Impressionism is a major art movement that dominated the late 19th century and early 20th century. It started with a group of Paris-based artists who banded together to organize independent exhibitions outside of government-approved “Salons.” They
Impressionism is a major art movement that dominated the late 19th century and early 20th century. It started with a group of Paris-based artists who banded together to organize independent exhibitions outside of government-approved “Salons.” They formed these centers to showcase their work directly to the public since the Salons criticized and rejected most of their products. Generally, impressionism depicted realistic scenes of modern life and also attempted to objectively and accurately emphasize the passage of time using light. The three impressionist paintings “The Artist’s Sister at a Window” by Berthe Morisot in 1869; “Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878” by Mary Cassatt; and “Girl Braiding her Hair, 1876” by Pierre Auguste Renoir all portray everyday activities, the feministic and religious values of the painters, and have similar compositions, but they differ in color, lighting, model, pose, and dressing.
An immediate prima facie similarity is that these paintings depict women in everyday situations. Mary Cassatt’s “Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878” shows a young girl sprawled on a blue armchair in a room with a dog dozing on the opposite chair. There is nothing else in the room apart from the girl, the dog, and two more chairs in the background, which have a similar design (“Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878”). Berthe Morisot’s “The Artist’s Sister at a Window, 1869,” portrays a woman sitting on a chair with her legs propped up on the windowsill. She has a paper in her hands and is completely engrossed in it, uninterested in the outside world that is visible through the open window (“The Artist’s Sister at a Window, 1869”). Pierre Auguste Renoir’s “Girl Braiding Her Hair, 1876,” portrays a young girl plaiting her long hair while concentrating on something beyond the viewer’s vision of the painting. Rather than more formal paintings where the subject sits for a portrait in a rigid pose, the women of these paintings are in more candid positions. For instance, the young girl on the sofa looks bored, the teenage girl is absorbed in her reading, and the young woman seems pensive. Additionally, none of them even seem aware that their likeness is being taken. Therefore, although each painting has its unique theme, each portrays a girl in an everyday situation.
Another similarity with the paintings is their compositions. All these paintings use oil-based paints as a medium; therefore, they are referred to as oil-on-canvas paintings. Renoit, Morisot, and Cassatt each use lively and complementary colors as opposed to neutral grey, white, and black tones that were commonly used by traditional painters of the 19th century. Additionally, the paintings are all dominated with loose brushstrokes, which makes them appear casually painted. This style of painting gives viewers the impression of effortlessness by the artist. It is this similarity that places all three paintings in the same genre. Generally, the use of loose brushstrokes in impressionists’ paintings made them look sketchy, especially among traditional painters of the 19th century (Boswell and Corbett 221). As a result, skeptics often argued that these paintings were unfinished. It was this criticism that gave these types of art their name, impressionist art. In this regard, these paintings have a similar composition of sketchiness that was deemed unconventional at the time of their creation.
All these paintings are set indoors but contrast in terms of color and lighting. In the “Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878,” the artist uses vibrant shades of blue and green. Even the dark shades have rich tones. There are bright colors in the foreground contrast with shadows to show limited lighting coming through two large, closed windows. This use of colors, composition, and a light source reveals the influence of both Japanese prints and her peer Edgar Degas (Bullard 24). In “The Artist’s Sister at a Window, 1869,” the painter uses shades of white throughout the painting. The picture has a considerable amount of light that enters through the open window (Kräussl, Lehnert, and Martelin 101). This style illustrates Morisot’s preference for using white alone or mixed with other colors to create a sort of transparency. In “Girl Braiding her Hair, 1878,” the artist uses a stark contrast between the white, peach, and auburn of the subject and the charcoal background (“Young Woman Braiding her Hair, 1876”). There is no immediate visible source of light, which, when combined with the color scheme, makes it seem like the woman herself could be the source of light. This use of color creates perfect contrast, which enhances various strokes and harmony in the painting. Overall, the artists’ combinations of different colors and varying amounts of light enabled them to achieve good harmony of light and color.
A significant difference in the paintings is their use of pose, likely in response to the relative ages of the girls. In the “Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878,” the ch