women and impressionism

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Discus and comment on the representation of women in Realist and/or Impressionist painting. Refer to at least two paintings, each by a different artist.

Both Impressionist and Realist artists depict women working or doing chores, for example ‘the Gleaners’ by Millet shows women stooping in the fields to glean the leftovers from the harvest. Pissarro also depicts a woman doing a daily chore in his painting ‘woman hanging up the washing’, the woman in the painting is, as the title suggests, hanging out the washing. Realist and Impressionist painters also show women relaxing, sometimes in their bathrooms. ‘The Bath’ by Berthe Morisot shows a girl arranging her hair in her bathroom.

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The painting ‘the gleaners’ by Millet shows women working in a field. Picking up the leftovers from the harvest was seen to be one of the lowest jobs at the time and yet these women were the focus of the picture. Before this, servants and lower working class people were portrayed as being inferior, but in this picture the light in which they are bathed illuminates them and makes them seem noble whilst they are working. Behind the women, the field is also bathed in light so that the women are silhouetted against the lighter field giving a soft feel ...

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