101

  • Maternal Caress

  • From the 1890-91 original
  • Mary Cassatt (American 1844-1926)
  • Color intaglio—aquatint and drypoint, published 1991 by the Bibliothèque Nationale
  • 36.6 x 26.5 cm., 14-1/2 x 10-1/2" image
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts Purchase through Gift of Drs. Richard and Paula Arnell, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 2013.

Essay by Amanda Miller, Class of 2012

Mary Cassatt, an American expatriate artist, is one of the best known female artists in all of Art History. Born into a wealthy family in 1884, she quickly became a lover of art and had a passion for depicting relationships between mothers and their children. Cassatt moved to Paris and became part of the Impressionist movement, making friends with well-known French Impressionist artists such as Edgar Degas. She changed the way women were represented in art, believing that "women should be someone, not something" (Yeh 363).

While images of mother and child are not uncommon, Cassatt brought in new techniques to emphasize their relationships. She depicted women who were emotionally attached to their children and showed their connection and enjoyment of being together. Maternal Caress demonstrates this idea. The embrace of the mother shows the love she feels towards her child. The mother is gentle and affectionate. Images like this would have reinforced to women the joys of motherhood. Cassatt once said, "To us the sweetness of childhood, the charm of womanhood, if I have not conveyed some sense of that charm, in one word, if I have not been absolutely feminine, then I have failed" (Broude 36). While never a mother herself, Cassatt used what she knew from her childhood and the lives of her friends and family to create such images.

Cassatt was heavily influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. While in Paris, she attended many different exhibitions of Japanese art. At these exhibits, Cassatt and fellow Impressionists directly confronted Japanese prints and paintings. The influence of Japanese art and its aesthetics on European and American art, called Japonisme, became more popular at this time. Japanese art had not been seen until Japan was re-opened to trade with the west in the mid nineteenth century and began exporting items. The style was different from what western artists knew from the traditions of illusionism inherited from the Old Masters, and they were fascinated by this new, provocative style. This image, Maternal Caress, comes from a print series of ten works that Cassatt designed based on Japanese art. She created this series using drypoint and aquatint techniques to masterfully imitate and even enliven the effect of Japanese woodblock prints. Japonisme is demonstrated in the flattened space; emphasis on pattern through the wallpaper, chair, and clothing; and the cropping of the image.