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.