Woman in a Garden
Berthe Morisot·1882
Historical Context
Painted in 1882 and now in the Art Institute of Chicago, this canvas of a woman in a garden belongs to Morisot's series of outdoor domestic subjects produced during her summers at Bougival on the Seine. The garden — either her own or a rented summer house's — provided the ideal setting for combining her interests in figures, natural light, and the pleasures of bourgeois outdoor leisure. By 1882 Morisot's garden paintings were among her most assured and characteristic works.
Technical Analysis
The garden's summer growth is evoked through loose strokes of varied greens, with the woman's pale dress providing a light focal point against the denser vegetation. Morisot captures the quality of filtered outdoor light through broken color across the entire surface, figure and setting treated with equal painterly attention.
