked child; so that your future will be no less fearful than your present is, may the same punishment remain in place for you and yours forever!"  Then, as the goddess turned to go, she sprinkled Arachne with the juice of Hecate's herb, and at the touch of that grim preparation, she lost her hair, then lost her nose and ears; her head got smaller and her body, too; her slender fingers were now legs that dangled close to her sides; now she was very small, but what remained of her turned into belly, from which she now continually spins a thread, and as a spider, carries on the art of weaving as she used to do."   Note that the belly of Arachne which will be the spider's core is at the exact center of the painting.

The Spinners, right side, detail of Arachne 

With the fable explaining the origin of spiders, it makes sense that the preparatory activity in the foreground is all about the thread (and the spinning of fate), because there is so much winding to that thread.  I interpret the young helpers to Arachne and Pallas Athena as the three Fates.  The Fates can be described as Moira in singular name, or Moirai. Their specific names are Clotho meaning "Spinner," Lachesis, who measures the thread, and Atropos who is inflexible and cuts it off. The three Fates are goddesses and daughters of Zeus who are sometimes considered more important than Zeus in their ability to seal destiny.  They come in various disguises, and wouldn't be surprising if these young women seen as helpers are really the ones who ultimately are in charge. In myth and life, there is always the question of how much free will or how much fate determines outcome.

Velázquez uses highlights and shadows strategically for his story telling goals.  Arachne stands out because she is highlighted to a much greater degree than Minerva is, yet we see nothing of her face.   How ironic that he, Velázquez who proudly showed his face in Las Meninas, his allegory of painting, does not allow Arachne to show hers.  Her back is to us, as she labors deftly and diligently. Both Athena and Arachne are barefoot. The goddess, who is older though not an old lady, even shows some leg! 

One of the women in the background is looking back to the foreground, a complexity that pulls the composition together. Perhaps she had been the only one of three Fates who supported Arachne and was pulling strings for her.  The woman or Fate dressed in blue shows her back to the viewer, but she appears again immediately below in the foreground, though separated by stairs.  Here Velázquez has deliberately darkened her face in shadow, in deeper shadow than is necessary for the composition.  As in other Velázquez paintings, shadowed figures can signify that a character in the painting is an actor, an actor who is playing a role in an act of deception.  Though she aids Arachne in the guise of as a common peasant girl, her concern with thread could actually be in the process of spinning a different fate.

Peter Paul Rubens, Pallas and Arachne, oil, 1634, at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Velazquez was familiar with the fable of Arachne from a Peter Paul Rubens painting of Pallas and Arachne which was owned by the Spanish royal family. The Rubens composition is more violent, with Pallas Athena striking Arachne to the ground. A copy of this painting was in the background of Las Meninas, Velázquez's most famous painting of 1656, a composition which raises the status of art and the artist. Velázquez must have thought of the art of weaving as a noble pursuit, similar to the art of painting.  Both require exceptional talent and skill.  Weaving and spinning have additional, magical connotations in mythology, such as the woven clothing of goddesses, the weavings of Odysseus' wife and the thread which let Theseus out of the labyrinth.  Velázquez was a great artist, but, like the prodigy Arachne, he was not of noble birth.

Detail of self-portrait in Las Meninas, with
the red cross added later

Las Meninas -- which contains a portrait of the artist in the act of painting -- is about the role of the artist, the origins of creativity and the attainment of status.  The Spinners further explores these subjects and elucidates some of the same ideas. Our talents are divine gifts and, as mortals, there are limitations on us.  No matter what the artist's genius is, there are warnings against boasting.  In the end, we are left with a reminder of the punishment which comes from carrying pride too far.  

The paintings compare artistry and skill, and the status of the artist, to the non-negotiable status of higher beings, i.e., the Spanish Royal family, and an Olympian goddess. There is a crucial difference, however. Arachne, an upstart weaver, was just a girl when she challenged the goddesses of wisdom and weaving and the Fates. Velázquez, on the other hand, was 56 when he painted Las Meninas, and his self-portrait looks outward asserting the importance due to him.  Remember how Athena in the guise of an old lady had warned Arachne that with old age comes wisdom.  

Velázquez, The Water Seller of Seville, c. 1620
Apsley House, London

Velázquez had also been an extraordinary prodigy at 19 or 20 The Water Seller of Seville. There, an elderly man is passing a glass of water to an adolescent boy while a young adult man stands behind. It was nearly 40 years later that he finally gained knighthood status, the Order of Santiago. A red cross, painted on his chest three years after completing Las Meninas, indicates that title he attained shortly before his death in 1660. However, from Velázquez's other paintings, we know he treated royalty and peasant with equal respect and dignity. The old man in The Water Seller of Seville wears a torn cloak indicating his humble means compared  to the young boy he serves.  So it is not Arachne's lowly birth, but her youthful pride which denied the wisdom of age that Velázquez sees as her ultimate downfall.  The attainment of greatness is possible if one waits for certain things. Only with age comes wisdom.

Velázquez's stylistic change over the years from tight and controlled to very painterly is typical. (You can some of the changes of his style from early to middle and late in a blog about him.)  

