He [Manet] came about one o'clock [the day for submitting works for The Paris Salon of 1870]. he found it [ 'Reading', Berthe's double-portrait of her mother with her pregnant sister Edma] very good, except for the lower parts of the dress. He took the brushes and put in a few accents.. ..mother was in ecstasies. That is where my misfortune began. Once started, nothing could stop him, from the skirt he went to the bust, from the bust to the head, from the head to the background. He cracked a thousand jokes, laughed like a madman, handed me the palette, took it back; finally by five o'clock in the afternoon we had made the best caricature you have ever seen.
French painter (1841-1895)
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (14 January, 1841 – 2 March, 1895) was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. Undervalued for over a century, possibly because she was a woman, she is now considered among the first league of Impressionist painters.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alternative Names:
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot
•
Berthe Manet
•
Berthe Manet Morisot
•
Berthe-Marie-Pauline Morisot
•
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot Manet
•
Berthe Manet-Morisot
•
Berthe Marie Pauline Morizot
•
B. Morisot
•
Morisot
•
Bertha Morisot
From Wikidata (CC0)
Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.
I have heard so much about the perils ahead that I have had nightmares for several nights, in which I lived through all the horrors of war.. .The militia are quartered in the studio, hence there is no way of using it. I do not read the newspapers much any more; one a day is enough for me. The Prussian atrocities upset me, and I want to retain my composure.. .Would you believe that I am accustomed to the sound of the canon [of the Prussians]? It seems to me that I am now absolutely inured to war and capable of enduring everything.
My work is going badly.. ..it is always the same story: I don't know where to start. I made an attempt in a field, but the moment I had set up my easel more than fifty boys and girls were swarming about me, shouting and gesticulating. On a boat one has another kind of difficulty. Everything sways, there is an infernal lap of water; one has the sun and the wind to cope with; the boats change position every minute, etc.. .The view from my window is pretty to look at, but not to paint. Views from above are almost always incomprehensible; as a result of all this I am not doing much..
The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl [in his painting 'View on the village' ] in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we [Berthe and her sister Edma] have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeed.
He [ Manet ] holds up that eternal Mademoiselle Gonzales as an example; she has poise, perseverance, she can get her things finished whereas I am incapable of doing anything properly. In the meantime he [Manet] has started her portrait again, for the twenty-fifth time. She poses every day, and every night he rubs out the head..
Dear sir, Edouard Manet told me that you were kind enough to bring the sketch that you completed of him [Monet painted Manet in his garden, Argenteuil, Summer 1874]. I did not have the time to thank you before leaving Paris [with Eugene Manet, just married]. I treasure your gift all the more because I attribute much value to what you do. My husband and I, when we look out at the English seascapes which around us, often speak of you talent and what you will achieve from this movement.......[unreadable – about the Impressionists?].
The stories of the Manet brothers [ Edouard and her future husband Eugène Manet ] tell about all the horrors we are likely to face, they [in Paris, during the war between France and Germany] are almost enough to discourage even the bravest of us. [But] you know they [the Manet brothers] always exaggerate, and at the moment they see everything in the blackest possible light.
This painting, this work you miss so much [the two sisters Morisot painted a lot together] is a cause of much trouble and concern, you know this as well as I do and yet, child that you are, you are already weeping for the loss of the very thing that darkened you mood only recently. Think of it, yours is not the very worst lot: you have a real affection, a devoted heart that is yours an yours alone, do not be ungrateful for the dealings of fate, think of the great sorrow that is solitude; whatever anyone says or does, womankind has immense need of affection; to want to retreat into yourself is to attempt the impossible.