This is one of my favorite recent posts of yours. I adore Morisot’s work and your piece represents it well. I hadn’t thought of the connection with labor, which was insightful.
How she and male impressionists portrayed women caring for their bodies (bathing, brushing hair…) is also illuminating. As you note, Morisot was a woman of privilege, yet her work creates an intimacy that isn’t acquisitive. Quite unlike her more famous brother in law.
I think you are stretching here. Both painters did few paintings depicting labor. Morisot focused much on the domestic world of women of her class. Caillebotte also did some more or less traditional views of women, i.e., they are basically doing nothing, including nudes, but what is far more interesting about him is that he placed men in roles usually only depicted of women--taking a bath, playing the piano, etc.
I got a great book of all of morisot’s paintings which I looked through fairly recently…and I think there’s more on labor than you’re suggesting. there are other pictures of women doing washing; also pictures of fruit picking, sewing, of nurses caring for her child…and of other artistic endeavors like music and painting. and of course the famous pictures of her at her mirror arranging clothes, which I think is a kind of labor (and I think she represents it as such.)
I’m less familiar with caillebotte’s whole oeuvre, but depictions of labor were definitely a thing for male impressionists in general…and I think that even if this is his only picture, you can still think about what it means and how he thinks about labor!
This is one of my favorite recent posts of yours. I adore Morisot’s work and your piece represents it well. I hadn’t thought of the connection with labor, which was insightful.
How she and male impressionists portrayed women caring for their bodies (bathing, brushing hair…) is also illuminating. As you note, Morisot was a woman of privilege, yet her work creates an intimacy that isn’t acquisitive. Quite unlike her more famous brother in law.
Yes; they were close friends but you do wonder what she thought about Olympia! (maybe she said somewhere...?)
I think you are stretching here. Both painters did few paintings depicting labor. Morisot focused much on the domestic world of women of her class. Caillebotte also did some more or less traditional views of women, i.e., they are basically doing nothing, including nudes, but what is far more interesting about him is that he placed men in roles usually only depicted of women--taking a bath, playing the piano, etc.
I got a great book of all of morisot’s paintings which I looked through fairly recently…and I think there’s more on labor than you’re suggesting. there are other pictures of women doing washing; also pictures of fruit picking, sewing, of nurses caring for her child…and of other artistic endeavors like music and painting. and of course the famous pictures of her at her mirror arranging clothes, which I think is a kind of labor (and I think she represents it as such.)
I’m less familiar with caillebotte’s whole oeuvre, but depictions of labor were definitely a thing for male impressionists in general…and I think that even if this is his only picture, you can still think about what it means and how he thinks about labor!