Dürer, French Drawings and the Stages of Life

Albrecht Dürer, The Head of Christ, 1506
brush and gray ink, gray wash, heightened with white on blue paper
overall: 27.3 x 21 cm (10 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.) overall (framed): 50 63.8 4.1 cm (19 11/16 25 1/8 1 5/8 in.)
Albertina, Vienna

The National Gallery of Art is hosting the largest show of Albrecht Dürer drawings, prints and watercolors ever seen in North America, combining its own collection with that of the Albertina in Vienna, Austria.  Across the street in the museum's west wing is the another exhibition of works on paper, Color, Line and Light: French Drawings Watercolors and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac.  The French drawings are spectacular, but it's hard to imagine the 19th century masters without the earlier genius out of Germany, Dürer, who approached drawing with scientist's curiosity for understanding nature.

Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait at Thirteen, 1484
silverpoint on prepared paper, 27.3 19.5 cm
(10 3/4 7 11/16 in.) (framed): 51.7 43.1 4.5 cm (20 3/8 16 15/16 1 3/4 in.)
Albertina, Vienna

Dürer's famous engravings are on view, including Adam and Eve, but with the added pleasure of seeing preparatory drawings and first trial proofs of the prints.   Some of his most famous works such as the Great Piece of Turf and Praying Hands, are there also. In both exhibitions, as always, I'm drawn to the beauty and color of landscape art, especially prominent in the 19th century exhibition. However, both shows have phenomenal portraits to give us a glimpse into people of all ages with profound insights.

Dürer drew his own face while looking in the mirror at age 13, in 1484. He still had puffy cheeks and a baby face, but was certainly a prodigy. Like his father, he was trained in the goldsmith's guild which gave him facility at describing the tiniest details with a very firm point.  Seeing his picture next to the senior Dürer's self-portrait, there's no doubt his father was extremely gifted, too.

Albrecht Dürer, "Mein Agnes", 1494
pen and black ink, 15.7 x 9.8 cm (6 1/8 x 3 7/8 in.)
(framed): 44.3 x 37.9 x 4.2 cm (17 3/8 x 14 7/8 x 1 5/8 in.)
Albertina, Vienna

In his native Nuremburg, the younger Dürer was recognized at an early age and his reputation spread, particularly as the world of printing was spreading throughout the German territories, France and Italy. We can trace his development as he went to Italy in 1494-96, and then again in 1500, meeting with North Italian artists Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini and exchanging artistic ideas.  Dürer is credited with bridging the gap between the Northern and Italian Renaissance.  I personally find all his drawings and prints  more satisfying then his oil paintings, because at heart he was first and foremost a draftsman.

Though we normally think of Dürer as a controlled draftsman, there are some very fresh, loose drawings. An image he did of his wife, Agnes, in 1494, shows a wonderful freedom of expression, and affection.  He married Agnes Fry in 1494 and did drawings of her which became studies for later works.  She was the model for St. Ann in a late painting of 1516 and the preparatory drawing with its amazing chiaroscuro is in the exhibition.  

Albrecht Dürer, Agnes Dürer as Saint Ann, 1519
brush and gray, black, and white ink on grayish  prepared paper; black background applied at a later date (?)
overall: 39.5 x 29.2 cm (15 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.) overall (framed): 64 x 53.4 x 4.4 cm (25 1/4 x 21 x 1 3/4 in.)
Albertina, Vienna

 Also on view are Durer's investigations into human proportion, landscapes and drawings he did of diverse subjects from which he later used in his iconic engravings.  We can trace how the drawings inspired his visual imagery.  There are also several preparatory drawings of old men who were used as the models for apostles in a painted altarpiece.

 

Albrecht Dürer,  An Elderly Man of Ninety-Three Years, 1521
brush and black and gray ink, heightened with white, on gray-violet prepared paper
overall: 41.5 28.2 cm (16 5/16 11 1/8 in.) overall (framed): 63.6 49.7 4.6 cm (25 1/16 19 9/16 1 13/16 in.)
Albertina, Vienna

My favorite drawing of old age, however, is a study of an old man at age 93 who was alert and in good health (amazing as the life expectancy in 1500 was not what is today.) He appears very thoughtful, pensive and wise. The softness of his beard is incredible. The drawing is in silverpoint on blue gray paper which makes the figure appear very three-dimensional.  To add force to the light and shadows, Durer added white to highlight, making the man so lifelike and realistic. 

Léon Augustin Lhermitte,  An Elderly Peasant Woman, c. 1878
charcoal, overall: 47.5 x 39.6 cm (18 11/16 x 15 9/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James T. Dyke, 1996

In the other exhibition, there's a comparable drawing by Leon Lhermitte of an old woman in Color, Line and Light.  Lhermitte was French painter of the Realist school.  He is not widely recognized today, but there were so many extraordinary artists in the mid-19th century.  What I find especially moving about the painters of this time is more than their understanding of light and color.  I like their approach to treating humble people, often the peasants, with extraordinary dignity.  Lhermitte's woman of age has lived a hard and rugged life and he crinkled skin signifies her amazing endurance.  We see the beauty of her humanity and the artist's reverence for every crevice in her weather-beaten skin.

Jean-François Millet
Nude Reclining in a Landscape, 1844/1845
pen and brown ink, 16.5 x 25.6 cm (6 1/2 x 10 1/16 in.)
Dyke Collection

There are many portraits of youth in the French exhibition, too, including fresh pen and inks such as Edouard Manet's Boy with a Dog and Francois Millet's Nude Reclining in Landscape, who really does not look nude.

