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12 THE INDEX, Saturday, March 17, 1928
M a r y Cassatt M e m o r i a l Exhibition In C a r n e g i e Galleries
"PORTRAIT OF MRS. ROBERT S. CASSATT" MOTHER AND CHILD" "GARDNER CASSATT"
Paintings included in the Mary Cass att Memorial Exhibition which opened this week in the galleries of the Carnegie Institute.
C A R N E G I E Institute honors
a Pittsburgher and
one of the best woman
artists of all time in its exhibition
of Paintings, Pastels, and
Prints by Mary Cassatt which
opened in the Second Floor Galleries
on Thursday. Miss Cassatt
is perhaps best-known for
her interpretations of motherhood
and childhood. No other
artist has so sympathetically
portrayed the mother and child
without succumbing to sentimentality.
Few of the women Mary Cassatt
painted were beautiful, but
they all had a wholesome charm
and a glowing healthfulness. The
mother with her child is shown
in many poses. Sometimes we
see her bathing a small child, or
sitting in the garden adoring the
baby on her knee. She fingers a
banjo while the child leans on
her shoulder. She is reading a
book to three children clustered
about her. Or she sits in utter
peace in her boudoir, her child
curled in her lap. For Mary Cassatt
motherhood must have been
the most beautiful thing in the
world. How else could she have
expressed it with such deep
understanding and tenderness?
The painting "Lady at the Tea
Table," lent by the Metropolitan
Museum, shows a woman in a
dark gown, a bit of white lace
about her head, sitting at a table
on which are blue china teapot,
cups and saucers. Slender, rather
bony, but aristocratic fingers
are clasping the handle of the
teapot. The woman is not pretty,
but the painting is beautiful in
texture, arrangement and design.
In the Self-Portrait Miss Cassatt
has painted herself in a
white gown and a brown bonnet
crowned with flowers. She leans
on cushions. Her slender body
and delicate features do not indicate
her indomitable and
steadfast spirit and her sharp
impatience with dilettantes and
loafers. During the years she
spent in Paris, particularly in
the earlier days, she was a flame
for young artists who thronged
her studio and marveled at her
powers of concentration.
Another painting which does
not have motherhood for its subject
is called "At the Opera."
There in the darkness of a box
a woman is shown, opera glass
held to her eyes, leaning- on the
railing. Her profile is clear
against the illuminated balustrade.
Figures in the other boxes
are suggested but the lovely
contour of this woman's face
dominates the canvas.
In addition to the paintings, a
fine collection of Mary Cassatt's
etchings and aquatints occupy
the Balcony of the Hall of Sculpture.
Here again are the familiar
subjects, homely and domestic
mothers, calm and placid of
feature, and agreeable, healthy
children. In each print her
superb draftsmanship recalls the
remark Degas is said to have
made while gazing at one of
Mary Cassatt's pictures: "I will
not admit that a woman can
draw as well as that."
The aquatints have a strong-
Japanese flavor. Miss Cassatt
was greatly attracted to the art
of Japan and the influence is apparent.
Simplicity of line, graceful
curves and clear colors are
characteristics of the colored
aquatints. There are several
prints showing the various
states; for instance, one of a
mother bathing- her child. We
see in the first one only the yellow
tint of the mother's gown;
in another the child's flesh has
been colored; and in a third the
basin has acquired a deep blue
hue.
In looking at the paintings
and prints of Mary Cassatt it is
difficult to believe that they were
done in the last half of the nineteenth
century. The note she
struck is as much a trumpet call
for the moderns of today as were
tlie paintings of Degas and
Manet with whom she exhibited
in Paris. Her life, too, seemed
oddly out of key with the traditions
of the 'fifties.
Although Mary Cassatt was
born in Pittsburgh her family
moved to Philadelphia when she
was quite young. She must have
inherited her independence of
thought from her father. For
Robert Cassatt took his family
to Europe when Mary was about
six years of age, to give his five
children a European education.
This was a unique undertaking
in those days. On their return,
five years later, Mary Cassatt
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