Читать книгу Cassatt - Nathalia Brodskaya - Страница 3

When she arrived in Paris in 1866, Mary Cassatt was twenty-two years old and she was one of many young Americans who had chosen to study in Paris. They arrived, painted in numerous Parisian academies and free studios, and met one another in the same “American” cafes, those little islands of homeland in foreign France where one spoke either English or terribly-accented French. After a while, they all returned home to become famous in their hometowns, or, at most, in their states. Mary, however, was the exception; she did not go back to America. Not only did she stay in France until the end of her life, but she also devoted herself to Impressionism in defiance of the contemporary artistic conventions.

Bacchante

1872

Oil on canvas, 62 × 50.7 cm

Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania

Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Even among Impressionists, however, she was considered “strange,” and she remained for them “a foreign impressionist”. Mary never painted a single landscape, although it was precisely in landscape that the genre had originated, matured, and was expressed most vividly. Cassatt limited her work to only one intimate genre – depictions of women and children. Nevertheless, she was devoted to Impressionism such as she saw it in the work of Degas, her friend and mentor. She considered it an honour to exhibit her work together with that of Monet, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot.

During Carnival

1872

Oil on canvas, 63.5 × 54.6 cm

Private Collection

Mary fitted into this group quite naturally. She was not afraid of Paris’s merciless, poisonous criticism, or the questionable privilege of being one of the rejects, even though before she joined the Impressionists her work had already been accepted by the Salon. She was incredibly gifted and unbelievably hardworking, and her French colleagues acknowledged this without fail. Mary Cassatt found her place among the best artists of her generation. She worked masterfully in oil and pastel, as well as the difficult and laborious graphic techniques. Her independence inspired respect. Only muchlater, however, at the end of the twentieth century, was it recognised that Cassatt had accomplished the goal of future generations of artists.

Offering the Panal to the Bullfighter

1872–73

Oil on canvas, 100.6 × 85.1 cm

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

In fact, she had become the first artist of the School of Paris, which was formed at the beginning of the twentieth century. When young artists from Russia, Italy, Poland, Spain and Mexico began flocking to Paris, when Russian and American collectors became the first to purchase the new, shocking works of art, and when the literature of future American writers of renown was being born in the cafés of Montmartre and Montparnasse, the life of the blind artist Mary Cassatt was coming to an end at Château de Beaufresne in Mesnil-Théribus (Oise).

On a Balcony

1873

Oil on canvas, 101 × 54.6 cm

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The enigma of Mary Cassatt began at her very birth. Some biographers regard 1845 as the year of her birth, and her tombstone in Le Mesnil-Théribus indicates May 24th 1845. However, it is probably best to trust family archives and parish records, which record her birthday as May 22nd 1844. She was born in the United States, in Allegheny, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As she proudly told her biographer at the end of her life: “I am an American,” she said, “downright American… My mother is also an American, a daughter of Americans. Her family was of Scottish origin, who emigrated to America around 1700.

Spanish Dancer Wearing a Lace Mantilla

1873

Oil on canvas, 65 × 49.5 cm

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D. C.

Therefore our family has been established in Pennsylvania for a long time and particularly in Pittsburgh where I was born.” There was pride in the artist’s words. She was always proud of her native Pittsburgh, a steel town destined to become one of the most prosperous cities in the United States. Her ancestors were among those who settled this land beginning in the 1700’s, and they had many great achievements. Mary’s father, Robert Simpson Cassatt (1806–1891) was a banker, although, according to her own words, he “did not have the heart of a businessman at all.”

After the Bullfight

1873

Oil on canvas, 82 × 64 cm

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

He devoted much energy to the upbringing of his children, and was successful in this as well, judging by their outstanding achievements. Mary was the fourth of his five children. Her older brother, Alexander Johnston Cassatt (1839–1906), carried on the family trade, and became president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was at the same time one of the main constructors of the New York Railroad and it was he who chose and implemented the plan for Central Station, which is considered to be an architectural masterpiece. As a businessman, he possessed the taste and the sophistication of a true artist. For many years, his reputation in America eclipsed the fame his sister had gained in art.

The Young Bride

1875

Oil on canvas, 87.6 × 69.9 cm

Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey.

Perhaps the fact that her father “was full of French ideas”, according to Mary, played a special role in his children’s upbringing. That is where one more secret of the Cassatt family is revealed. It so happens that Mary’s father’s ancestors brought French blood into the family. “‘My family is of French origin, Mary related, ‘‘Well before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes – exactly in 1662 – a Frenchman named Cossart emigrated from France to Holland.” This Cossart settled in Leyde, where many documents regarding his family are found among the records of the Walloon Church. He later moved to Amsterdam before going to settle in the United States.