Camille Pissarro's The Pumpkin Seller is a charcoal without a lot of detail.  She has broad features, plain clothes and a bandana around the head.  She's a simpleton, drawn and characterized with a minimum of lines but Pissarro sees her a substantial girl of character.  The drawing reminds me of Pissarro himself.  He may not be as well-known and appreciated as Monet, Renoir, Degas, yet he was the diehard artist.  He was the one who never gave up, who encouraged all his colleagues and was quite willing to endure poverty and deprivation for the goals of his art.  Berthe Morisot's watercolor of Julie Manet in a Canopied Cradle has a minimum of detail but is a quick expression of her daughter's infancy.

Camille Pissarro, The Pumpkin Seller, c.1888
charcoal, overall: 64.5 x 47.8 cm (25 3/8 x 18 13/16 in.)
Dyke Collection

Taking in all the portraits of both exhibitions, I'm left with thoughts of awe for beauty of both nature and humanity. The friends I was with actually preferred the French exhibition to the Dürer. There were surprising revelations of skill by little known artists like Paul Huet, Francois-Auguste Ravier and Charles Angrand.  The landscapes by artists of the Barbizon School and the Neo-Impressionists, are important and beautiful, but perhaps not recognized as much as they should be.  In both exhibitions, we must admire how works on paper form the blueprint for larger ideas explored in oil paintings.

Berthe Morisot, Julie Manet in a Canopied Cradle, 1879
watercolor and gouache, 18 x 18 cm (7 1/16 x 7 1/16 in.)
Dyke Collection

It was a curator a the Albertina who wisely connected a mysterious Martin Schongauer drawing of the 1470s owned by the Getty to a Durer Altarpiece.  The Albertina is a museum in Vienna known for works on paper, much its collection descended from the Holy Roman Emperors, one of whom Dürer worked for late in his career.  The French drawings come from a collection of Helen Porter and James T Dyke and some of it have been gifted to the National Gallery. They're on view until May 26, 2013 and Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Prints and Watercolors from the Albertina will stay on view until June 9, 2013.

Monet's Paintings of Snow

Claude Monet, The Road to Giverny in Winter, sold last year, but hadn't been seen in public since 1930

When Monet's The Road to Giverny in Winter came up at auction about a year ago, it was the first time this idyllic painting had been on the art market since 1924.  The painting leaves me with a magical impression, in the way Monet painted a pink sunset with warm highlights poking through the winter chill.  Leave it Monet to see the beautiful warmth in the coldness of winter. So I wanted to explore his other paintings of snow and see how he developed the theme. At one point in the late 1870s, Monet's colleague Manet tried to paint a scene of snow, but gave up, exclaiming that no one could do it like Monet.

When looking at reproductions online, we get a great variety of versions of the colors in the various photos of the same painting.  No reproduction can substitute for seeing the actual painting.  Monet did about 140 paintings of snow.  Yet, these scenes represent just a fraction of his work.  It's snowing this morning March 18 and, looking out the window, I see only white, gray and brown with touches of forest green in the grass and pines. But I try to imagine how Monet would have seen it and the answer is that would depend on where he was in his long career. 

The Road to Giverny in Winter is from Monet's mid-career, before the extreme abstraction of his late style, but with the abundance of color characteristic of the fully developed Impressionism.  There are several contrasting textures and the blurriness in the foreground indicates an icy wind.  Some very dark blues and purples represent tree trunks and limbs, serving to anchor the composition of the painting.  If Monet had a unifying color in The Road to Giverney in Winter, I'd guess that it had been blue. There are gray blues, powder blues and green blues.  His blue is mostly a soft blue, but it is so well modulated with the pink, the green, the purple, rusty red and yellow.

The detail from the center of  The Road to Giverny in winter shows Monet's array of colors

The center is yellow, though.  That's the beginning of Giverny, the village he lived in from 1878 until his death in 1923. It's where he created the ponds and nurtured the lily pads which gave rise to his most famous paintings.  He placed this village the center of the painting and painted its buildings yellow, appropriate because Giverny was a place of warmth where he found his center, his life. Warm yellow ochre meets its match yellows in the sky where it takes on radiance, brightness and a hint of  green, especially in the upper right hand corner.  There's a touch of green in the sky, and  a deep forest green along the road on the right.

Color and composition are wonderful, but the brushstrokes are another reason this painting is so successful. Through his textural strokes, he suggests the flow of light at the end of day, the directions of winds and the barrenness of winter trees.   Yet the sky is very smooth and we can sense that our shoes or boots will sink if we walk on the ground.

Claude Monet, The Magpie, 1868-1869

One of Monet's earliest snow paintings is The Magpie, also one of the most popular paintings in Paris' Musée d'Orsay. We can see how much he changed and how far his Impressionist style developed.  The Magpie comes from 1868-1869, before the first Impressionist exhibition of 1873.  Monet's genius is apparent in the way he created a focal point in the composition, with our eye attracted to the magpie by the lines of movement in the fence and its shadows. It was rejected by the Salon of 1869.  The public was not used to predominantly white paintings.  The brushwork is masterful, as he uses the brush to show light, shadow and what remains of snow on narrow branches of trees.

