Mary Cassatt Essays - Mary Cassatt, Printmaking, Drypoint

Mary Cassatt She was a woman who soared to the stars across the firmament of the male-dominated international art world. She was the only American, male or female, to become a member of the French Impressionists. Most women of her time were confined to the circumscribed world of marriage, homemaking and motherhood, but not her. Who is she? She is Mary Cassatt, certainly the greatest American female artist of her time, and arguably the greatest artist produced by any nation. Born in Pittsburgh on May 23, 1844, this American artist studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia before traveling extensively throughout Europe. The daughter of an affluent businessman, Cassatt's parents were not enthused with their daughter's aspirations to become an artist, preferring instead for her to return home to marry and settle down. But the independent Cassatt made Paris her permanent home in 1874, the year of the first Impressionist Exhibition and Cassatt's first Salon success. She met Degas in 1877 and the relationship had an immediate effect on Cassatt's work. While she employed an impressionist style and exhibited at 4 of 8 Impressionist exhibitions, her paintings express a uniqueness of their own. Most famous for her mother and daughter paintings, Cassatt also called upon other motifs which depicted the world around her. Access to the cafes and corridors of her male counterparts were denied to women, yet Cassatt's paintings are expressions of h er ability to circumvent these limitations and reflect another aspect of Parisian modern life. She produced genre paintings and portraiture, and Cassatt's depictions of women are ones of independent and powerful beings. The first three decades of Cassatt's career was largely shaped by outside influences- art school in the 1860s, the masters of realism in the 1870s, and the French Impressionists in the 1880s. The decade of the 1890s marks a period when her unique creativity and individual style at last emerged unfettered.1 Cassett experimented with a new media that would create a more linear effect. She used a drypoint technique, which involves scratching a sharp needle on a metal surface from which prints are made. This style suited her needs perfectly and she made produced over a hundred of these elegant works. It was an exciting art, of which Cassatt said, ?In drypoint you are down to the bare bones, you can't cheat.?1 After Cassatt perfected the drypoint technique she began to work with etching and a new technique that placed her at the forefront of the new graphic arts movement in Paris. This new technique was called aquatint, a method of engraving by treating the surface of a copper plate with an acid to give the effect of a watercolor. With the combination drypoint and aquatint, Cassatt produced a series of 10-color prints that stunned the art world. Woman Bathing; drypoint and aquatint on laid paper, plate: 14 3/8 x 10 1/2 in.,sheet: 17 x 11 3/4 in.; McNay Art Institute, McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, TX, Gift of Margaret Batts Tobin, is part of the 1891 print series that explores the private activities of women. The print seems to represent an expression of a semi-nude, voluptuous woman bathing with her toilette. As an attempt to formally critique this print primarily on visual effects using the elements of it, it is most important to describe the strong use of line represented. The print is drawn in very simple lines, lines that highlight Cassatt's impeccable draftsmanship. The sensuous curve of the woman's back is an example of a lucid line. There are many straight as well, for example the lines that portray the mirror and those that compose the basin stand. Line also plays and important role in relation to shape. There are many nice geometric shapes represented in this print due to the abundance of straight lines. The mirror and the door of the basin are examples of geometric squares. The Woman's back also forms a somewhat geometric triangle. But, in addition to geometric shapes, there are also organic shapes as well. The various bottles that rest on the basin stand, the designs on the rug, and the pitcher next to the stand are all prime examples of organic shapes. The use of form in this print suggests