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拍品专文
In 1881, the art critic Gustave Geffroy proclaimed that ‘no-one represents Impressionism with more refined talent or with more authority than [Berthe] Morisot’ (quoted in The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886, exh. cat., The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986, p. 366). One of the great pioneers of Impressionism, Morisot was acclaimed by her contemporaries for her innovative painterly technique, filled with a vibrant energy and spontaneity that pushed the very boundaries of representation to new extremes. Towards the middle of the 1880s, however, she began to explore a new way of working – prior to setting her brush to canvas, Morisot would diligently create a series of carefully constructed, vividly worked preparatory studies across a variety of media, from sketches in charcoal and coloured pencil, to delicate tonal studies in watercolour and pastel. Each piece fed into the next, revealing the development of Morisot’s thought-process as she worked on her compositions, clarifying and adjusting the forms of her sitters, or refocusing her attention on a specific detail within the scene as she worked. Together, these elegant studies showcase the careful precision and planning that lay behind each of her seemingly ‘spontaneous’ paintings, their level of detail and finesse a testament to Morisot’s extraordinary artistic talents.
Created during the opening months of 1888, Fillette au volant is one of a pair of pastels from the series of studies associated with Morisot’s painting Le volant (Bataille & Wildenstein, no. 221; Private collection). During the long, cold winter of 1887-1888, Morisot had begun working with two new models – a young woman called Jeanne-Marie, and a girl named Jeanne Bonnet, reportedly a friend of the artist’s daughter Julie who, with her rosy cheeks, soft features and long hair, bore a strong resemblance to Julie before she had cut her own locks short. Jeanne featured in a number of Morisot's compositions through the spring, posed in various situations – seated beside a birdcage in Fillette à la Perruche (Bataille & Wildenstein, no. 220; Private collection), or reading peacefully in a conservatory in La Lecture (Bataille & Wildenstein, no. 219; Private collection) – before a bout of illness forced Morisot to abandon her work for several months while she recovered.
In Fillette au volant, young Jeanne appears outdoors, clutching a small racquet in one hand and a feathered shuttlecock in the other, her soft pink dress contrasting against the vivid greens of the lush gardens of Morisot's home. Looking directly out at the painter, her pose appears unstudied and natural, creating the impression that this is a fleeting moment captured swiftly by Morisot before her subject runs off and launches into a spirited game of jeu de volant, a sport similar to modern-day badminton. As the eye moves across the pastel composition, Morisot’s intentions for the study become evident – while the figure of Jeanne is swiftly outlined in just a few brief, bold strokes of pastel, the surrounding gardens and the dancing reflections in the surface of the pond are captured with a delicacy and attention to detail that suggest the artist was attempting to work out the particulars of the scene’s setting and Jeanne’s place within the garden. Small points of soft peach and rose pink flowers appear amid the foliage, echoing the tones of Jeanne’s dress, while the interplay of green and blue hues intensify around her figure, fully grounding the young girl within the outdoor space.
Using strong, dashing strokes of colour that dance and zig-zag across the page, Morisot showcases her supreme confidence as a pastellist during this period of her career. Initially a fashionable material favoured for portraits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pastel medium experienced a great resurgence in popularity during the mid-nineteenth century, as innovations in synthetic dyes and the production process led to a sharp increase in the range of available colours and their intensity. As a result, a younger generation of artists began to experiment with pastels once again, drawn to their rich chromatic variations and highly saturated tones. While Morisot had originally worked with pastels in the mid-1860s, from 1885 onwards the frequency and number of her works in the soft, malleable material increased dramatically, providing her with an essential outlet in which to study colour, drawing and form simultaneously.
At the same time, Fillette au volant also reflects Morisot’s personal interest in the eighteenth-century art movement known as Rococo, which was experiencing a similar revival among French audiences during these years. She was not alone among the Impressionists in admiring the sensual elegance of works by artists such as François Boucher, Jean-Etienne Liotard, Antoine Watteau and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, which she studied at the Louvre and in a series of important private collections across Paris. In Fillette au volant and its associated works, the young girl playing with a shuttlecock and badminton racquet appears to directly recall Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin’s composition Une petite fille jouant au volant from 1741.