The Magpie is a masterpiece of Monet's early style, more Realist than Impressionist. The small bird is clearly a focal point.  There's a sharp differentiation between light and shadow, though the shadows are mainly blue and not gray.  Dark footprints in the foreground add a bit of mystery, but more than anything make us think of the rawness of nature's beauty with only a hint of human intervention. He is still using black which may have added just the right amount of contrast.  If we could not see the energy of his brushstrokes, a viewer may think the painting's quality so good that it could be a photograph.  The whites are bright enough, though, that you'd almost want to wear sunglasses to look at the painting.  The Magpie appears to work its special magic by depicting what may be the day after a night of snow.

Monet, The Street at Argenteuil, Snow Effect, 1874

In contrast to the view of snow in sunlight, it's snowing in The Street at Argenteuil, Snow Effect, painted about 5 years later.  The snowflakes are big, perhaps Monet was inspired by Japanese artist Hokusai.   The whites are still very bright, but the most of the painting is gray or taupe, with touches of deep green and deep purple to make up the dark colors.  There is a feel of something magical to be walking in this snow, even if it is cold.  There's touches of blue in the sky and a forest green where grass or pine needles appear.

Monet, Snow at Argenteuil, 1875.   Argenteuil was particularly important to the development of Monet's Impressionist style.  The years 1875-79 included some cold, harsh winters.

Snow at Argenteuil, 1875, could be the day after a snow.  It was painted in the same village but perhaps a year later. Its also a logical progression of style.Value contrast diminishes, but Monet loves to create a sense of depth and he is truly a master of perspective space, as much as the master of reflecting color.  Black is almost entirely eliminated but we only have a few strokes of colors in their dark values.  The town, nature and people are alive with movement and they go about their business despite the overall chill in the air.  It is the blue and red brick, that has been dulled to a pink in this painting, that let us know it's cold outside.

By 1880, Monet's paintings were gradually becoming more and more abstract.  He was less concerned with structure, depth and perspective.  The paintings become more and more about color, pattern, vibration.  In the Floating Ice near Vertheuil, we see tons of blue: deep blues green-blues, purple-blues and powder blue for the sky.  Nearly half the painting is a reflection of the water, something he take to full abstraction with his water lily paintings later.  It's not only about the weather and how light effects the color, but Monet was also very concerned with pattern. The brushstrokes look like dabs of paint, just quick impressions.

Monet, Floating Ice Near Vetheuil, 1880

As time goes on, even his snow scenes begin to take on more colors. Fortunately, 19th century painters were allowed an expanded palette of colors, and, for the first time, they could buy their paints in tubes. In many paintings, snow and ice become less dominated by white and gray, and appear to be dusted with all the hues of the rainbow.  Near Lavacourt and Vetheuil, he did many paintings of the break up of ice on the River Seine.  In these paintings, snow and ice combine with water in Monet's color analysis of the reflections as they hit the water. 

The Road to Giverny in Winter is chronologically between the ice series on the Seine and the Grainstacks series

 

Monet's Grainstacks series of about 25 paintings includes at several snow scenes which offer a good comparison if we see them as Monet intended, next to the other paintings in the series.  The Art Institute of Chicago's painting, Grainstacks, Snow Effects, Sunset, 1891 is an example.  This painting, an explosion of color on form is viewed in the gallery with at least six other paintings from the series.  Shadows are not painted black or gray, but only as cold colors.  (Blue, green and purple are cold colors, yellow, orange and red are warm.)  Complementary color contrast creates a sensation, with the warmest colors in the upper righthand corner.

Monet, Grainstacks, Snow Effect, Sunset, 1891

Monet traveled to Norway in 1895 and painted landscapes in the palest of colors.  From Sandviken, Village in the Snow, it's apparent that Monet's interest in spatial depth, so apparent in earlier paintings, is gone, and overlapping shapes are the only forms to give definition to space.  He used the lightest of pastel tints to differentiate color in paintings flowing with the brightness of snow, or in the whiteness of paint.   The reds of barns are very red, yet they are submerged in white.  It does seem that snow is everywhere and this is truly a winter wonderland.  The edges of the canvas look as if they could dissolve in continuity. 

Monet, Sandviken, Norway, Village in the Snow, 1895

If snow continually inspired Monet and if he pressed himself to paint it whenever possible, we must see his relationship of snow as being akin to his relationship with painting water.  Snow, like water, was a vehicle for him to explore the wonders of refracting light and reflection, to scatter colors as they reflect off of each other while forming unexpected designs and patterns.

About 10 years ago I took a painting class.  Using a photo of a snow scene from the Morton Arboretum, my teacher kept encouraging me to see the purple in the landscape. She said that every landscape has an underlying color that unifies it's and in this one it's purple. The snow is purple, the water is purple, the tree trunks are purple, she said, and she suggested that I stop interpreting what I knew was there: grays, whites, browns and blacks.   She was helping me see as the artist sees and to use my eye to see an Impressionist's vision of the world.  By the way, there also was a gorgeous sunset in that picture, but I certainly didn't paint a glorious rainbow of color effects as Monet did. Check out more of his snow scenes on this website.

Visualizing Nature and its Sea of Changes: Where Art and Science Meet

The Hyperbolic Coral Reef project has spread around the globe

Nature is mysterious and some of the magical colors and patterns of the coral reef are a wonder of nature's artistry. Surprisingly, vegetables such as kale, frissée and other lettuces mimic the free-flowing, wild patterns found in the coral reef.  These products of nature form hyperbolic planes, not explained by Euclidean Geometry. 

