Editing Mary Cassatt (section)

==Impressionism==
[[Image:Mary Cassatt - The Tea - MFA Boston 42.178.jpg|thumb|left|300px|''[[The Tea|Tea]]'' by Mary Cassatt, 1880, oil on canvas, 25½ × 36¼ in., [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]

Within months of her return to Europe in the autumn of 1871, Cassatt's prospects had brightened. Her painting ''Two Women Throwing Flowers During Carnival'' was well received in the Salon of 1872, and was purchased. She attracted much favorable notice in Parma and was supported and encouraged by the art community there: "All Parma is talking of Miss Cassatt and her picture, and everyone is anxious to know her".{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=79}}
[[File:Mary Cassatt - Portrait of Mrs. Currey; Sketch of Mr. Cassatt.jpg|thumb|Oil, {{Circa|1871}}, private collection. Mrs. Currey had worked for the Cassatt family. When Mary Cassatt returned home from Paris at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, she asked Mrs. Currey to pose for her and gave her the sketch. Superimposed (the canvas turned upside down) is a sketch of her father.]]
After completing her commission for the bishop, Cassatt traveled to [[Madrid]] and [[Seville]], where she painted a group of paintings of Spanish subjects, including ''Spanish Dancer Wearing a Lace Mantilla'' (1873, in the [[National Museum of American Art]], [[Smithsonian Institution]]). In 1874, she made the decision to take up residence in France. She was joined by her sister Lydia who shared an apartment with her. Cassatt opened a studio in [[Paris]]. [[Louisa May Alcott]]'s sister, [[Abigail May Alcott Nieriker|Abigail May Alcott]], was then an art student in Paris and visited Cassatt.<ref name=americanwoman/> Cassatt continued to express criticism of the politics of the Salon and the conventional taste that prevailed there. She was blunt in her comments, as reported by Sartain, who wrote: "she is entirely too slashing, snubs all modern art, disdains the Salon pictures of [[Alexandre Cabanel|Cabanel]], [[Léon Bonnat|Bonnat]], all the names we are used to revere".{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=87}}

Cassatt saw that works by female artists were often dismissed with contempt unless the artist had a friend or protector on the jury, and she would not flirt with jurors to curry favor.{{sfn|Mathews|1998|pp=104–105}} Her cynicism grew when one of the two pictures she submitted in 1875 was refused by the jury, only to be accepted the following year after she darkened the background. She had quarrels with Sartain, who thought Cassatt too outspoken and self-centered, and eventually they parted. Out of her distress and self-criticism, Cassatt decided that she needed to move away from genre paintings and onto more fashionable subjects, in order to attract portrait commissions from American socialites abroad, but that attempt bore little fruit at first.{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=96}}

[[File:Mary CASSATT, Portrait de fillette.JPG|right|thumb|180px|''Portrait de fillette'', 1879, [[Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux]]]]

In 1877, both her entries were rejected, and for the first time in seven years she had no works in the Salon.{{sfn|Mathews|1998|p=100}} At this low point in her career she was invited by Edgar Degas to show her works with the [[Impressionism|Impressionists]], a group that had begun their own series of independent exhibitions in 1874 with much attendant notoriety. The Impressionists (also known as the "Independents" or "Intransigents") had no formal manifesto and varied considerably in subject matter and technique.  They tended to prefer [[plein air]] painting and the application of vibrant color in separate strokes with little pre-mixing, which allows the eye to merge the results in an "impressionistic" manner.  The Impressionists had been receiving the wrath of the critics for several years. Henry Bacon, a friend of the Cassatts, thought that the Impressionists were so radical that they were "afflicted with some hitherto unknown disease of the eye".{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=107}} They already had one female member, artist [[Berthe Morisot]], who became Cassatt's friend and colleague. The only American officially associated with the Impressionists, Cassatt would go on to exhibit in half of the group's later exhibitions<ref>{{Cite web |last=Weinberg |first=Authors: H. Barbara |title=Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844–1926) {{!}} Essay {{!}} The Metropolitan Museum of Art {{!}} Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cast/hd_cast.htm |access-date=March 29, 2024 |website=The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |date=October 2004 |language=en}}</ref>

Cassatt admired Degas, whose [[pastel]]s had made a powerful impression on her when she encountered them in an art dealer's window in 1875. "I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could<!-- OK here: don't correct it--> of his art," she later recalled. "It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it."{{sfn|Mathews|1998|p=114}} She accepted Degas' invitation with enthusiasm and began preparing paintings for the next Impressionist show, planned for 1878, which (after a postponement because of the World's Fair) took place on April 10, 1879. She felt comfortable with the Impressionists and joined their cause enthusiastically, declaring: "we are carrying on a despairing fight & need all our forces".{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=118}} Unable to attend cafes with them without attracting unfavorable attention, she met with them privately and at exhibitions. She now hoped for commercial success selling paintings to the sophisticated Parisians who preferred the avant-garde. Her style had gained a new spontaneity during the intervening two years. Previously a studio-bound artist, she had adopted the practice of carrying a sketchbook with her while out-of-doors or at the theater, and recording the scenes she saw.{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=125}}