In the present work, Morisot has updated the composition for a contemporary audience, focusing her attention on a modern girl in casual clothing as she plays outdoors, her charming naturalism and sense of freedom a sharp contrast to the formality of Chardin’s painting. In this way, Fillette au volant offers a captivating insight into the carefree days of childhood, a subject at the very heart of Morisot’s practice. Alongside her intimate portraits of female sitters and interior scenes revealing the domestic world of bourgeois women in Paris, Morisot’s depictions of children define her unique Impressionist vision.
Created during the opening months of 1888, Fillette au volant is one of a pair of pastels from the series of studies associated with Morisot’s painting Le volant (Bataille & Wildenstein, no. 221; Private collection). During the long, cold winter of 1887-1888, Morisot had begun working with two new models – a young woman called Jeanne-Marie, and a girl named Jeanne Bonnet, reportedly a friend of the artist’s daughter Julie who, with her rosy cheeks, soft features and long hair, bore a strong resemblance to Julie before she had cut her own locks short. Jeanne featured in a number of Morisot's compositions through the spring, posed in various situations – seated beside a birdcage in Fillette à la Perruche (Bataille & Wildenstein, no. 220; Private collection), or reading peacefully in a conservatory in La Lecture (Bataille & Wildenstein, no. 219; Private collection) – before a bout of illness forced Morisot to abandon her work for several months while she recovered.
In Fillette au volant, young Jeanne appears outdoors, clutching a small racquet in one hand and a feathered shuttlecock in the other, her soft pink dress contrasting against the vivid greens of the lush gardens of Morisot's home. Looking directly out at the painter, her pose appears unstudied and natural, creating the impression that this is a fleeting moment captured swiftly by Morisot before her subject runs off and launches into a spirited game of jeu de volant, a sport similar to modern-day badminton. As the eye moves across the pastel composition, Morisot’s intentions for the study become evident – while the figure of Jeanne is swiftly outlined in just a few brief, bold strokes of pastel, the surrounding gardens and the dancing reflections in the surface of the pond are captured with a delicacy and attention to detail that suggest the artist was attempting to work out the particulars of the scene’s setting and Jeanne’s place within the garden. Small points of soft peach and rose pink flowers appear amid the foliage, echoing the tones of Jeanne’s dress, while the interplay of green and blue hues intensify around her figure, fully grounding the young girl within the outdoor space.
Using strong, dashing strokes of colour that dance and zig-zag across the page, Morisot showcases her supreme confidence as a pastellist during this period of her career. Initially a fashionable material favoured for portraits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pastel medium experienced a great resurgence in popularity during the mid-nineteenth century, as innovations in synthetic dyes and the production process led to a sharp increase in the range of available colours and their intensity. As a result, a younger generation of artists began to experiment with pastels once again, drawn to their rich chromatic variations and highly saturated tones. While Morisot had originally worked with pastels in the mid-1860s, from 1885 onwards the frequency and number of her works in the soft, malleable material increased dramatically, providing her with an essential outlet in which to study colour, drawing and form simultaneously.
At the same time, Fillette au volant also reflects Morisot’s personal interest in the eighteenth-century art movement known as Rococo, which was experiencing a similar revival among French audiences during these years. She was not alone among the Impressionists in admiring the sensual elegance of works by artists such as François Boucher, Jean-Etienne Liotard, Antoine Watteau and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, which she studied at the Louvre and in a series of important private collections across Paris. In Fillette au volant and its associated works, the young girl playing with a shuttlecock and badminton racquet appears to directly recall Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin’s composition Une petite fille jouant au volant from 1741.
In the present work, Morisot has updated the composition for a contemporary audience, focusing her attention on a modern girl in casual clothing as she plays outdoors, her charming naturalism and sense of freedom a sharp contrast to the formality of Chardin’s painting. In this way, Fillette au volant offers a captivating insight into the carefree days of childhood, a subject at the very heart of Morisot’s practice. Alongside her intimate portraits of female sitters and interior scenes revealing the domestic world of bourgeois women in Paris, Morisot’s depictions of children define her unique Impressionist vision.