Mary Cassatt: an Impressionism Artist

Today I wanted to continue the theme of talking about art, artists, and specifically Impressionist artists by talking about Mary Cassatt.  Cassatt is most well known for her paintings of mothers with children and for portraying motherhood thorough her art.  Most Impressionist artists focused on landscape pieces and this is where Mary Cassatt is different. 
If you don't recognize the name Mary Cassatt, you will probably recognize some of her popular pieces. So without further adieu, here are a couple. 

The Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

In the Loge

Lydia Reading the Morning Paper (No. 1)

The Child's Bath

When I began researching more about Mary Cassatt I actually found some facts that I thought were really interesting.  

Interesting fact No. 1: Mary Cassatt was good friends with Edgar Degas.  Degas and Cassatt (Monet too!) were both a part of the Impressionistic movement and worked together painting and learning about art.  

I have not talked about Degas before but he painted Mary Cassatt and I think her reaction to his painting was very interesting.  

Cassatt was not fond of this rendition of her.  She said, "It has artistic qualities but it is painful and depicts me as such a repugnant person, I don't want anyone to know that I posed for it." 

I think it would be interesting to include one of Cassatt's self-portraits.  An artist's self-portrait shows a lot because in a way it says how that artist sees themselves, through a painting.  

And finally, Cassatt and Monet were both influenced by Japanese art.  I didn't mention this in my last post about Claud Monet, but the Water Lilly Pond/Japanese Pond was influenced by Japanese art (as the second part of the name suggests).  

Here is a Mary Cassatt piece that was influenced by Japanese art.  

The Letter

This was just a touch into the life and art of Mary Cassatt.  I hope you guys enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed finding the art pieces, researching and writing it. And if you are not as influenced as art and artists as much as I am, I hope you can still see the importance and enjoy learning about a new style of art and new artists.  

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