Arcadópolis
Young Woman with a Straw Hat
Berthe Morisot, 1884
What you see
A young woman is seen in profile from the waist up, facing right. She wears a pale straw hat with pink flowers, held by a dark ribbon that passes over it and falls, knotted, beneath her chin. Her white dress, sprinkled with tiny blue dots, has a blue sash at the waist. The brim of the hat leads the eye to her face.
The background mixes turquoises and greens in diagonal strokes, like foliage stirred by the wind. Reddish hair shows beneath the brim. Don’t miss the red patches of flowers in both lower corners and for the bow of the sash, barely suggested in white.
About Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot was a French painter and one of the founders of the Impressionist group: she took part in seven of its eight exhibitions, between 1874 and 1886. With quick, light brushstrokes she painted intimate scenes from the lives of the women around her, such as her mother, her sister Edma and her daughter Julie. She was married to Eugène Manet, brother of the painter Édouard Manet, and in 1896, a year after her death, the Durand-Ruel gallery held a large exhibition of her work in Paris.
More by Berthe Morisot
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