Mary Cassatt; Painter of Modern women art Introduction             Mary was born to a happily upper-middle class family with her father being a stockbroker and her mother worked with a banking family that was prosperous. From 1851 to 1855, Mary together with her family lived in France and Germany that gave her a good early exposure art and culture of the European. As a child, she also learned German and French which later served her well in her career while living abroad. In 1855, Mary had visited the Paris World’s Fair where she viewed the arts of various individuals such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and even Eugene Delacroix.             In 1860 when she was at the age of 16, she undertook a study for a period of two years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and by 1865 Mary requested her parents of they could let her continue with her studies abroad in artistic training. Mary then went to Paris despite the initial objections of her parents and studied with Jean-Leon Gerome. When Cassatt briefly went backto the United States between 1870 and 1871, she got frustrated with the lack of resources and the opportunities. Cassatt went back to Paris and visited other nations such as Italy, Spain and even Holland where she got familiar with the works of the various artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Antonio da Correggio and Diego Velazquez.             The main subject for Cassatt was primarily mothers and children. Her main artwork was not based on the individuals who commissioned her to paint them. She used models, and in some cases used friends or the working women to depict the mothers and in the pictures, the children were not real kids to the mothers. Thus Mary’s paintings were stage paintings that portrayed still life with people other than flowers or fruits. The life circumstances thus drove her work. In the book, Mary establishes a deliberate message with her artwork portraying contemporary women and female domain and also delivers a message on the motherly pledge as a system of both the emotional and the physical development. The communication seems to be a reaction to the reality of the social concerns towards the end of 19 th century.             At the period, regulations were getting passed as a protection of the children from exploitation and only the mothers who were in the upper class had the ability to take care of their kids from death caused by nutrition. In her paintings, she also passed on a message by including the mothers who did not look upper class forming a compelling message in the book.             In the 19 th century, childhood and children were much significant due to the belief that healthy children could lead to the establishment of a healthy country. However, in 1870s several families were needy, and it was not a healthy period for childhood in life. This led to the enactment of the legislation on education, childhood labor and even to the protection of the children from abuse b.

1. Mary Cassatt; Painter of Modern women art
Introduction
Mary was born to a happily upper-middle class family
with her father being a stockbroker and her mother worked with
a banking family that was prosperous. From 1851 to 1855, Mary
together with her family lived in France and Germany that gave
her a good early exposure art and culture of the European. As a
child, she also learned German and French which later served
her well in her career while living abroad. In 1855, Mary had
visited the Paris World’s Fair where she viewed the arts of
various individuals such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,
Gustave Courbet, and even Eugene Delacroix.
In 1860 when she was at the age of 16, she undertook a
study for a period of two years at the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, and by 1865 Mary requested her parents of they
could let her continue with her studies abroad in artistic
training. Mary then went to Paris despite the initial objections
of her parents and studied with Jean-Leon Gerome. When
Cassatt briefly went backto the United States between 1870 and
1871, she got frustrated with the lack of resources and the
opportunities. Cassatt went back to Paris and visited other
nations such as Italy, Spain and even Holland where she got
familiar with the works of the various artists such as Peter Paul
Rubens, Antonio da Correggio and Diego Velazquez.
The main subject for Cassatt was primarily mothers and
children. Her main artwork was not based on the individuals
who commissioned her to paint them. She used models, and in
some cases used friends or the working women to depict the
mothers and in the pictures, the children were not real kids to
the mothers. Thus Mary’s paintings were stage paintings that
portrayed still life with people other than flowers or fruits. The
life circumstances thus drove her work. In the book, Mary
establishes a deliberate message with her artwork portraying
contemporary women and female domain and also delivers a
message on the motherly pledge as a system of both the

2. emotional and the physical development. The communication
seems to be a reaction to the reality of the social concerns
towards the end of 19
th
century.
At the period, regulations were getting passed as a
protection of the children from exploitation and only the
mothers who were in the upper class had the ability to take care
of their kids from death caused by nutrition. In her paintings,
she also passed on a message by including the mothers who did
not look upper class forming a compelling message in the book.
In the 19
th
century, childhood and children were much significant due to
the belief that healthy children could lead to the establishment
of a healthy country. However, in 1870s several families were
needy, and it was not a healthy period for childhood in life.
This led to the enactment of the legislation on education,
childhood labor and even to the protection of the children from
abuse by the parents.
The interest that Cassatt had in the theme concurred
with the era of social change, but the interest she had had gone
beyond social concerns to that of seeing the vivacious
physicality among the kids that she moved to her paintings.
Also, Cassatt in her pictures that represented kids, she also
began a procedure of restructuring the space in the images in a
manner that passed on information that depicted a new sense of
governance of the space.
The governance arises from the point of view of an
individual within the space and not from the people who are
looking at the paintings. Cassatt had painted a little girl that had
seated in the blue chair, relaxed and scornful in her pose that
had imitated a pose of seductress and control of the space of the
painting. In the painting, Cassatt displays another factor of the
little girl of the belief in the late 19
th

