“Mother and Child” by Mary Cassatt depict a mother washing a child after getting up from his nap. The mother holds the child firmly and protectively while washing the child’s feet.
The right arm of the child embraces the mother’s neck and shoulder, while the other hand is used to balance its weight on the bed. The painting reflects the dignity of motherhood.
Cassatt’s artistic portrayal of women consistently reflected pride in the women’s role and the suggestion of a broader, more meaningful inner life.
Mary Cassatt
Cassatt was heavily influenced by her fellow Impressionist peers, especially Edgar Degas.
In 1890, she was struck by the prints of the Japanese woodcuts and was drawn to the simplicity and clarity of the Japanese design, and the skillful use of blocks of color. Japanese prints and Degas inspired the perspective of this painting.
Mary Cassatt was a painter and printmaker, she was born in Pennsylvania, but she lived most of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited among the Impressionists.
Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
Mary Cassatt Insights
- Cassatt enjoyed the wave of feminism that occurred in the 1840s, allowing her to access educational institutions at newly coed colleges and universities.
- Cassatt was an outspoken advocate for women’s equality, campaigning for equal scholarships in the 1860s, and the right to vote in the 1910s.
- A trip to Egypt in 1910, so impressed Cassatt with the beauty of its ancient art, that she had a crisis of creativity.
- While in France, Cassatt and Degas had an extended period of collaboration, and she also had contact with Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro.
Mother and Child (Baby Getting Up from His Nap)
- Title: Mother and Child (Baby Getting Up from His Nap)
- Artist: Mary Cassatt
- Year: 1899
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 36 1/2 x 29 in. (92.7 x 73.7 cm)
- Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art – MET
Mary Cassatt
- Name: Mary Stevenson Cassatt
- Born: 1844 – Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, United States
- Died: 1926 (aged 82) – Château de Beaufresne, near Paris, France
- Nationality: American
- Movement: Impressionism
- Notable Works
- The Child’s Bath
- Mother and Child
- The Boating Party
- Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge
- Offering the Panel to the Bullfighter
- Lady at the Tea Table
MARY CASSATT
MET European Paintings Collection
- “Pygmalion and Galatea” by Jean-Léon
- “Saint Jerome as Scholar” by El Greco
- “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” by Diego Velázquez
- “Camille Monet on a Garden Bench” by Claude Monet
- “View of Toledo” by El Greco
- “The Musicians” by Caravaggio
- “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David
- “The Harvesters” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- “Young Woman Drawing” by Marie-Denise Villers
- “The Grand Canal, Venice” by J. M. W. Turner
- “The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog)” by Claude Monet
- “Madame Cézanne in a Red Dress” by Paul Cézanne
- “The Fortune Teller” by Georges de La Tour
- “The Allegory of Faith” by Johannes Vermeer
- “Garden at Sainte-Adresse” by Claude Monet
- “Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent van Gogh
- “The Repast of the Lion” by Henri Rousseau
- “The Horse Fair” by Rosa Bonheur
- “Two Men Contemplating the Moon” by Caspar David Friedrich
- “Boy with a Greyhound” by Paolo Veronese
- “A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts” by Jean Béraud
- “Sunday at the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris” by Jean Béraud
- “The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning” by Camille Pissarro
- “The Sorrow of Telemachus” by Angelica Kauffman
Mary Cassatt
MET Modern and Contemporary Art Collection
- “Reclining Nude” by Amedeo Modigliani
- “Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)” by Wassily Kandinsky
- “Jeanne Hébuterne” by Amedeo Modigliani
- “The Card Players” by Paul Cézanne
- “Bathers” by Paul Cézanne
Mary Cassatt
MET American Wing Collection
- “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze
- “Portrait of Madame X” by John Singer Sargent
- “Mother and Child” by Mary Cassatt
- “Fur Traders Descending the Missouri” by George Caleb Bingham
- “The Gulf Stream” by Winslow Homer
- “The Parthenon” by Frederic Edwin Church
- “The Aegean Sea” by Frederic Edwin Church
- “Alexander Hamilton” by John Trumbull
- “Lady at the Tea Table” by Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt, Suffrage, and Modern Women
~~~
“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’
then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
– Vincent Van Gogh
~~~
Photo Credit: [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Popular this Week
Sponsor your Favorite Page SEARCH Search for: Search Follow UsJoin – The JOM Membership Program
Sponsor a Masterpiece with YOUR NAME CHOICE for $5
Share this:
- Tweet
