10 Criss

Introduction

In 1879, impressionist artist Mary Cassatt painted Woman Standing With a Fan, one of

her only two known works in distemper paint. Using rapid brushwork to handle the quick-drying

medium, Cassatt captures a single spontaneous and humble moment of life: A woman reaches

back to gather her skirt, holding a painted fan in her right hand. (See Fig.1) The figure is cast in

silhouette against a bright source from behind, with Cassatt using foreshortening and cropping to

create a vertical composition.1 There is a striking lack of three-dimensionality in Cassatt’s rendering of the painting; instead, the artist focuses on using flat planes of color in the simple

primary hues of rosy red, midnight blue, and citrine yellow. She incorporates subtle differences

in the harmonious tones, conveying a brilliant sense of light. With a natural flow in the

movements of her brush and the lightness of the figure’s pose, this piece is one of the most successful examples of Cassatt’s experimentation with characteristics drawn from ukiyo-e:

Japanese woodblock prints.2

Woman Standing With a Fan was painted at the height of japonisme, or the influence of

Japanese artworks on European art and culture, in the late nineteenth-century. After the

reopening of Western commerce with Japan for the first time since 1638, a wave of fascination

swept over Europe and America as Japanese artworks began pouring in through trade routes.

With previously rare art objects becoming more accessible to a larger audience, a craze for

1 Amon Carter Museum of American Art. "Amon Carter Museum of American Art Announces Major 50th Anniversary Acquisition by Mary Cassatt." News release. October 21, 2011. https://www.cartermuseum.org/press-release/carter-museum-announces-50th-anniversary-acquisitionmary-cassatt.

2 Jennifer T. Criss, "Japonisme and beyond in the Art of Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, and Berthe Morisot, 1867–1895." Abstract. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2007, 3. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (A&I).

Japanese imports ensued among the French bourgeoisie.3 Decorative bronzes, porcelains, and

lacquered goods all became highly prized symbols of status to display in lavishly furnished

French homes.4 Japanese ukiyo-e prints in particular experienced a rapid rise in popularity among

buyers; the nature of printing lent well to mass production, leading to a high circulation of ukiyo-

e in Europe.

Figure 1. Cassatt, Mary. Woman Standing With a Fan, 1878-79. Distemper on canvas, 128.6 x 72 cm. Private Collection.

3 Criss, 3.

4 Colta Feller Ives, The Great Wave: the Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints. (New York, N.Y.: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974) 11.