Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) was a French painter and founding member of Impressionism, known for portraits and intimate scenes of domestic life.

The Cradle: A painting by Berthe Morisot depicting her sister Edma watching her sleeping daughter in a cradle. Its tender domestic scene became one of Morisot’s best-known images.
Édouard Manet: A French painter central to modernist painting who portrayed Morisot and became her brother-in-law. Their artistic exchange shaped her early career, while his brother Eugène became her husband.
Impressionism: A nineteenth-century art movement that pursued modern subjects and transient effects of light through visible brushwork. Morisot helped establish the movement and exhibited in its independent shows.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: A French landscape painter who taught Morisot and introduced her to outdoor painting. His instruction gave her an early foundation in landscape and working directly from nature.
Women in Impressionism: Women artists who participated in Impressionism despite restrictions in art education, travel, and public life. Morisot’s career shows both the movement’s opportunities and the constraints women faced.
Summer's Day: A painting by Berthe Morisot showing two women in a boat on a lake in the Bois de Boulogne. Its modern leisure scene pairs loose brushwork with a carefully composed setting.
Eugène Manet: A French painter and brother of Édouard Manet who married Berthe Morisot in 1874. He supported Morisot’s career and frequently appeared in her paintings.
Alla prima: A painting technique in which wet paint is applied directly to wet paint, often in a single session. Morisot’s fresh, fluid surfaces often preserve the immediacy associated with direct painting.
Louvre copyists: Artists who made copies of paintings in the Louvre as a form of study and practice. Morisot studied and copied old masters at the Louvre before exhibiting her own work.
Impressionist exhibitions: A series of independent Paris art exhibitions held by Impressionist artists between 1874 and 1886. Morisot exhibited in all but one, helping sustain the group’s alternative to the official Salon.

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