9781422271735

MASTERS OF ART

scenes. Although her art departed from the traditional constructed compositions such as this, she remained, like Degas, a determined Realist in her intimate paintings that concentrated on the mother-and-child theme. The influence of Manet’s painting The Balcony is evident here, but the painting technique is still traditional, and the influence of Murillo can be seen in the figure on the left.

PLATE 4 (left) On the Balcony, During the Carnival (1873) Oil on canvas, 39 3 ⁄ 4 x 32 ¼ inches (101 x 82.5 cm) Apart from the background of her traditional training in Philadelphia, the first real influence on Cassatt’s work was that of the Spanish tradition of Realism in genre

be elected as Prince President of the Second Republic. During the succeeding three years, he worked assiduously and intelligently to consolidate his position, engineered a coup d’état in December of 1851, and was renamed Napoleon III, creating the Second Empire, which was formally introduced in December of 1852. It was not an auspicious time for the Cassatt family to have arrived in Paris. Troops were positioned throughout the city and had occupied the Chamber of Deputies, the seat of government. Hundreds of citizens were killed, and as many as 30,000 were arrested or deported to Algeria, which was then a French colony. The French Revolution of 1789 was still remembered by the older citizens, a new Imperialism was unsettling and undesirable, and tension was mounting in an armed Paris. Although they had begun to settle in the city, the Cassatts moved to Germany, where they remained until 1855 before returning to America. However, they visited Paris en route to visit the Exposition Internationale, and Mary remained attracted to Paris despite the short time she spent there.

On their return to America, they settled back into the familiar routine, and Mary was expected to follow her traditional domestic role. But at the age of sixteen she rebelled and, as might be anticipated, enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts against the wishes of her father. She came from such an affluent background of solid respectability, and was indeed a young socialite, that her actions were all the more deplored by friends and acquaintances; but more importantly, she was to prove something of a problem to the Academy. She insisted on following the normal course undertaken by her male colleagues, declared that she intended to be a professional artist, and persuaded the authorities to accept her in all subjects apart from studies of the male nude. At the time, it was still assumed that the mere sight of a nude male was improper and dangerous for a female and could potentially lead to immorality. As a female student, however, she was permitted to make drawings from plaster casts, usually of Classical subjects. When one remembers that all too frequently in the “Victorian” mid century sculptures wore a fig leaf, prurience may well 11