In the late 1870's,
against her father's wishes, she left for Europe to study further
and visit Italy, Spain, and Belgium before going to Paris where, as
she said, the sight of a pastel by Edgard
Degas changed her life. It was through Degas, who was more her
sponsor than her teacher, that she delighted to be relieved of the
arbitrary standards established for acceptance at the official Salons.
Cassatt scrupulously separated her social life from her artistic one
and was in some ways aloof from the relaxed artistic atmosphere around
her.
Her subject matter was thus restricted to the ladylike pastimes and
scenes with which she was generally surrounded, but her technique
and power were by no means limited. She was a fine artist in her favorite
mediums: oil, pastel, etching, and lithography. Her work has the intellectualized
emotion of Degas; the soft contours of Pierre
Auguste Renoir, (particularly in her many renderings of children
and mothers), and the flat surface of Manet. In addition, she was
strongly influenced by Japanese prints and she was extremely adept
at handling large color masses while she achieved the Oriental quality
of cleanliness with a sure and incisive draughtsmanship.
By far the wealthiest and the
most financially influential of the Impressionists, Cassett did a
great deal, unobtrusively, to help her associates. Not only did she
purchase many of their works for herself, but she also encouraged
her friends, the Havemeyers and the Stillmans, to collect Impressionist
art and, when conditions were desperate, she even loaned money to
the Durand-Ruel Gallery to promote an exhibition. Cassatt, who received
very little recognition in her own country until long after her death,
lived and worked in France throughout her life and was awarded the
French Legion of Honor in 1904.
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