Le Cerisier - Masterpiece Jigsaw Puzzle
Artwork by Berthe Morisot (French 1841-1895)
Laurel Ink 500 piece puzzles measure 18" x 24".
Retail $12.95

Le Cerisier (from back of puzzle box)
Berthe Morisot (French 1841-1895).
Impressionism is one of the most widely recognized styles of painting, and certainly of the most enduring in its popularity. The Impressionist movement tool place in France in the late nineteenth century. One of its early galvanizing events occurred in 1863, when the Paris Salon jury rejected three thousand canvases out of the five thousand that were submitted for the exhibition. The subsequent outcry made way for an exhibition of rejected works, the Salon des Refuses, which included works by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, and Edouard Manet. The public viewed the whole event as a joke, but this assembly of art, which so clearly rebelled against classical methods and the traditional art establishment, brought together some of the artists who would later be known as the Impressionists.

Common Impressionist elements included a redefinition of subject matter, the use of intense color palettes, loose brushstroke techniques, and a fresh interpretation of the effects of light and color. These artists rejected the conventional artistic themes of formal staged images, and instead attempted to capture everyday scenes of nature and daily life. Colors were bold on the canvas as the artists captured movements using unblended brushstrokes in multiple hues. Paintings often illustrated a passing moment by showing transitory light in a scene, capturing the movement of light and shadow. The Impressionists established a new, subjective way of looking at the world that would forever change the study of art.

Berthe Morisot was one of the leading female Impressionist artists. Along with her contemporary, the American artist Mary Cassatt, Morisot is generally regarded as one of the most important women painters of the late nineteenth century.

Born to a wealthy family in Bourges, France, Morisot began taking drawing lessons when she was in her mid-teens. Morisot and her sister, Edma, studied with many well-known painters, including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the renowned French painter who was a leader of the Impressionist movement. Corot encouraged Morisot to study at Auverssur-Oise and learn the plein-air technique of painting outside to fully observe the changing light and color.

Morisot went against the traditional female roles of the time by taking her painting seriously and making it her life's work. Soon after exhibiting her first landscapes in the Paris Salon in 1864, she met Edouard Manet. She posed for his paintings and they shared advice about artistic approaches. Manet became her friend, one of her greatest influences, and eventually her brother-in-law. In 1874, Morisot married Manet's brother Eugene Manet, an amateur writer and painter. The couple owned a house that became a haven for artists and writers including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and the French poet, Stephane Mallarme. Mallarme became a close companion of Morisot's and one of her many admirers.

From 1874-1886, despite the challenges of being a woman in an artistic world dominated by men, Morisot exhibited her work at virtually al of the Impressionist exhibitions. This painting, Le Cerisier, typifies Morisot's work. She was well known for her carefully constructed, thoughtful studies of women in domestic scenes as well as in indoor settings.

New: packaged/shrink wrapped 14"x14" boxed.

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