Mary Cassatt Famous Quotes & Facts  [ Mary Cassatt Legacy ]

So who was Marry Cassatt?

Mary Cassatt was an American artist who challenged society and went on to become a famous painter. Cassatt was not just an ordinary painter, she was one of the prominent female painters of the French impressionist movement.

Maternal Caress by Mary Cassatt

This painting displays one of Cassatt's favorite themes: mothers caring for their children. The composition reemphasizes the feeling of love that mothers have for children showing the child in the carrying arms of the mother.

Mary Cassatt Quotes

•  "There's only one thing in life for a woman; it's to be a mother... A woman artist must be ... capable of making primary sacrifices." - Mary Cassatt

•  "I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up." - Mary Cassatt

•  “At some future time I shall see New York the artist's ground. I think you will create an American School.” - Mary Cassatt

• "Why do people so love to wander? I think the civilized parts of the World will suffice for me in the future." - Mary Cassatt

After the Bullfight by Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt decided to paint a Spanish bullfighter, producing this masterpiece painting of a torero, in full regalia cloth. Cassatt painted the composition when she stayed in Seville, Spain. Growing up in Philadelphia and living in Paris, Cassatt was always adventures, and she ventured solely by herself to Spain. She went to investigate the country’s art masters, and to learn different artistic techniques of modern painters like Édouard Manet. Cassatt Represented the bullfighter as a carefree individual, far distant from the spectacle and brutality of the ring. Cassatt ignored the background details in the painting, Instead, she focused on providing a modernist keenness to the fighter. She centered solely on the male character of the painting, and gave him a relaxed pose, she did this by using strong brushwork, and rich pigment to express his clothes.

• "I am independent! I can live alone and I love to work." - Mary Cassatt

• “It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.” - Mary Cassatt

• "I hated conventional art. I began to live." - Mary Cassatt

• "I have touched with a sense of art some people – they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that joy for an artist?" - Mary Cassatt

• "Acceptance, under someone else's terms, is worse than rejection." - Mary Cassatt

• “Women should be someone and not something.” - Mary Cassatt

• "Americans have a way of thinking work is nothing. Come out and play they say." - Mary Cassatt

• "American women have been spoiled, treated and indulged like children; they must wake up to their duties." - Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt Self-portrait

Mary Cassatt painted this watercolor self-portrait around 1880, a year after she started showing her artwork with the French impressionists. Cassatt used her art to address the various themes of the modern woman as a mother, as an academician, and a professional artist. Although she is dressed fashionably in this painting, Cassatt seems to be mirroring the viewer's gaze.

 

 

• “I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art. It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.” - Mary Cassatt

• "There are two ways for a painter: the broad and easy one or the narrow and hard one." - Mary Cassatt

• "If painting is no longer needed, it seems a pity that some of us are born into the world with such a passion for line and color." - Mary Cassatt

• “It is as well not to have too great an admiration for your master's work. You will be in less danger of imitating him.” - Mary Cassatt

• "Cezanne is one of the most liberal artists I have ever seen. He prefaces every remark with Pour Moi it is so and so, but he grants that everyone may be as honest and as true to nature from their convictions; he doesn't believe that everyone should see alike." - Mary Cassatt

• “Sometimes it made him [Degas] furious that he could not find a chink in my armor, and there would be months when we just could not see each other, and then something I painted would bring us together again.” - Mary Cassatt

• "I have not done what I wanted to, but I tried to make a good fight." - Mary Cassatt

• "The first sight of Degas' pictures was the turning point of my artistic life.” - Mary Cassatt

Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly by Mary Cassatt

Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly is an oil on canvas painting by Mary Cassatt completed in 1880. Cassatt was inspired to create this composition when her family came to enjoy the summer at Marly-le-Roi, approximately ten miles west of Paris. Disregarding the village’s well-known landmarks, Cassatt concentrated rather on her sister, she represented her elder sister, Lydia, fashionably in this painting. Lydia became a common subject of Cassatt's artwork until her death in 1882.

Mary Cassatt Facts

• Mary Cassatt was born on May 23, 1844, and raised in Pennsylvania. Cassatt comes from a wealthy family, however, she lived most of her life in France.

• Mary Cassatt was enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and wanted to become a professional artist from a very young age. When Cassatt enrolled in school it was the very beginning of the American Civil War.

• Mary Cassatt learned to speak French and German as a child, which would assist her considerably in her later life living in France.

• Mary Cassatt decided to end her studies Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts due to the inequality woman faced studying at the school. She moved to Paris to study the old masters on her own.

Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge by Mary Cassatt

Cassatt produced a series of theater paintings in the late 1870s, representing the city nightlife shared by various Impressionist artists. This painting shows a woman (frequently said to be her sister Lydia) sitting on a large red chair at the top row of the Paris Opéra House. The sharp painting form of the Impressionists style can be observed as Cassatt was profoundly inspired by the impressionist movement when she produced this artwork.

Top 20 Mary Cassatt Famous Paintings [Art Masterpieces]

 

• In 1866 at the age of 22, Cassatt was admitted as a private student by the famous neoclassical artist Zhang Liang Jerome.

• Mary Cassatt obtained a license to become a copyist in the Louvre museum. As a copyist, she painted famous paintings to learn the painting techniques of the old masters, and later sell the paintings.

• impressionist Edgar Degas did numerous paintings, drawings, and prints of Cassatt and her sister, as they walked through the Louvre museum. Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt remained lifelong friends. By 1874 Cassatt had established herself as professional artists in Paris.

• During the Franco-Prussian War Mary Cassatt moved back to the United States. However, after the war, Cassat moved back to France in 1874, where she would live the rest of her life in France.

• Mary Cassatt would exhibit her artwork with great Impressionist artists in 1880,1881 and 1886. Mary Cassatt herself thought that she was really no longer an impressionist after1886, which held the last impressionist group show in Paris.

Mary Cassatt Legacy [ Impact ]

Mary Cassatt faced many obstacles as a woman artist, in a male-dominated profession. However, the barriers she overcame gave Mary Cassatt a sense of accomplishment as a woman artist. As an outspoken advocate for women artists and women's rights, she became a 'new woman' or a feminist in our modern day language. Cassatt's importance in art history has been notable and influential especially in the later 20th and 21st centuries. Cassatt is deemed to be of the most successful American expatriate artists of the late 1800s.

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