Mrs Duffee Seated on a Striped Sofa, Reading

1876

Oil on panel, 35 × 27 cm

Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

And, naturally, it was not by accident that Cossart chose New Amsterdam as his new home in that distant land. The name of this city was the thread connecting him with Europe. His grandson settled in Pennsylvania, where the family, now known as Cassatt, remained for good. Mary’s father was the great-grandson of this first Pennsylvanian. However, it was not the father but the mother, Katherine Kelso Johnston (1816–1895), who nourished the yearning for the faraway, still unknown, but thrilling France in the family. The children once found in their home a letter written in flawless French by their mother at the age of twelve.

Portrait of Madame X Dressed for the Matinée

1878

Oil on canvas, 100 × 81 cm

Collection of Philip and Charles Hanes

Mary had good reason to claim that “…my mother was of French culture,” even though up to that point she had not yet travelled abroad. “She was partly looked after by an American lady who once lived in the boarding school of Madame Campan, an institution where there was a fairly large number of young women coming from imperial aristocracy,” Mary related, “Circumstances brought this lady to Pittsburgh, where she accepted several pupils. From her my mother learned to speak perfect French and all of her life she continued corresponding in French with those of her friends who spoke this language. She was extremely knowledgeable about general culture and literature.”

Portrait of the Artist

1878

Gouache on paper, 59.7 × 44.5 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

It was completely natural for this family to use any excuse for a trip to France. “The most distant of my memories is being a five or six-year-old girl, learning how to read in Paris,” Mary remembered. Her parents first took her overseas in 1851 when they needed medical consultation regarding the illness of one of the children. The family remained in Europe for about five years. They not only lived in Paris, but also managed to visit other European countries. It is known, for example, that they visited Heidelberg and Darmstadt in Germany. For a child, five years is a very long time. Mary wrote and spoke in French, was immersed in a French environment, and had many unforgettable experiences.

Children in the Garden

1878

Oil on canvas, 73.6 × 92.6 cm

Collection of Mr and Mrs Meredith J. Long

When the twelve-year-old girl returned home, she was no longer a naive, wide-eyed young American, and, possibly, her dreams about the future already involved France. In 1851, before leaving for Europe, the family moved from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, where the children had many more educational opportunities. In 1858, fourteen-year-old Mary entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, which she attended for five years. Later she was able to appreciate what the school had taught her: “At the Pennsylvania Academy, we drew imitations of ancient art and antique statues,” Mary recalled.

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

1878

Oil on canvas, 89.5 × 129.8 cm

The National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

The schooling was probably limited to those first lessons offered by any art school. Mary was mature enough to realise the necessity of taking lessons from real professionals. In her opinion, “there was no education” at the Pennsylvania Academy. Indeed, in mid-nineteenth-century America, opportunities for artistic education were limited. In 1899, R. Mutter, one of the most renowned art historians of the nineteenth century, wrote that “until the United States declared independence (in 1776), America had neither painting nor sculpture. People ate and drank, built houses and reproduced. A piece of iron had more value than the best of statues, a yard of good fabric was preferred to Raphael’s Transfiguration.”

Woman Reading

1878

Oil on canvas, 78.7 × 58.9 cm

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska

In the United States, it was impossible to get acquainted with the paintings of old European masters since there were no collections there yet. Some of the settlers brought family portraits with them from Europe, but nothing more. “Moreover,” continues Mutter, “Quakers denounced art, considering it worldly vanity. Only with time, when the dollar grew strong, did enterprising European portrait artists, who did not find luck at home, begin to appear in America.

In the Loge, at the Opera

1878

Oil on canvas, 81.2 × 66 cm

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

They crossed the ocean to grace the New World with their dubious works of art. “ Young Americans were keenly aware that America was lagging behind the millennia-old European artistic tradition. Historians analysing the development of American art admit that in the nineteenth century it lacked the most important component: the classical background, the roots without which the most avant-garde artistic movements would never have developed. In 1864, art critic James Jackson Jarves wrote in the journal The Art Idea that at that moment America had “no state collections to guide a growing taste; no caste of persons of whom fashion demands encouragement to art growth; no ancestral homes, replete with storied portraiture of the past; no legendary lore more dignified than forest or savage life.” With the booming development of American industry, only technical professions were in demand, and a technical elite began to form in big cities. Painting and drawing played merely a practical role in the new civilisation since they were used mainly for design. The times when collecting art would become not only a passion for wealthy Americans, but also a cultural need for the country, had not yet arrived.

Woman Standing, Holding a Fan

1878–79

Distemper with metallic paint on canvas, 128.6 × 72 cm

Private Collection

Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge

1879

Oil on canvas, 81.3 × 59.7 cm

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This weakness of American culture gradually became more and more evident. The question of how to make up for this absence arose. “We buy, borrow, adopt and adapt,” wrote Jarves, “For some time to come, Europe must do for us all what we are in too much of a hurry to do ourselves. It remains, then, for us to be as eclectic in our art as in the rest of our civilisations.” Dozens of young Americans – for the most part men – went to England or Germany, but, naturally, most of them preferred Paris.