Crochet, a fiber art that traditionally has utilitarian purpose, holds the power to make this mystery visible to our eyes.  With this in mind, various hyperbolic coral reef projects have sprung up around the globe, bringing together crochet artists to call attention to the fact that this natural wonder -- something akin to the oceans' natural forest -- is vastly disappearing as a result of pollution, human waste and climate change.

Photo of satellite reef, Föhr, Germany, courtesy Uta Lenk

The Hyperbolic Coral Reef Project is the brainstorm of Margaret and Christine Wertheim, who founded the Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles to highlight this phenomenon. They based their idea on the discovery of a mathematician at Cornell University, Daina Taimina. Taimina used crochet to unlock a mathematical means to explain the parallel nature of crochet lines in 1997, while the Wertheims further developed a repetoire of reef-life forms: loopy "kelps", fringed "anemones", crenelated "sea slugs", and curlicued "corals."  A simple pattern or algorithm, which has a pure shape can be changed slightly to produce variations and permutations of color and form. The Crochet Reef project began in 2005 and the experiment has involved communities of Reefers, which, like the reef itself, have become worldwide.  The Wertheim sisters come from Australia, where the Great Barrier Reef is located, while Taimina is originally from Latvia.

Photo of Actual Coral Reef, from www.thenowpass.com

These handmade, collaborative works of fiber art have brought together art, science and math to a worldwide community --- for the purpose of the sharing a wonder of nature that could be lost. The replica of a coral reef for the Smithsonian Community Reef was a satellite of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project installed at  the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in  2010-2011.  This project has moved and is on view in the Putnam Museum of History and Natural Science in Davenport, Iowa, where it will remain for 5 years.  A former student, Jennifer Lindsay supervised the installation and the public outreach at the Smithsonian and the Putman and is currently coordinating the Artisphere Yarn Bomb in Arlington, Va.  

Postcard from the coral reef project in Föhr, Germany

This past summer, there was an installation at the Museum Kunst der Westkuste on island of Föhr, in Germany.   Over 700 artists from the island, and the mainland of Germany and Denmark came together and contributed to the largest of over 20 worldwide projects around the world.  At this moment, there is a satellite of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project at Roanoke College in Salem, Va.  It will remain there at the Olin Gallery until March 1, 2013, reminding students at this Liberal Arts College of the fragility of the coral reef.  


Artist  Elise Richman -- who lives on the Puget Sound and teaches at the University of the Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wa -- also reminds us that changes are afloat at sea.  Richman has different processes of painting, each of which reflect environmental systems and states of flux.  In the water-based paintings, she applies inks, acrylics and a liquified powder pigment that has been mixed with powder gum arabic. She pours pools of these paints onto thick sheets of watercolor paper, allowing them to expand, evaporate, be absorbed or intermingle, while using minimum control.  

Elise Richman, Each Form Overflows its Present, mixed media on canvas, 2013, photo by Richard Nicol

The poured paint dries into forms that evoke the contours of islands, water bodies, and/or fluid dynamics.  Richman then takes these contours as boundaries that she can transgress in subsequent layers. “I assert my will by deepening the color, adjusting the quality of particular edges and unifying the compositions while maintaining the dynamic sense of flux that the materials activate,” she explains.

More recently, she has used this technique on large-scale canvases.  Her newest water-based paintings, such as Each Form Overflows its Present, I, represent an active state of flux as well as topographical formations.  They comment, through implication, on the threat of accelerated changes humans have induced on the environment.

Elise Richman, Isle I, oil, 12 x 12, 2008 photo by Richard Nicol

Richman also has a body of three-dimensional oil paintings made of organic dots which seem to grown from the canvases.  As one moves around the small, intricately-detailed paintings, the topographies and colors change in visually dynamic ways, maintaining their aesthetic beauty.  These forms represent non-hierarchical environments.  "They evoke tide-pools of miniature islands; intimate marine scapes act as 

Elise Richman, detail of Pool I, 2010, photo by Richard Nicol 

meditations on the processes of painting, an embodiment of time’s passage, and models of the material world’s interconnectedness,” Richman explained.  Each mark, point or dot has its own integrity, yet each is subsumed into a larger whole that has an ethical as well as aesthetic dimension. In short, imbalances of power create exploitations of the natural world and groups of people.  Yet this  largeness of nature can be maintained in works of art that are personal and meditative.  Richman's website includes works in the encaustic and acrylic paint media.  The encaustics have multiple layers, from which she scrapes to represent geological formations.

Manet and Morisot: The Tale of Love and Sadness in the Portraits



Portrait of Édouard Manet, by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1867, Art Institute of Chicago
Fantin-Latour  introduced Manet and Morisot, an important personal
and artistic relationship. 

Why hasn't the love story of painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot been told in film?  (Both Manet and Morisot are represented in large numbers at the exhibition, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, formerly at Musée d'Orsay, but now at the Met in NYC and onto the Art Institute of Chicago this summer.  Morisot was the subject of a large retrospective at Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, last year, and her work, like much Impressionism, is so much better when viewed in real life rather than reproduction.)

Manet, a "people person" and painter of people, is the one artist of the past I would wish to meet above all others.  Morisot, one of his muses, is the artist with whom I empathize more than any other.  I'm publishing this blog on January 14, 2013;  she was born on 172 years ago to this day, but her story is still resonates. Others' bloggers written about her relationship to Manet and will be referenced below.  

