The Hydrangea
Berthe Morisot·1894
Historical Context
The Hydrangea belongs to Morisot's garden and flower subjects of the late 1880s and early 1890s, when she was spending time at her house in Mézy-sur-Seine and cultivating a garden that provided direct subject matter. Hydrangeas with their large, complex flower heads — blue, pink, and white varieties — were popular garden plants in bourgeois French homes of the period, and their mass of small clustered flowers offered Morisot the challenge of rendering a complex botanical whole with Impressionist abbreviation rather than laborious exactitude.
Technical Analysis
The hydrangea flower heads are built from short, varied marks in blue, mauve, pink, and white, creating the visual impression of massed bloom without anatomical precision. The surrounding foliage is handled with broader, darker strokes that set off the pale flower clusters.
