"I'm Bored" --- Day 13/282

Walk: Beloved Hood

Distance: 4 miles early before height of heat wave

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in the Blue Armchair, 1877-78, oil on canvas

So today Ciwt will go to the press preview of our Legion of Honor's much anticipated Mary Cassatt at Work which opens tomorrow.

Ciwt is not often drawn to cute paintings of women and children, domestic scenes or just children.  So why for so many years is she always captured by the work of Mary Cassatt, the premier portrayer of the airless daily lives of  late 19th century haute bourgeois women and children?  Well, precisely because Cassatt took her subjects seriously, gave them intelligence and subtly laid bare that airlessness. 

In so many of Cassatt's works you can sense the women's private thoughts and chafing at the public demands of perfectly pressed dresses, high collared coats, complete with gloves.  Modernism was bursting out in men's lives throughout Paris.  And Cassatt captures the brewing modernity that was simmering for women - just before they began to be engaged in professional work and were able to vote. 

When that happened you just know know that little girl in the blue chair (Cassatt's niece) - in one of the world's favorite paintings - was leading the charge through the door and away from claustrophia.. She's full of pent up energy,  realistically squirmy, bored, and his no interest in being modest and proper in her perfectly ironed dress.

To date much has been made of all the places and opportunities Cassatt was denied as a woman - bars, nightclubs, folies and, of course, art training at the Ecole.  Ciwt is looking forward to hearing the new respect art historians are now giving to the masterful and workmanship way Mary Cassatt presented the world she was a part of.