In the Garden

Berthe Morisot was the most prominent woman among the Impressionists, exhibiting in seven of the eight group shows. Her domestic and garden subjects reflect both the social constraints that confined bourgeois women to private rather than public spaces and her extraordinary ability to transform those constraints into formal freedom. This 1885 canvas captures the intimacy of home and garden with brushwork of remarkable spontaneity — barely contained strokes that seem to dissolve solid form into ambient light.

Morisot's brushwork is among the most daring in Impressionism — rapid, scumbled strokes that seem barely to adhere to the canvas, creating a sense of ambient light and spontaneous observation. Her palette is high-keyed and delicate, favoring pale blues, whites, and soft greens, with figures dissolvi