Friday, September 23, 2011

Friday Inspiration: Mary Cassatt

Baby Charles Looking Over His Mother's Shoulder
{Baby Charles Looking Over His Mother's Shoulder}

Hello,

Today I want to share with you some images of artwork by Mary Cassatt.

Finishing the still life with a portion of a Mary Cassatt pastel this week got me thinking about her work and how she depicted the special bond between mother and child. Yet as special and evocative as her images are, what is also remarkable about her work is the way she utilized color to create form.

Mary Cassatt - Young Mother Sewing [1900]
{Young Mother Sewing}

She was a master of laying layers of color on top of each other to create complex and compelling passages in her work. She utilized the impressionist practice of producing color vibrations between complementary colors, laying pure color notes on top of one another without mixing the two colors together, but instead having the eye of the viewer do the "mixing".

Cassatt, Breakfast In Bed
{Breakfast in Bed}

Cassatt, Breakfast In Bed, detail with feet
{detail of feet}

Cassatt, Breakfast In Bed, detail with faces
{detail of faces}

CassattwTeaCassatt, Breakfast In Bed, detail with tea
{detail of tea cup}

Mother and Child by Mary Cassatt
{Mother and Child}

maternity
{Maternity}

Children Playing with a Cat
{Children Playing with a Cat}

Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Mutter und Kind von Mary Cassatt
{Mother and Child}

Here is a website dedicated to Mary Cassatt

****All images are from photostreams from Flickr, please click on the image to visit flickr and the specific photostream *****************************

6 comments:

Susan Roux said...

Very nice post. I like seeing her images again. She really did capture a wonderful intimacy. It's a good reminder of not simply capturing a likeness of people, but also imposing emotion into our work.

eLIZabeth Floyd said...

Hi Susan, I am glad you like the post :) and I agree emotion trumps likeness.

Kelley Carey MacDonald said...

Oh, Elizabeth, thank you for sharing... imagine, too, how alone she must have felt sometimes!

eLIZabeth Floyd said...

Hi Kelley, I had never thought about the possibility of MC feeling alone, it always seemed like she was so in touch with others... Thanks for sharing that perspective, it gives even greater meaning to some of these intimate moments she captured.

Sarah Sedwick Studio said...

I like this post. I'm going to look at more MC work - now that I have a child myself, there is so much more meaning there than I saw ten years ago!

eLIZabeth Floyd said...

Hi Sarah, I experienced the same thing after Naomi was born :) Art is amazing how it adapts and speaks differently at different stages of life...