Berthe Morisot, The Harbor at Lorient, 1869, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Manet's portraits of Morisot are compelling, but the facts remain elusive.  Manet was a person of paradox  who painted realistic themes in an audacious style  which was shocking to the mid-19th century. Yet he was conventional, proper, well-dressed and conservative in so many ways.  His political ideas were progressive, but he was patriotic and enlisted in the National Guard during the Prussians' siege of Paris in 1870.   Deeply hurt by criticism, Manet's honor was also so important to him that he challenged an art critic to a duel by sword, which was no longer common in 19th century France.  The charismatic artist was the ultimate elegant Parisian.  Berthe Morisot loved him in a painful way, but her only consolation was to marry his brother, Eugène Manet. 


Manet, The Repose, 1870, (Berthe Morisot at rest)

Last week I watched a movie about Modigliani, but the story of Manet and Morisot's love, most likely an unrequited love, is far more interesting.  An actress with the soulful eyes and depth of Juliette Binoche would be an ideal choice to play Berthe, although there are younger stars like Audrey Tautou who could do justice to her character.  I can think of many actors who could be the confidant, dapper Manet.  With the right script and right director, this story in film could be even more interesting than films of artists like Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo, artists known for their tempestuous lives.

While waiting for this film to be made, we can track the story and trace much of the love and feeling in Manet's 12 portraits of Berthe. He painted her more times than anyone else.  Many of Manet's people are distinctive for their air of nonchalance, and they end up revealing themselves if only by expressing a desire not to let us get to know them.  Manet had many female muses but Berthe was different, as he tapped into her soul and seemed to know the longing and wistfulness that was inside.  These portraits are tantalizing and mysterious, and they come in many forms, but leave us guessing of the extent of their relationship. Manet's The Repose, for example, shows Berthe relaxed and dreaming on a sofa, but the image of a Japanese sea storm above her suggest turmoil may lurk beneath her quiet demeanor.

Manet, The Balcony, 1868, in the Salon of 1869

Manet first painted Berthe Morisot in The Balcony, but with two figures not in communication with each other or with the viewer.  Berthe's black eyes grab all the attention.  Hers is the only face which is revealing, while the others have expressive hand gestures.  The second woman who posed for Manet, violinist Fanny Claus, appears vapid and vacant next to the pensive Berthe leaning on a green balcony.  The man, painter Antoine Guillemet, enters from behind and a boy is vaguely seen in the black background.  The womens' white dresses are in daylight, vividly contrasting with darkness behind while a plush dog and porcelain planter below Berthe's feet add textural richness of the painting.  It is "focused on her air of compelling beauty, her mystery and the complex inner struggle reflected in her face."  (Sue Roe, reference below)

Manet, Berthe Morisot with a Muff, 1869

By most accounts, excluding her own, Berthe Morisot was stunning.  Her beauty comes across in her deep, dark eyes and delicate, chiseled features we see in Manet's portrayals of her.  She was elegant and filled with social refinement.  One contemporary account described her as so full of politeness and graciousness towards others as to make acquaintances of less manners uncomfortable.  Yet she broke with convention in pursuit of career in art and in the pursuit of a art style outside of tradition.                
                                  

She and Manet came from similar background, he as the oldest of three boys and she as the youngest daughter in a family three girls and one younger boy.  Their parents walked in the same social circles.  He spent time in the Navy, and it was awhile before his father finally agreed that he could pursue a career in art instead of law.  Though it was hardly typical of women to become painters at the time, it seems that the Morisot parents were encouraging of the daughters who studied under a famous artist, Camille Corot.  Berthe was the most serious, the only one to continue that career through marriage and motherhood.  

Photo of Berthe Morisot, c. 1870

However, Manet was 9 years older and married when they met copying paintings at the Louvre copying in 1867.  Each of them had already submitted paintings which had been accepted in France's annual Salon, the yearly review of what was in judges' views considered the best art of the time.  Édouard Manet's reputation was controversial on account of his subjects and the way he painted them.  Berthe was very taken with him immediately, but of course younger French painters who were interested in breaking new artistic ground, including Monet and Renoir, also revered Manet. 
   

Manet, Berthe Morisot with Fan, 1872

It appears that Berthe's mother was her chaperone whenever she went to Manet's studio, as befitted her social class.   Manet wife was Suzanne Leenhoff, a Dutch piano teacher his father had hired years earlier to teach the Manet brothers.  He married her shortly after his father died, perhaps out of obligation to protect the reputation of his father, a judge. It's likely that the older Manet was the father of a mysterious son she brought into the marriage, Léon Leenhoff, another favorite model of Manet's.  Léon always referred to Manet as his godfather, but was probably a half-brother.  Manet's marriage was not an easy love and he had other liaisons.  However, he was always protective of his family name and loyal to this immediate family, although no children were born in the union. In his will, it was made clear the inheritance would pass from Suzanne to Léon.  (Some writers believe Manet was the father, but if that were true, social conditions would not force him to cover that the boy was born out of wedlock.)

The letters of Berthe Morisot were published by a grandson who edited them, perhaps leaving out things intended to remain private.  In letters to her mother and sisters, she confessed strong feelings for Manet, fraught with jealousies and frustrations.  Much of her self-doubt has to do with her frustrations as an artist, a situation most artists have at some point.  Personally, I cannot stand when writers attribute female artists' inner difficulties primarily to gender politics. Suggestions that Morisot and Manet were in competition or that he tried to hold her back are off the mark.  In letters between the mother and other sisters, it's clear that the mom feared for her youngest daughter who pined for Manet and sometimes didn't eat.  Berthe was unable to stay away from him, and he appears to have been quite attached, too.    As friends, they shared an intellectual and artistic kinship.

