Berthe Morisot's paintings of her daughter, Julie Manet

       Images of fashionable bourgeois women were Berthe Morisot’s métier. She relied on her sister Edma and her friends to sit for many such paintings. But when her daughter, Julie, was born on November 14, 1878, she became her mother’s favorite model. Here are representative paintings from each of five stages of Julie’s life. The accompanying quotes are from my historical novel, La Luministe.

1. Here’s my description of Julie’s first appearance, with Angèle, Berthe’s seconde mere:

                                 The Wetnurse, 1879

"As soon as I felt myself again, I began to make paintings of my baby, relying on watercolors in order to work faster. The first fine day of spring, I set up Julie and Angèle in the back garden. As always, I wanted to show my subjects surrounded by space and light. Angèle was a cloud of white in a whirling sea of green. Only her umbrella thrown to one side and her straw hat on the other anchored her to the earth. Perspective and modeling seemed beside the point."

2.  When Julie reached toddlerhood, Berthe used hastily scribbled pastels rather than oils to capture her daughter. One such work, The Veranda, depicts only a discarded     tea set and an empty chair; Julie had already made her escape.

"From then on, Julie was my primary model. When she grew to be a toddler, I showed her holding her doll, or floating her toy boat in the lake in the Bois. She became an angelic, round-faced child, if a sometimes impatient model."

                    Girl with Doll (Julie Manet), 1882

3.  A series of paintings of Julie and her father, Eugene Manet, is especially affecting when you remember that Eugene often cared for Julie so that Berthe could paint. Of course, when Berthe painted her family, in her own way she was a part of the family portrait.

"I tried to capture the kind of father Eugène was to his daughter in the painting I made one summer of the two of them in the garden at le Mesnil. Eugène, in his summer hat, was reading to little Julie as she sat watching her red toy boat drift around a small pond. The boat—the center of the composition—was for my enjoyment, reminding me of the boats of Lorient, Cherbourg, the Isle of Wight, Nice. My little family was the calm in a whirling composition, cocooned in a circle of green and yellow leaves dappled with white light."

     Eugene and Julie in Bougival

4. Berthe and Julie were inseparable. Berthe taught her daughter the alphabet, using a book she illustrated. They often drew or painted side by side.

The Drawing Lesson

5.  After Eugene Manet’s death, Berthe created a series of portraits of Julie grieving for her father. These works coincided with Berthe’s return to Renaissance painting techniques—rich hues and long brushstrokes that were perfect for portraying the willowy young woman that 16-year-old Julie had become.

"Laërtes sat with me during hours of mourning, silent except for an occasional shivering sigh."

                                           Julie Manet and her Greyhound, Laertes, 1893

The Artist's Sister at a Window, by Berthe Morisot

Intimate Impressionism, an exhibition showing at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco through August 14, 2014, features works on tour while their permanent home in the National Gallery undergoes renovation. The collection includes 12 important oil paintings by Berthe Morisot. Only one is included in Intimate Impressionism, and it’s also the only work by a woman artist in the show, but it is a good one.

The Artist’s Sister at a Window (1869) features the signature characteristics of Berthe Morisot’s paintings. She often painted women lost in thought, and once you learn that her sister Edma was expecting a child when she sat for this painting, it’s easy to imagine the focus of her reverie. (Edma often modeled for her sister. See The Cradle on the Discussion Questions page, for a look at Edma as a new mother.) Berthe has shown Edma seated in an armchair by an open window, but oblivious to anything outside. She looks at a Japanese fan—a reference to the current fad of Japonisme—but does she see it? Berthe’s use of muted colors reinforces the pensive mood of the painting.

Something else might also have been on Edma’s mind when Berthe painted her during the autumn of 1869, shortly after she married and left Paris. It was the first time that the two sisters had been separated, and Berthe went for a visit as soon as Edma was settled. Although Edma had trained to be an artist, some thought a more talented artist than Berthe, she had succumbed to societal pressure to marry, which effectively ended her artistic career. Without the stimulation of other artists, and with domestic duties, and soon a child, to occupy her,

Not only does the fan symbolize Japonisme, but the painting itself exhibits its influence. Like the woodblock prints that were the rage, The Artist’s Sister at a Window shows a single figure against a plain background.

All of the Impressionists were interested in depicting modernity—the new broad boulevards, the café concerts and other entertainments where, for the first time, workers and haute-bourgeoises mingled. But as a woman, Berthe was unable to join them, or even to meet her colleagues at a café for talk about art. So for the most part, she showed women in contained spaces, not fully participating in the modern world. Through the French doors behind Edma, one can make out male figures standing under green awnings on balconies outside the modern apartment buildings across the street, observing the passers-by below. Edma remains inside.

Although this is an indoor scene, outdoor light pours in through those French doors. Berthe’s love of light is evident in the way she shows it reflecting off of the white door, edges the front of the armchair, and illuminates Edma’s peignoir.

Reverie, modernity, Japonisme, and light—these are as much a part of Berthe Morisot’s artistic palette as are her paints.

In La Luministe, I describe a similar painting, Mother and Sister of the Artist:

I had posed my subjects in the drawing room, with morning light pouring in the front windows, reflecting off the gilt-framed mirror behind the white sofa and falling on Edma’s white peignoir. I painted her without gesture or expression. The book Maman read was the focus of my sister’s reverie. She was no longer an artist, and not yet a mother. What, then, was the essence of Edma? It seemed that an absence of detail would allow the viewer to search for what she withheld from the rest of the world. A silent, still woman was nevertheless a woman with a complex inner life. She was well-dressed, prosperous and proper, but what was deeply feminine about her—about all women—was separate from that. To me, this secret self, keeping something unknown, was what defined a woman. 

Intimate Impressionism will travel to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio from 9/3/14-1/4/15, to the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Tokyo 2/7/15-5/24/15, and then to the Seattle Art Museum from 11/15-1/4/2016.