Art in a Mirror: The Counterproofs of Mary Cassatt

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2004 by Pamela A. Ivinski

These pastels would also have been most suitable for counterproofing in the early twentieth century because of their fundamentally symbolist rather than impressionist overtones. The Banjo Lesson, though to some extent a "modern life" subject in the impressionist mode, resonates with the allegorical significance associated with the Modern Woman mural. (14) Cassatt described her subject for the mural as "Young women plucking the fruits of knowledge or science," (15) the verb plucking referring to the mural's central panel of women picking fruit in an orchard, and to its right-hand section, which portrayed women practicing the arts, including playing the banjo. Thematically as well as visually, this image also derives to some extent from Japanese prints, especially those of Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1753-1806), who often portrayed women playing the samisen, a banjo-like instrument.

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Another counterproof closely, related to the Modern Woman mural and its associated pictures is the exquisite Woman and Child in Front of a Fruit Tree (Pl. V). The original pastel from which this reverse impression was made remains completely unknown, but the counterproof echoes an important oil painting, Child Picking a Fruit (Pl. VI), created shortly after the mural. Cassatt's mural commemorated the modern woman while also transforming biblical symbolism, defining Eve in the manner of contemporary feminists who reimagined her not as bringing sin to humanity but rather as introducing beneficial knowledge and serving as the first educator of the child. The counterproof Woman and Child in Front of a Fruit Tree is very light, suggesting the delicacy of the unrecorded pastel from which it was made, or that it is the second or third counterproof made from the same pastel. Yet, the subtlety of the counterproof surface and the restrained palette evoke an ethereal mood entirely in keeping with the symbolic theme and the post-impressionist aesthetic.

A third image that dates from this period is Madame and Her Maid (Pl. VII), made from a pastel completed about 1894 to 1895. (16) No evidence exists to substantiate the relationship between the figures, but their pose suggests an intimacy that is slightly more formal than that depicted in The Banjo Lesson. The placement of the two women against a patterned background brings to mind the intimiste prints of Vuillard and Denis. (17) But unlike these male artists, who often generalized the features of their female models and embedded their figures within an assortment of decorative patterns, Cassatt delineated the faces of her sitters with great sensitivity and utilized the sweeping lines of the puffed sleeves of their gowns to create a sense of monumentality and distinction.

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Artists associated with the post-impressionist movement looked not only to Japanese and other Asian and Arabic sources for inspiration but also to images from the history of Western art in their search for a universal visual language and themes of enduring import. Religious subjects, including those representing the Madonna and Child, were no longer taboo for the modernist artist, as they had been during the impressionist era. Cassatt incorporated elements derived from traditional sacred imagery into her mother-and-child subjects with greater frequency beginning in the late 1880s. She intended no overtly spiritual message in these pictures, and they were perceived by patrons and critics as celebrating the healthy child as the most important figure in the "religion of humanity." (18)