Though appreciated in her time primarily in relation to Manet and later married to his brother Eugene, Morisot’s talents and vision exceeded perceived decorous limitations, leaving enduring marks on avant-garde approaches related to feminism, abstraction, and capturing subjective interiority.
Berthe Morisot was one of the foundational artists of French Impressionism and a guiding spirit of avant-garde sensibilities despite receiving less recognition than her male counterparts. Working within domestic interiors, Morisot forged an iconography of bourgeois femininity conveying the restrictions of women’s roles but also the intimacy of their relationships. Her innovative compositions with asymmetrical cropping, monochromatic palettes, and expressive brushwork captured the immediacy of lived experience within private, contemplative moments of contemporary womanhood – a close and nuanced perspective largely unseen among the public exterior subjects favored by the broader Impressionist circle. Though appreciated in her time primarily in relation to Manet and later married to his brother Eugene, Morisot’s talents and vision exceeded perceived decorous limitations, leaving enduring marks on avant-garde approaches related to feminism, abstraction, and capturing subjective interiority.