Quote of the Day by Mary Cassatt: "I hated conventional art – I began to live."
by https://www.creativebloq.com/author/ian-dean · Creative Bloq
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Source: Mary Cassatt, recalling her decision to exhibit with the Impressionists after Edgar Degas invited her to join them. Sotheby's cites Achille Segard's Un Peintre des Enfants et des Mères: Mary Cassatt (1913).
I hated conventional art – I began to live.Mary Cassatt
Unlike some in our Quote of the Day series, Mary Cassatt didn't have the easiest route into the art world. She spent years trying to build a career in an art world with very clear ideas about what art should look like, who was allowed to make it and, as a woman, how far she could realistically expect to go. She studied in Paris, submitted work to the Salon and gradually became increasingly frustrated with the conventions she was expected to follow.
Then Edgar Degas invited her to exhibit with the Impressionists, and Cassatt later recalled: “I accepted with joy. At last I could work with absolute independence without considering the opinion of a jury. I had already recognised who my true masters were. I admired Manet, Courbet and Degas. I hated conventional art – I began to live.”
It's that last line I keep coming back to. “I hated conventional art – I began to live” as there’s a sense of release in it, as though Cassatt isn't simply saying that she preferred one way of painting to another, but that finding artists who opened up a different way of working changed what being an artist actually meant to her.
That's where her quote becomes more relevant than simply ‘be original’. Cassatt wasn't working in some creative vacuum, and she wasn't pretending that everything that came before her was irrelevant. Instead, she admired Manet, Courbet, and Degas, and their work gave her somewhere to go, something to be different against, because conventions aren't necessarily the enemy.
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You need to know what has come before, understand the rules before you start breaking them, and sometimes the restrictions of a particular job or project are exactly what make a piece of work interesting. The trouble starts when you stop noticing the difference between being influenced by something and simply reproducing it.
That’s relevant today, when you can see more art in a few minutes than Cassatt could have encountered in weeks – open Instagram, Pinterest, ArtStation or whatever your particular rabbit hole happens to be, and there is an endless stream of artists, colour palettes, compositions, brush styles, character designs and visual trends competing for your attention.
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The problem with having so many influences is separating what excites you from what simply seems to be working for everyone else. You can absorb all of the art and styles available without really noticing – the right colours, references, texture, perhaps even the right amount of roughness to make it feel like your digital art is handmade, and yet something about it doesn't quite feel like yours.
Cassatt's breakthrough wasn't about ignoring everyone else, either. It was about finding the people who made her want to do something differently – Manet, Courbet and Degas weren't formulas for her to copy; they were artists who helped her see what could be done, what was possible, when the conventions everyone else is obeying are shut down. For Cassatt, that meant applying Japanese-inspired techniques – printmaking, flattened depth, almost geometric composition – to scenes of women and domestic life.
That's what makes “I began to live” such a good ending to think about, as it's not really a rejection of influence, but a recognition of the point at which influence becomes your own, and the things you've absorbed stop telling you what to make and start giving you the freedom to find out what else can be done.
Visit the the Mary Cassatt website for more art and inspiration.
Our pick of the best Mary Cassatt art books:
Abbeville Press
Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Prints
DelMonico Books
The Prints of Mary Cassatt
Children's Press
Mary Cassatt (getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)
Chronicle Books
Cassatt: Mothers and Children
Yale University Press
Mary Cassatt at Work
Lucent Books
Mary Cassatt: Famous Female Impressionist (eye on Art)