Manet, Berthe Morisot with Violets, 1872

Berthe Morisot with Violets, 1872, seems for many observers to express the growing love between Manet and Morisot.   To me, it is Manet's painting of her in which Berthe seems the most forthright and the most confident.   Berthe's gaze is usually quite intense, a characteristic also found in the few photographs which exist.

However, in Berthe Morisot with a Fan, 1872, she covers her face, hinting that real intimacy with the artist was socially forbidden.   Berthe Morisot with a Veil , 1874, also conveys the social blockage in the relationship.   While working closely with Berthe, Manet began to loosen his brush work and get more of Impressionist swiftness to his paint.  There is more spontaneity as time goes on and Manet adds many more light colors to his canvases.   

Manet sometimes lightened his colors, but he rarely lightened his palette while painting Berthe Morisot.  Does he see a sadness in her that does not brighten over time?  Or is there a darkness that he sees and knows?  Her hair was black and painting the contrast of exquisite blackness and lighter tones was his specialty.  He certainly painted her with greater verve and style than many other portraits, including those of his wife and of Eva Gonzalès, a 20-year old student who came to studied under Manet.  Berthe was envious of that relationship, although a portrait of Eva Gonzalès caused him much difficulty and was not successful.  

Manet, Berthe Morisot in Profile, 1872

To a certain extent, the portraits seems to grow in their sense of intimacy as time goes on, and Berthe seems increasingly relaxed with Manet.  Portait of Berthe Morisot in Profile, 1872,  shows Berthe in movement with spontaneous gestures.  Her expressive fingers and long hand add to a sense of elegance and she appears less serious than previous depictions.   Clearly Manet found a fascinating subject.


Professionally, each artist helped and encouraged the other.  On one occasion Manet complemented her on a painting and then started touching it up.  She did not object and sent it to the Salon, where it was accepted.   It was a painting of her mother and her pregnant sister, which is now in the National Gallery of Art.

Manet, Berthe Morisot Reclining, 1873

When Degas, Pissaro and Monet wished to break out of the Salon and start their own salon des indépendentes in 1873, Manet refused to join them and opted only for the traditional road to success.  This inner conservatism reflects a paradox in his character.  He also advised Berthe Morisot not to rock the boat, not join in their venture, which became the first Impressionist exhibition and almost an annual event.   Berthe, however, kept her own counsel and continued to exhibit with the Impressionists until 1886, when Impressionists were finally accepted and no longer needed an alternative venue.  Of the 8 Impressionist exhibitions, the only one she skipped was in 1879, after giving birth to her daughter in November of the previous year.

Manet, Berthe Morisot in Mourning Hat, 1874

We know  Berthe Morisot was a highly determined woman to follow her chosen path and not be deterred by the man of her dreams when she disagreed.  However, that doggedness often hid behind a shell of quietness and, at times, depression.  Edouard Manet's paintings of her variously capture her allure, her elegance, her intelligence and a pensiveness tinged with tragedy.   He painted Berthe Morisot in a Mourning Hat in 1874, during the same year her father died.  The texture is rough, the eyes are enormous and the color contrast is bold.  Her color is pale and she appears emaciated.  It's an expression of the sadness she was holding deeply within her at the time.   

Manet, Violets, 1872, was a gift to Berthe Morisot

Manet gifted an exquisite still life of violets in 1872 to Berthe.   He painted Violets with a swift, fresh and textural style, signed it and dedicated to her.  Note that it includes a fan, a symbol Berthe holds in several of his earlier paintings of her.   He only painted her in clothing, and she never painted him.

Berthe clearly gave Manet an outlet  and a means to express his feeling for her in painting.  In these portraits of her, we also see the workings of her psyche.  His other favorite models, such as Victorine Meurent (who posed in Olympia and The Luncheon on the Grass and later became a Salon painter), had greater freedom in some respects.  Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt were expected to behave according to their social standing.    (American Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas were important Impressionists who had a professional relationship and bond of friendship similar to the Morisot - Manet duo.  The time period was fascinating not only for how the artists related to each other, but to contemporary writers, poets, musicians and intellectuals.) 

Morisot, Eugène Manet on the Island of Wight, 1875

Berthe Morisot, Self-Portrait, 1884

Édouard Manet suggested to Berthe that she marry Eugène his brother, a situation that promised they could continue indefinitely to see each other, but in the company of others.  The mother's criticisms of Édouard had been out protectiveness for the daughter, but her hesitation about Eugène was because he lacked a profession.   Eventually, at age 33, Berthe and Eugène married.  Four years later at age 37, she gave birth to her only child, Julie Manet.  Berthe Morisot did many portraits of her daughter and her husband which suggest affection and domestic happiness. 


 By all accounts, Eugène Manet was kind and extremely supportive of his wife's career and provided much administrative support for the Impressionists in general.  His famous brother certainly overshadowed him in every way, but there is no evidence that he was jealous of his brother for any reason.  He must have realized Berthe's extreme fondness and  probable preference for Édouard.  Once they were married, the older Manet seems to have stopped painting her.


