This quaint painting is of a two little girls playing in a well-kept garden. The painting gets its name from the basket chair in the front left corner. Not the center piece, but an object just thrown into the painting.
Painted in thick, heavy brushstrokes in differing shades of blue, green, white and beige, the work is not a crisp image, but rather a fleeting moment. This painting may have been painted after meeting Manet, as it resembles
most Impressionist painting styles than realistic. The image is set behind a wrought-iron fence, which separates us from the complete scene. At center is a little girl, leaning on the fence, peering out at us. The "basket
chair" is seen off to the left with a watering can to the right of it. In the far distance there is a path with a bench. The path curves out of sight to the left. Behind the little girl, to the right, are lush
plants with purple and blue flowers growing among them. The girl is in traditional French attire for a wealthy family around the Paris area. She wears a cream colored dress and bold hat with dark blue accents and brown
boots. All around her are lush objects, yet she looks directly at us, as if more fascinated with us than her own surroundings. She seems like a defiant, independent girl who is not afraid to acknowledge our presence.
Further back, there is another girl playing on the ground. These are actually the artist's daughter, Julie Manet and niece.
Up close the painting is a blur of crosshatched paint strokes of different lengths and widths. Size of the strokes didn’t matter, whatever makes the painting look real without an actual straight line. Stepping back from
the painting the strokes merge to form a coherent scene. The fleeting moment is as if you are turning your head and taking a quick glance at the girls playing.
As with most of Morisot’s paintings on unprimed canvas, when the Basket Chair was relined with wax-resin, the wax soaked through the canvas, turning it brownish-orange. One must imagine this painting as it once was, on
a white background, even more luminous and sparkling as it now appears.
-From Masterworks of European Painting in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Pg. 168-69)
The painting is quite “luminous” as is. But, imagine the sunlight sparkling off the figures and objects on the canvas, in its original state due to the undercoating of the resin-wax. While this beautiful work of art is
stunning in its current state, the original intended piece would be a rarity in Impressionist painting. Impressionist painting gave the illusion of sparkling, not an actual physical asset to the work. Sadly, it is not
in that “sparkling” state any more, yet is still as stunning nonetheless.
百度翻译：http://fanyi.baidu.com
Berthe Morisot was born January 14, 1841, in Bourges, France. Her father was a high-ranking government official and her grandfather was the influential Rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. Berthe and, her sister Edma,
also a painter, traveled to Paris to study and copy works by the Old Masters at the Louvre Museum in the late 1850s under the supervision of Joseph Guichard. They also studied with landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Camille
Corot to learn how to paint outdoor scenes. Berthe worked with Corot for several years and first exhibited her work in the prestigious state-run art show, the Salon, in 1864. She would earn a regular spot at show for
the next decade.
In 1868, fellow artist Henri Fantin-Latour introduced Berthe Morisot to Edouard Manet. The two formed a lasting friendship and greatly influenced one another’s work. She also became friends with the Impressionists Edgar
Degas and Frederic Bazille and in 1874, declined from ever showing her work at the State sponsored Salon again. She instead showed her paintings at the first independent show of Impressionist paintings, which included
works by Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, and Alfred Sisley. Her close friend, Manet, was determined to find success at the official Salon. So, he did not include his works in the first
Impressionist’s “Salon”.
In 1874, Berthe Morisot married Manet's younger brother, Eugene, which provided her with social and financial stability while she continued to pursue her painting career. Able to dedicate herself wholly to her craft, Morisot
participated in the Impressionist exhibitions every year except 1877, when she was pregnant with her daughter.
After her husband died in 1892, Berthe continued to paint, although she was never commercially successful during her lifetime. She had her first solo exhibition in 1892. After a long career, Berthe contracted pneumonia
and died on March 2, 1895, at the age of 54.
One of her lesser known paintings is on display as part of the Audrey Jones Beck collection of Impressionist Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Basket
Chair, Berthe Morisot, 1885. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
百度翻译：http://fanyi.baidu.com