On the Balcony

1878–79

Oil on canvas, 89.9 × 65.2 cm

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

In the mid-nineteenth century, many professors at the École des Beaux-Arts, members of the jury of the Annual Paris Salon, and members of European academies, had their own “free” studios in the city. Anyone could draw and paint live models there, and, for a small fee, could receive all of the same instruction as in the studios of the École. Young Americans were mastering techniques of classical painting. They learned the fashionable lustre of James Tissot and imitated the realism of the rebellious Courbet and even the “untidy” sketching style of young artists. When Mary entered the Philadelphia Academy, she had already chosen her career, although not without some resistance on the part of her parents.

At the Theatre

1878–79

Pastel and gouache with metallic paint on tan wove paper, 64.6 × 54.5 cm

Private Collection

“A little before the war, so to speak around 1868, I decided to become a painter,” she remembered later, “at the same time I decided to go to Europe.” The choice of the European country where she would continue her studies was obvious. “Around 1868 my mother and I returned to Paris and stayed there for over a year.” First of all, Mary wanted to get to know France better. The diversity of the landscape and the country’s always unexpected beauty was stunning, even to its own artists. It is hard to determine the degree of Mary’s interest in landscape – she later showed no interest in it.

The Cup of Tea

1879

Oil on canvas, 92.4 × 65.4 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

However, at the beginning of her artistic journey she needed to master everything French art had to offer. Already in the 1830’s, there was a group of landscape painters who were devoting their lives to exalting the beauty and distinctive character of the French countryside. Having begun in the vicinity of Paris, in the famous Fontainebleau Forest, the “Barbizon” artists painted the fishing villages of Normandy, the woods and hills along the banks of the Seine, and the rocky shores of Brittany. By the time of Mary’s arrival in France, the best masters of French landscape – Theodore Rousseau, Jules Dupré, Narcisse Diaz, Charles-François Daubigny, Camille Corot – were not only already well-known, but had also earned an important place at the Paris Salon, and some had even joined the jury.

Lydia Leaning on Her Arms Seated in a Loge

1879

Pastel, 53.3 × 43.2 cm

The Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri

Future Impressionists were beginning to search for a new path precisely in this genre. It is hard to imagine that the young American was not at all interested in landscape. She travelled in France for some time and then returned to the United States. America was in the midst of the Civil War at the time. Mary spent two years in Philadelphia and Chicago and then went to Europe again. The years of studying in Philadelphia had been in vain, and Mary came to a sad conclusion: “I believe that you cannot learn painting, and that you do not need to follow the instructions of a teacher. The education of museums alone suffices.” She had visited some of the European museums as a young girl. But which one to choose? Despite all of the beauty of France, there was a country in Europe where all the artists, including the French, were searching for the roots of European art. Only in Italy did they find the authentic classical art whose effect on realism became especially evident in the works of Winkelman. Medieval Italian frescos taught them to understand the harmony of colours.

A Corner of the Loge

1879

Oil on canvas, 43.8 × 62.2 cm

Private Collection

At the Theatre

1879

Pastel on metallic paint on canvas, 65.1 × 81.3 cm

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The great masters of Italian Renaissance were role models for all artists, regardless of their artistic orientation. So Mary took the path everyone else had walked before. She began in Italy. “So I left for Italy and stayed in Parma for eight months, where I entered the school of Correggio, an extraordinary master!” Mary followed in the steps of her older French contemporaries, choosing old masters. “All of his charm,” Eugene Delacroix wrote of Correggio, “all his power and achievement of a genius, came from his imagination in order to awaken an echo in the imaginations created to understand it.”

Interior Scene

1879

Softground etching, aquatint and drypoint on cream laid paper, 39.7 × 31 cm

National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

When Mary went to Parma in 1872, she was twenty-eight years old. She spent eight months there. “From there I left for Spain,” Mary related, “The works of Rubens at Museo Del Prado inspired in me such admiration that I hurried from Madrid to Antwerp.” It is not a bit surprising that Rubens fascinated her. In Madrid, Rome, and Antwerp, the city of Rubens, where his house still stands, Mary studied this great native of Flanders, whose art became a starting point for her French contemporaries. Delacroix called him “the most brilliant of painters”. When Mary was studying the works of a master, she did so thoughtfully and consistently.

A Woman and a Girl Driving

1881

Oil on canvas, 89.7 × 130.5 cm

The W. P. Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“I stayed there all summer long studying Rubens,” the artist related, “It was from Rome that I returned to Paris in 1874 in order to settle there permanently”. In April 1874, at 35 boulevard des Capucines, the first exhibition of the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. took place. At that exhibition, Louis Le Roy, a critic from Le Charivari magazine, gave the new artists the name “Impressionists”. At the time, however, Mary did not yet pay enough attention to them. Despite her somewhat ironic attitude towards art teachers, Mary followed the path of other artists, and started to look for tutors – after all, future Impressionists spent time at the studio of Professor Charles Glaire! But how to choose a teacher? Perhaps her choice in this matter was not original either.