Mary Cassatt: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Mary Cassatt trained in Philadelphia and the Old Master galleries of Parma and Madrid before becoming the only American invited to exhibit with the Paris Impressionists. This mix traces the Italian and Spanish painting she copied, the Japanese prints that rewired her etching, the Philadelphia scene she came from, and the maternal subject matter she made serious.

The Kynda mix for Mary Cassatt

• Key Influence · Olympia by Édouard Manet (1863). Cassatt's conversion to modern painting came through Manet's flattened tonal masses and frank, unidealized sitters, seen in Paris exactly as the Salon juries were rejecting her own darker canvases. His handling of black, his cropped domestic interiors and his debt to Spanish painting all surface in her 1870s work, and Manet's circle at the Café Guerbois was the milieu into which Degas introduced her when she joined the Impressionist exhibitions in 1879.
• Influencia Obscura · Mother and Child (ukiyo-e woodblock) by Kitagawa Utamaro (1800). The 1890 exhibition of Japanese prints at the École des Beaux-Arts, which Cassatt visited repeatedly and urged Berthe Morisot to see, sent her straight to the press. Utamaro's bathing women, nursing mothers and mirror scenes gave her the flat colour fields, high viewpoints, contour line and cropped intimacy of her 1890–91 set of ten colour drypoint-and-aquatints, in which she invented her own Western equivalent of Japanese multi-plate printing.
• Local Roots · The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins (1875). Cassatt enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1860, in the same Philadelphia student generation as Eakins, who studied there before Paris. Both reacted against the Academy's genteel copying culture, both went to France and to Spain's Prado, and both returned to unsentimental observation of modern people. Eakins represents the Philadelphia realism Cassatt left behind geographically but never abandoned in her refusal of prettified subjects.
• Beyond the Medium · Portraits photographiques: Sarah Bernhardt by Nadar (1864). Nadar's Paris studio — which hosted the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 — made the cropped, asymmetric, candidly posed figure a visual commonplace, and Cassatt's theatre-box and tea-table compositions depend on that photographic sense of the arrested glance and the cut-off body. Degas worked directly from photographs; Cassatt absorbed the same lesson, framing sitters as if caught mid-gesture rather than arranged for a portrait.
• Peer · The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872). Morisot and Cassatt were the two women at the centre of the Impressionist exhibitions and became friends; Cassatt dined at the Morisot–Manet household and urged Morisot to see the 1890 Japanese print show. Both took the nursery and the drawing room — the only spaces open to respectable women — and made them subjects of serious modern painting, Morisot with feathered open brushwork, Cassatt with firmer drawing and harder contour.
• From the Canon · Little Girl in a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt (1878). Her first fully Impressionist canvas and the one Degas advised on, even reworking part of the background; it was rejected by the American section of the 1878 Exposition Universelle, which stung her into the independent exhibitions. The bored, sprawling child, the dog, the slicing diagonal of blue upholstery and the high empty floor show her abandoning Salon decorum for design-driven, unsentimental observation of childhood.
• Key Collaborator · The Tub by Edgar Degas (1886). Degas invited Cassatt to join the Impressionists in 1877 and remained her closest artistic interlocutor for forty years: he advised on her canvases, she posed for him, and the two worked side by side on experimental prints for the unrealised journal Le Jour et la Nuit. His bathers' unposed intimacy and plunging viewpoints are the direct precedent for her washing and bathing scenes; their arguments were as productive as their agreements.
• Legacy · Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia) by Alice Neel (1967). Neel, another Pennsylvania painter trained in Philadelphia, took Cassatt's subject — mothers holding children — and stripped away the last of its sweetness, painting exhaustion, ambivalence and raw flesh. The lineage is structural rather than stylistic: Cassatt established maternity as legitimate territory for ambitious figure painting, and Neel is the twentieth-century artist who most thoroughly inherited and complicated that ground.

