Seeing is Believing

I am a rising senior at the University of Georgia. In high school, I took a humanities course, which inspired me to take Art Appreciation at UGA to fulfill my cultural diversity requirement. I never would have thought that these two classes would forever change my life. I learned about all the famous artists— Michelangelo, Monet, Raphael and Cézanne and observed the small printed pictures found in textbooks. I immediately fell in love with the Impressionist art of Monet, Renoir and Degas.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Paris. Never in a million years did I imagine I would one day be faced with some of the most famous pieces of art in the world! I spent hours at the Musée d’Orsay, a museum that hosts many of the Impressionist paintings. I stood in awe of my favorite painting, “Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette,” by Renoir and I found my feet leading me back to it a second time even. The colors seemed to glitter in the light and dance on the canvas just like the people in the painting. I couldn’t believe the texture, and the raised paint strokes made me want to reach out and touch it, hoping I would be sucked into the painting and teleported to the dance floor. I felt like I could capture every movement, every laugh in the crowd.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, "Dance at Le Moulin de la Gallette"

This is where I learned almost to hate art textbooks. How could I look at this painting again in its small print with dull colors? No publishing company could capture the stunning painting that stood before me. It was absolutely beautiful. But that’s the rub; art looks better in person. That insight made me appreciate and scrutinize every painting I have seen in person since then.  Sometimes the only way to capture the moment is through memory.

Happy Birthday, Mary Cassatt!

Mary Cassatt (American, 1845-1926), Study for “The Sun Bath,” n.d., Oil on canvas, 15 x 23 inches, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Extended loan from the Joan M. MacGillivray 1957 Trust GMOA 2002.115E

Mary Cassatt was born (May 22) in 1844. She was an American painter and printmaker best known for her Impressionist work. At the age of 15 she began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts despite her father’s objection to her becoming a professional artist. She then moved to Paris in 1866, where she began her study with private art lessons in the Louvre. Here she befriended Edgar Degas. Regarded as the one of the founders of Impressionism, he had significant influence on Cassatt’s etching work. She also became proficient in the use of pastels, and many of her most important works are in this medium.  Her increasingly poor eyesight virtually put an end to her serious painting, and she died in 1926.

Cassatt's popular reputation is based on an extensive series of rigorously drawn and tenderly observed images of the private lives of women with an emphasis on the intimate bonds between mother and child.