3. century that the children, because they were not already
completely socialized had retained a significant impulsiveness
that civilized community ought to value as well as imitate.
The portrait of a little girl 1878 by Cassatt.
Even though Cassatt was viewing the Renaissance icons
of the ideal motherhood, the child paintings she made
represented an idealized statement about the adoration of the
motherhood both in the deception and reality. For the portrayal
of the icon of motherhood, Cassatt gets involved in doing
several things that are noteworthy. In the first instance, her
mothers have not idealized women a factor that is clear when an
individual views their hands. Secondly, in some of her
paintings, for example, the ‘childbirth” an individual can see
the engagement between the child and the mother in a regular
day to day activity of life. Just in the same way as the family
representation had become a genre picture in the mid of 19
th
era, she made a picture of both the mother and the child to a
genre painting (Griselda Pollock, 1998). Making the mother and
the child have a close and a central unit that got transmitted not
just by their physical association but the conformation of the
portrait. In all the instances represented as below, the child and
the mother fill in almost all the entire picture and the unity of
both get enhanced in one case. The compositions of the Cassatt
has two important influences. The photography that made
several painters think regarding cropped, close-up images and
the Japanese woodcuts while avoiding the perspective in the
treatment of space.
Cassatt: Mother and child
Although in the above painting Cassatt does not have
the mirrors in them, though she often uses the mirrors.
However, in the other paintings, she employs the use of the
mirrors to permit the women and the children in a given picture
and the mother in another painting to complete a significant

4. section of the picture. In other paintings that involve the mirror,
it may represent a remark on the pride of female and the desire
of delight as an individual looks at herself in the mirror. Also,
since the reproductions are not a reality, when a significant part
of the picture that is not real as well is a replication, there is a
double interpretation on the function of painting as something
that can get reconstructed into a reality, and this realizes the
image an individual want it to be.
Cassatt: Reading the Le Figaro, 1878. The mirror.
In the book, Cassatt accepts both the restrictions of the
women sphere and resist them from the Representation of the
little girl to her pictures of the women at opera. In this pictures,
she seems to acknowledge the social boundaries of the subject
matter necessary for female artists. However, through the
reconstruction of the traditional subjects, she gives a challenge
to the status quo together with the artistic. The paintings that
involve the mirrors are essential since they provide an
impression of a woman looking at herself in the mirror and also
shows the woman is oblivious to the reflection. This shows that
instead of being the passive object to draw the attention of
others, for instance, the male often looks at the female, she has
instead become active (Griselda Pollock, 1998). The woman
looking at herself in the mirror can become a metaphor for the
female artist who has an active look at the world that gives
another mirror image in the paintings of Cassatt. The meaning
is even made stronger in her paintings by the utilization of her
mother as she reads the French newspaper and the mother was
fluent enough in reading the newspaper in French. From the
painting, it can be seen that she was reading the first page that
could have presented the most important information of the day
when compared to the social or fashion declarations. The
paintings show three main things; a great woman who
commands the paintings through her body, a well-educated
woman and also a woman having an interest in the outside
world.

5. Cassatt also had an image of Lydia, her sister that presents a
female that has established herself as egotistical seeking
attention to be admired by others though Cassatt challenged
her intellect as a person who just exposes herself to get
attention.
Lydia in a lodge, 1879.
Even though her sister as the subject in this work
appears to be alone, the paintings show her reflected against the
mirror revealing her back. Cassatt uses the mirror so that it
produces a reflection to make her sister occupy space that
otherwise would be occupied by a man. The woman appears to
stare at something instantly and enjoys it. Like other several
paintings done by Cassatt, she chooses placements situated with
in the framework, in such a manner that she occupies a oblique
quota of the canvas starting from the higher corner of a given
flank and ends on another side that is at or beneath the
woman’s knees. Encompassing the totality of the scene.
Conclusions
Cassatt had chosen a feminine subject in the book in her
artwork and designs and her exposition in Chicago, the murals
portrayed the current style of dress that showed the control of
the women on their space and not only in the presence of the
men that was true to the social certainties of the time. She had
questioned the traditional ways in which the women got
represented through her actions by representing them in a
different way.
The artwork done by Mary Cassatt included the light
palette and the loose brushwork of the impressionism with the
contents getting influenced by the art of the Japanese together
with the old masters of Europe working with several media in
her career. The versatility in Mary to institute the professional
accomplishment at a time when only a few women got regarded
as serious artists. The artwork of Cassatt that depicted a

6. domestic setting in and of the world, cleverly did not depict the
limits that existed in which as a woman were restricted to her
as compared to the amount of public spaces available to her
male contemporaries who had the freedom to exhibit (
Broude, 2000)
. The materials and skills she presented were disregarded and
minimalized as essentially feminine while several detractors
duly noticed that she indeed fetched substantial technical skill
and the mental perception of the subject matter selected by
Cassatt for her canvas. However, she continued with her
paintings and used the mirror to produce a reflection that would
fill the space with inanimate objects that would have been
images of males due to the absence of female participation on
the social scene at that period in history when society was
largely represented by men and factually most people
disregarded women in the period before women’s rights,
socially, politically and professionally.
With her business acumen in concert with the friendship
and the professional relationships he had with the artists,
dealers and even the collectors on every side of the Atlantic,
Mary established herself as an essential figure in the 19
th
century and helped create the taste for the impressionist art in
the United States.
References
Broude, N. (2000). Mary Cassatt: a Modern Woman or the cult
of true womanhood?
Woman's Art Journal
,
21
(2), 36-43.
Mary Cassatt: Painter of Modern Women (World of
Art) Paperback – September 1, 1998, Used from
by

7. Griselda Pollock.