What influenced Mary Cassatt

• Edgar Degas (1834). Cassatt is described as a feminized version of Degas' art. (also via The Child's Bath, The Tub) “Although Degas had no formal pupils, he greatly influenced several important painters, most notably Jean-Louis Forain , Mary Cassatt, and Walter Sickert” (Wikipedia)
• Louis Edmond Duranty. Shackelford suggests Duranty’s appeal influenced Cassatt’s approach to figure painting. (also via The New Painting) “Both regarded themselves as figure painters, and the art historian George Shackelford suggests they were influenced by the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty 's appeal in his pamphlet The New Painting for a revitalization in figure painting” (Wikipedia)
• Katherine Cassatt. The article explicitly identifies Cassatt’s mother as a profound influence. “Because of these limitations, Cassatt resolved to leave the United States and went with her mother to Paris in 1866 to study with teachers from the Ecole des Beaux Arts.” (National Women’s History Museum)
• Thomas Couture. Cassatt studied with Couture. (also via The Romans of the Decadence) “In 1868, Cassatt also studied with artist Thomas Couture , whose subjects were mostly romantic and urban.” (Wikipedia)
• Charles Joshua Chaplin. Cassatt attended Chaplin’s painting class. “Toward the end of 1866, she joined a painting class taught by Charles Joshua Chaplin , a genre artist .” (Wikipedia)
• Lucy A. Bacon. The passage identifies Bacon as a younger artist who sought Cassatt’s advice. “She also became a role model for young American artists who sought her advice. Among them was Lucy A. Bacon , whom Cassatt introduced to Camille Pissarro .” (Wikipedia)
• Japanese woodblock prints. Cassatt’s letter expresses her excitement about Japanese prints and her desire to make color prints herself. “You who want to make color prints, you couldn’t dream of anything more beautiful. I dream of it myself and don’t think of anything else but color on copper…P.S. You must see the Japanese—come as soon as you can.” (Shelburne Museum)
• Jean-Léon Gérôme. Cassatt studied with Gérôme. “Cassatt applied to study privately with masters from the school [ 22 ] and was accepted to study with Jean-Léon Gérôme” (Wikipedia)
• Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by Frank Furness (1876). Cassatt studied painting at the named academy. “Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia at the early age of 15.” (Wikipedia)
• The Romans of the Decadence by Thomas Couture (1847). The Romans of the Decadence (Thomas Couture) — ghost for Mary Cassatt “In 1868, Cassatt also studied with artist Thomas Couture, whose subjects were mostly romantic and urban.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The New Painting by Louis Edmond Duranty. Shackelford suggests Duranty’s pamphlet influenced Cassatt’s approach to figure painting. “the art historian George Shackelford suggests they were influenced by the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty 's appeal in his pamphlet The New Painting for a revitalization in figure painting” (Wikipedia)
• Renaissance by Beyoncé. The article compares Cassatt’s later compositions to Italian Renaissance depictions. “Some of these works depict her own relatives, friends, or clients, although in her later years she generally used professional models in compositions that are often reminiscent of Italian Renaissance depictions of the Madonna and Child .” (Wikipedia)
• Olympia by Édouard Manet (1863). Olympia (Édouard Manet) — titan for Mary Cassatt “The French art scene was in a process of change, as radical artists such as Courbet and Édouard Manet tried to break away from accepted Academic tradition, and the Impressionists were in their formative years.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Mother and Child (ukiyo-e woodblock) by Kitagawa Utamaro (1800). Mother and Child (ukiyo-e woodblock) (Kitagawa Utamaro) — ghost for Mary Cassatt “Utamaro had an influence on the compositional, colour, and sense of tranquility of the American painter Mary Cassatt's work.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1656). Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez) — titan for Mary Cassatt (wikidata.org)
• Assumption of the Virgin (Parma Cathedral dome) by Correggio (1526). Assumption of the Virgin (Parma Cathedral dome) (Correggio) — titan for Mary Cassatt “Shortly afterward, her work attracted the attention of Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Domenec of Pittsburgh, who commissioned her to paint two copies of paintings by Correggio in Parma, Italy, advancing her enough money to cover her trave…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition by Sophia Hayden (1893). Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition (Sophia Hayden) — culture for Mary Cassatt
• Service Rousseau (faience dinner service) by Félix Bracquemond (1866). Service Rousseau (faience dinner service) (Félix Bracquemond) — culture for Mary Cassatt
• Portraits photographiques: Sarah Bernhardt by Nadar (1864). Portraits photographiques: Sarah Bernhardt (Nadar) — culture for Mary Cassatt

