Pushing Boundaries From Within the Home: Legion of Honor's Women Impressionist Exhibit

At the end of September I attended the Legion of Honor’s (LOH) Women Impressionist exhibit. The exhibit featured the work of four female Impressionist painters known as the “grandes dames” of the Impressionist movement: Berthe Morisot, Marie Bracquemond, Eva Gonzalez and Mary Cassatt. I have always felt a special kinship to these female artists whose paintings I find expressively female. Almost all of their work touches on scenes within the home, mothers and children, or serene colorful landscapes. The exhibit touched on the difference between the male and female Impressionists – how males didn’t have the same social constraints that females faced. The domestic themes of many female Impressionist paintings had nothing to do with what they wanted to paint but what they were able to paint.

Personally, I was very moved by the exhibit. On one level, the art history student inside of me, there is no explanation for being able to see some of your paintings a mere few inches from your face. And on another level, the feminist part of me, I was moved by such a colossal exhibition of female artists. There was a quote of Mary Cassatt’s on the wall that read, “Women should be someone and not something” which I found particularly striking. I felt that if I were to sum up the exhibition in one sentence it would be with that quote. These are women who not only were members of one of the most cataclysmic art movements but they were radical within their identity as female artists as well. These women provided biting social commentary on the role of women through their artwork.

I think Berthe Morisot’s “Portrait of Artist’s Mother and Sister” was one of the most telling paintings in the exhibition. The painting presents the mother and sister of the artist sitting peacefully in the home. However there are these undertones of confinement that I strongly felt. The two figures seem cramped within the composition, as if there isn’t enough space, the mother’s black dress overflowing and dominating the bottom corner of the frame. The framing of a painting cuts through the sister’s head in an almost sinister and violent way. The bodies overlap each other and one can barely make out the end of a coffee table as it creeps its way into the painting. Perhaps Morisot isn’t just expressing the contemporary female’s confinement within the home but also the universal limitations for women that have carried over to this day. How many times have I felt limited? Not knowledgeable enough or not strong enough? How many times have I felt judged or taken lightly because I’m a 5’2 19 year old female? But then again perhaps I’m just over dramatic. I can vote, I can be a CEO of a company, choose my own husband, walk out in public with my thighs showing, and if not at least I can make a lot of money by suing the people who deny me those rights. When Berthe Morisot died the occupation on her death certificate read: None.

If I were to make an impact on the world my only wish would be that my death certificate reflect that.