On April 15, 1874, Impressionism was born in Paris. 150 years after the birth of this famous artistic movement, the art exhibition dedicated to the impressionist painter opens at Palazzo Ducale in Genoa Berthe Morisot, painter of light, from the title“Impression, Morisot”
The art exhibition, scheduled until 23 February 2025, was organized in close collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts of Nice.
The “Impression Morisot” exhibition
This event, which reserves some scientific innovations related to the stays on the Riviera to the influence on his work, is part of the official celebrations of the 150th anniversary of impressionism and is included in the commemorative season launched by the Orsay Museum in Paris, whose director will sign a text in the catalogue.
Through more than 80 works, photographic and archive documents, the exhibition will retrace, touching on previously unpublished aspects, the entire career and private life of the artist, who shared his intimate, family and professional journey not only with the greatest artists of the time, but also with intellectual figures such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Emile Zola.
The curator of the exhibition is Marianne Mathieu, one of the most renowned experts on the work of Berthe Morisot and a scholar of the history of impressionism, protagonist of many scientific discoveries in this field, who also curates the exhibition in Nice: Berthe Morisot. Impressionist scales.
The exhibition is a project of the Palazzo Ducale Foundation for Culture with Electa, also publisher of the catalog of both exhibitions dedicated to Berthe Morisot, and is supported by the Liguria Region and the Municipality of Genoa.
How impressionism was born
150 years ago impressionism was born in Paris: an “earthquake in the history of art”.
Rejected by the official Salon which brought together artists linked to the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the French capital, 30 young painters gathered in the studio of photographer Felix Nadar, where they exhibited 63 works.
Among the young dissidents Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet. And only one painter: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895).
Together they gave life to the impressionist movement, a term born from what was intended to be the jab of a critic, who judged their way of painting to be incomplete and imprecise.
Berthe Morisot
Great-granddaughter of the painter Fragonard, Berthe Morisot was introduced to painting from an early age.
At the time, access to the Academies was forbidden to women, so in 1865 her parents created an atelier in their garden, providing Berthe and her sisters with private painting lessons.
The Morisot sisters also had the opportunity to frequent the Louvre, practicing copying masterpieces.
Artistically Berthe had her first artistically important experience following J. Baptiste Camille Corotwho introduced her to painting en plein air.
It was an opportunity to come into contact with first-rate artists such as Henry Fantin LaTour And Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
In 1868 Berthe met the already established Edouard Manet; over time it has become his most important artistic reference. Manet portrayed the young Berthe on at least eleven occasions.
With the collaboration of her husband, the painter transformed her home into a meeting place for intellectuals and artists, receiving among others Zola, Mallarmè, Rossini, Renoir, Daumier, Monet And Degas.
Artistically, Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot inspired and influenced each other so much so that she began to paint more essential scenes and less traditionally constructed figures. Manet expressed his interest in outdoor painting, the quicker and less compact brushwork, the brighter colors.
Morisot’s first success came with a canvas exhibited at the 1970 Salon.
The work portrayed the painter’s mother and sister and had been reworked by Manet himself, to the point that Berthe herself was annoyed by it and stated that she no longer wanted to exhibit it because it seemed like a “caricature” to her.
Berthe had freed herself and detached herself from the rules of conventional painting. In fact, against Manet’s opinion, she already participated in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874
She was the first woman to challenge academia to adopt this new language, soon followed by others like her Marie Bracquemond, Eva Gonzales And Mary Cassatt.
Compared to other Impressionists, Berthe used to use preparatory studies and sketches, working on transparencies and on the optical properties of colour.
In Berthe’s works, detail and form are subordinated to color and its rapid application.
The brushstrokes go in every direction and are broad, the bright and vibrant colors are the result of a technique that mixes oil with the transparencies of watercolour.
Berthe preferred to paint environments with women and children.
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