Peers and kindred spirits

• Berthe Morisot (1841). Geffroy grouped Cassatt and Morisot among three prominent Impressionist women. (also via The Cradle) “Seriously, you must not miss that. You who want to make color prints, you couldn’t dream of anything more beautiful.” (Shelburne Museum)
• Elizabeth Jane Gardner. Cassatt and Gardner exhibited at the Salon in the same year. “Cassatt and Elizabeth Jane Gardner were the first American women to be accepted.” (National Women’s History Museum)
• Marie Bracquemond. Geffroy grouped Cassatt and Bracquemond among three prominent Impressionist women. (also via On the Terrace at Sèvres) “She was described by Gustave Geffroy as one of "les trois grandes dames" (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot .” (Wikipedia)
• Louisine Havemeyer. Cassatt advised Louisine Havemeyer’s Impressionist collecting. “I call [Mary Cassatt] my fairy godmother of my collection, for the best things I own have been bought on her judgement and advice.” (Shelburne Museum)
• Henry Osborne Havemeyer. Cassatt advised Harry Havemeyer’s Impressionist collecting. “Miss Cassatt ever ready to recommend, Mr. Havemeyer to buy, and I [Mrs. Havemeyer] to find a place for the pictures in our gallery” (Shelburne Museum)
• Camille Pissarro (1830). Cassatt knew Pissarro and introduced another artist to him. (also via Twilight at Le Lacroix) “Among them was Lucy A. Bacon , whom Cassatt introduced to Camille Pissarro .” (Wikipedia)
• Les Derniers Jours d'Enfance by Cecilia Beaux (1883). Les Derniers Jours d'Enfance (Cecilia Beaux) — geography for Mary Cassatt “As a successful, highly trained woman artist who never married, Cassatt—like Ellen Day Hale, Elizabeth Coffin, Elizabeth Nourse and Cecilia Beaux—personified the "New Woman".” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet (1872). Impression, Sunrise (Claude Monet) — collaborator for Mary Cassatt “Monet—who was apprehensive, following Honoré Daumier and Mary Cassatt's botched surgeries—stated that he would rather have poor sight and perhaps abandon painting than forego "a little of these things that I love".” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Emily Sartain. Cassatt traveled to Europe with fellow artist Sartain. “With Emily Sartain , a fellow artist from a well-regarded artistic family from Philadelphia, Cassatt set out for Europe again.” (Wikipedia)
• The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins (1875). The Gross Clinic (Thomas Eakins) — geography for Mary Cassatt “Thomas Eakins was among her fellow students; he was later forced to resign as director of the academy.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Impressionism. Cassatt was officially associated with the Impressionists and exhibited with them. “The only American officially associated with the Impressionists, Cassatt would go on to exhibit in half of the group's later exhibitions” (Wikipedia)
• Snow in New York by Robert Henri (1902). Snow in New York (Robert Henri) — geography for Mary Cassatt “To that effect, Cassatt's lifelong friend Louisine Havemeyer wrote in her memoirs: "Anyone who had the privilege of knowing Mary Cassatt's mother would know at once that it was from her and her alone that [Mary] inherited her ability." A…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (1877). Paris Street; Rainy Day (Gustave Caillebotte) — peer for Mary Cassatt “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.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• On the Terrace at Sèvres by Marie Bracquemond (1880). On the Terrace at Sèvres (Marie Bracquemond) — peer for Mary Cassatt “She was described by Gustave Geffroy as one of "les trois grandes dames" (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872). The Cradle (Berthe Morisot) — peer for Mary Cassatt “She was described by Gustave Geffroy as one of "les trois grandes dames" (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Tub by Edgar Degas (1886). The Tub (Edgar Degas) — collaborator for Mary Cassatt “She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived most of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Twilight at Le Lacroix by Camille Pissarro (1879). Twilight at Le Lacroix (Camille Pissarro) — collaborator for Mary Cassatt “Also in the exhibition were Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro, both of whom were later her colleagues and mentors.” (en.wikipedia.org)

Who Mary Cassatt influenced

• Cassatt Quartet by Cassatt String Quartet. The musical quartet was named in Cassatt’s honor. “A quartet of young Juilliard string musicians formed the all-female Cassatt Quartet in 1985, named in honor of the painter.” (Wikipedia)
• String Quartets Nos. 1–3. Welcher’s third quartet was inspired by Cassatt’s artwork. “That musical language is apt to a triptych inspired by paintings by the American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt.” (The Dallas Morning News, reproduced on Amazon)
• Beaver Hall Group. The article says Cassatt inspired women artists in the Beaver Hall Group. “Mary Cassatt inspired many Canadian women artists who were members of the Beaver Hall Group .” (Wikipedia)
• Post-Partum Document by Mary Kelly (1979). Post-Partum Document (Mary Kelly) — legacy for Mary Cassatt
• Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia) by Alice Neel (1967). Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia) (Alice Neel) — legacy for Mary Cassatt