[[Image:Mary Cassatt - Summertime - TFAA 1988.25.jpg|thumb|left|upright|''Summertime'' by Mary Cassatt, {{Circa|1894}}, oil on canvas, [[Terra Foundation for American Art]], [[Chicago]]]]
In 1877, Cassatt was joined in Paris by her father and mother, who returned with her sister Lydia, all eventually to share a large apartment on the fifth floor of 13, Avenue Trudaine, ({{Coord| 48.8816| 2.3446}}).  Mary valued their companionship, as neither she nor Lydia had married. A case was made that Mary had narcissistic disturbance, never completing the recognition of herself as a person outside of the orbit of her mother.<ref>Zerbe, Kathryn J. "Essential Others and Spontaneous Recovery in the Life and Work of Emily Carr: Implications for Understanding Remission of Illness and Resilience." ''International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology'' 11.1 (2016): 28–49. ''PMC''. Web. October 26, 2016.</ref> Mary had decided early in life that marriage would be incompatible with her career. Lydia, who was frequently painted by her sister, had recurrent bouts of illness, and her death in 1882 left Cassatt temporarily unable to work.{{sfn|Mathews|1998|p=163}}

Cassatt's father insisted that her studio and supplies be covered by her sales, which were still meager. Afraid of having to paint "[[potboiler]]s" to make ends meet, Cassatt applied herself to produce some quality paintings for the next Impressionist exhibition.<ref name=":1" /> Three of her most accomplished works from 1878 were ''Portrait of the Artist'' (self-portrait), ''[[Little Girl in a Blue Armchair]]'', and ''Reading Le Figaro'' (portrait of her mother).

[[File:Mary Cassatt - Woman Standing, Holding a Fan, 1878–79.jpg|thumb|right|Mary Cassatt, ''Woman Standing Holding a Fan'', 1878–79, ([[Amon Carter Museum of American Art]])]]

Degas had considerable influence on Cassatt. Both were highly experimental in their use of materials, trying [[distemper (paint)|distemper]] and metallic paints in many works, such as ''Woman Standing Holding a Fan'', 1878–79 ([[Amon Carter Museum of American Art]]).<ref>{{cite book | title=Degas Cassatt | publisher=National Gallery of Art, Washington | author=Jones, Kimberly A. | year=2014 | pages=122}}</ref>

She became extremely proficient in the use of [[pastel]]s, eventually creating many of her most important works in this medium. Degas also introduced her to [[etching]], of which he was a recognized master. The two worked side by side for a while, and her [[drawing|draftsmanship]] gained considerable strength under his tutelage. One example of her thoughtful approach to the medium of drypoint as a mode for reflecting on her status as an artist is 'Reflection' of 1889–90, which has recently been interpreted as a self-portrait.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Georgopulos |first1=Nicole M. |title=Rethinking Mary Cassatt's 'Reflection' as a Self-Portrait |journal=Print Quarterly |date=December 2019 |volume=xxxvi |issue=4 |pages=425–38}}</ref> Degas in turn depicted Cassatt in a series of etchings recording their trips to the Louvre. She treasured his friendship but learned not to expect too much from his fickle and temperamental nature after a project they were collaborating on at the time, a proposed journal devoted to prints, was abruptly dropped by him.{{sfn|Mathews|1994|pp= 146–50}} The sophisticated and well-dressed Degas, then forty-five, was a welcome dinner guest at the Cassatt residence, and likewise they at his ''soirées''.{{sfn|Mathews|1994|pp= 128–31, 147}}

The Impressionist exhibit of 1879 was the most successful to date, despite the absence of [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir|Renoir]], [[Alfred Sisley|Sisley]], [[Édouard Manet|Manet]] and [[Paul Cézanne|Cézanne]], who were attempting once again to gain recognition at the Salon. Through the efforts of [[Gustave Caillebotte]], who organized and underwrote the show, the group made a profit and sold many works, although the criticism continued as harsh as ever. The ''Revue des Deux Mondes'' wrote, "M. Degas and Mlle. Cassatt are, nevertheless, the only artists who distinguish themselves... and who offer some attraction and some excuse in the pretentious show of window dressing and infantile daubing".{{sfn|McKown|1972|p=73}}

Cassatt displayed eleven works, including ''Lydia in a Loge, Wearing a Pearl Necklace, (Woman in a Loge)''. Although critics claimed that Cassatt's colors were too bright and that her portraits were too accurate to be flattering to the subjects, her work was not savaged as was [[Claude Monet|Monet]]'s, whose circumstances were the most desperate of all the Impressionists at that time.  She used her share of the profits to purchase a work by Degas and one by Monet.{{sfn|McKown|1972|pp=72–73}} She participated in the Impressionist Exhibitions that followed in 1880 and 1881, and she remained an active member of the Impressionist circle until 1886. In 1886, Cassatt provided two paintings for the first Impressionist exhibition in the US, organized by art dealer [[Paul Durand-Ruel]]. Her friend [[Louisine Elder]] married [[H.O. Havemeyer|Harry Havemeyer]] in 1883, and with Cassatt as advisor, the couple began collecting the Impressionists on a grand scale. Much of their vast collection is now in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] in New York City.{{sfn|Mathews|1994|p=167}}

Cassatt also made several portraits of family members during that period, of which ''Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and His Son Robert Kelso'' (1885) is one of her best regarded. Cassatt's style then evolved, and she moved away from Impressionism to a simpler, more straightforward approach. She began to exhibit her works in New York galleries as well. After 1886, Cassatt no longer identified herself with any art movement and experimented with a variety of techniques.<ref name=":1" />