 Compared to her brother-in-law Édouard's work, Morisot's own paintings have smaller and lighter brushstrokes, and a lighter palette.  Her  form is not deliberate as that of Manet.  In a self-portrait of 1884, we recognize the same chiseled features and delicacy that Manet portrayed, and self-confidence.  Their styles were already well developed when the met.  Differences in their styles reflect the differences between their teaching:  Morisot learned from Corot, the master of outdoor painting in diffused light of day, while Manet studied under Thomas Couture whose techniques are recognized in his  heavier brushwork.  Manet's dark backgrounds reflect his admiration of Spanish painters Goya and Velazquez.  Her forms were more diffused, silvery and more true to the goals of Impressionism.

Manet, Self-Portrait with Palette, 1878, sold at a London auction for approximately $33 million 2010

Though he was criticized in his early career, by the time the Impressionists were accepted and recognized, Manet was esteemed as the leader of new way of seeing and painting in a modern technique.  Like his father, Manet received France's highest honor, the prestigious Légion d'honneur before he died.  Advocating for this success and protecting the honor of his family was extremely important in the end, despite his progressive political and artistic ideas.  Both Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot died fairly young,  he of syphilis (like his father) in 1883, and she of pneumonia a little more than 12 years later.  

Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Berthe Morisot and Julie Manet, 1894

(When the diary of Julie Manet was compiled and published many years ago, I read the book, Growing Up with the Impressionists, in which Julie Manet expresses her thoughts and feelings about her family and the important artists who were their friends.  From what I remember, she seems to have had a fondness for everyone except Edouard Manet's wife Suzanne, whom she found overbearing, perhaps reflecting her mother's feelings.)  Berthe Morisot was devastated when Manet died, and again when her husband Eugène died in 1892.  Berthe and daughter Julie were extremely close. Berthe was nursing Julie who had pneumonia when she caught the bug and suddenly died in 1895. Her friends Renoir, Monet and Degas put together a large solo exhibition of her work shortly afterwards.

An orphan at age 16, Julie was left to the guardianship of painter Auguste Renoir and poet Stéphane Mallarmé.  A few years later Julie married a painter, Ernest Rouart.  She became an artist, as did cousins Jeannie and Paule Gobillard.  Julie Manet lived until 1966, nearly 88 years, in contrast to her mother, father and uncle.  

Renoir did several portraits of Julie Manet, including a painting of the Berthe Morisot with her daughter towards the end in 1894.   Morisot's hair appears to have changed from black to gray rather quickly after the loss of Manets, both of Édouard and then her own Eugène, who she had undoubtedly  loved dearly.  He was kind and generous to her.   When the older Manet died, his estate held a key indication of Berthe's personal importance to him -- seven of the paintings of her were found in his possession.  While Manet's wife had the financial and social benefits of  marriage, he painted her less often.  

Manet, Young Woman with a Pink Shoe

In grad school, I took a seminar, Manet and Degas, and remember reading Manet and His Critics, as well as the novels of Émile Zola. Many books have come out since that time. Marni Kessler published an important article in The Art Bulletin about Manet's paintings of Morisot, which I've not read. I've read The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe and quoted her above; The Judgment of Paris  by Ross King, and a biography, Rebel in a Frock Coat: Édouard Manet, by Beth Archer Brombert, each book very well documented.   Impressionist Quartet, by Jeffrey Meyers, a book I've not read, apparently suggests they were lovers.  Perhaps the most recent book to cover the Manet-Morisot relationship is Roberto Calasso's book, La Folie Baudelaire, which has a chapter about the relationship as well as Manet's connections to Degas. 

Brombert says of Manet, "He hungered for critical and popular success but refused to yield to the taste of the day; he was the leader of a new school who dissociated himself from it as soon as it gained cohesion; he was a man of public diversion and the most private of lives."   

Morisot, Woman at Her Toilette, 1875-80

Manet's greatness is in the paint and the experimental ways of presenting his subjects.  At a time when painting had to compete with photography, he asserted the importance of texture and presented the ambiguities of modern life.  I could not imagine Van Gogh without the influence of his rich, tactile paint and color juxtapositions as seen in the  sofa of The Repose , the green of The Balcony and the lush purple Violets.  Morisot's style intersects with Manet's at times, but in most ways she is closer to Pissarro, Renoir, Monet.  She and Manet inspired each others' artistic evolution, as did Degas and Cassatt, who excelled in the artfulness of their compositions. 

Morisot's Women at her Toilette, above, features a mirror and centers on a female figure, as in Manet 's very important painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, but her tones are always more silvery and form is less defined.  Morisot's work is also a masterpiece, but the figure and mirror merge into the overall impression.  Manet's woman at the Folies-Bergere is an icon who reminds us of what remains when participating in the excitement of the fleeting, contemporary world. Manet is best known for painting ambiguities, while the purest Impressionist compositions of  Morisot, Renoir and Monet keep the figure merely a part in the whole painted arrangement.  In her modern compositions, Morisot holds her place in the path to 20th century abstraction.  

Manet was the right person born at the right time to be pivotal in the changing world of art.  Morisot loved him but was independent, carving out her own reputation, in her time and in our time. (Here's a blog with a wide variety of Morisot's paintings.)  Having been soulmates unable to live together in love, Manet and Morisot respected each other until the end.    Our pictures of them together remain in our imagination.