Artist + Self

    Berthe Morisot was a French painter, she was born on January 14, 1841 in Bourges, France. Unfortunately she passed away on March 2, 1895 in Paris, France. Berthe Morisot was a member of the circle of painters in the "impressionists. In 1864 she exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. After that her work was selected for exhibition by six subsequent salons. The picture I chose is a painted picture of the Artist Berthe Morisot. I was inspired to choose this artist because she has a story that I enjoyed and caught my attention.

     I chose a picture of herself that is painted because I wanted to share her story. I tried to capture her appearance from her painted picture of herself to the picture that I took of myself. Berthe's story caught my attention because it said that Morisot was born in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family. This meant that It was commonplace for daughters of bourgeois families to receive art education, so Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma were taught privately by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph Guichard. My favorite part of her story is that because her sister and her were art students they were close to each other. So Berthe and Edma worked closely together until 1869, but then when Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer, Edma moved to Cherbourg, and had less time to paint. Then Edma and Berthe always stayed in contact with each other by sending each other letters. Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthe's continued work and their families always remained close. Edma wrote “I am often with you in thought, dear Berthe. I’m in your studio and I like to slip away, if only for a quarter of an hour, to breathe that atmosphere that we shared for many years…”.

  Source: https://www.wikiart.org/en/berthe-morisot