“The Child’s Bath” by Mary Cassatt
“The Child’s Bath” by Mary Cassatt was inspired by Japanese woodblocks and depicts a mother or female carer bathing of a child. The female figure holds up the child firmly and protectively while washing the child’s feet. The left arm of the child braces against the mother’s thigh, while the other hand is holding on the child’s own leg. The painting reflects the dignity of motherhood.
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 skilful use of blocks of colour. The perspective of this painting was inspired by Japanese prints and Degas.
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.
Explore
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- “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper
- “Paris Street, Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte
- “American Gothic” by Grant Wood
- “The Child’s Bath” by Mary Cassatt
- “Houses of Parliament, London” by Claude Monet
- Bathers by Paul Cézanne
- “Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet
The Child’s Bath or The Bath
- Title: The Child’s Bath
- Artist: Mary Cassatt
- Year: 1893
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions 100.3 cm × 66.1 cm (39.5 in × 26 in)
- Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
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
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“Every artist was first an amateur.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Photo Credit: Mary Cassatt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons