Mary Cassatt: Post Impressionist Art

Japanese ukiyo-e wood block print had transformed Impressionist and Post Impressionist art. With the new form of art thriving in the nineteenth century showing the simples and everyday life had created worldwide attention to how art looks like, especially when ukiyo-e prints caught, Mary Cassatt attention. Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. A woman who entered the international art world where male dominated and women settled down by getting married, being a house wife, and being a mother during the nineteenth century. On the other hand not so much with Mary, she was a strong and stubborn woman who was a passion for the arts. Many of her influence during her career life were from focusing on women’s daily life, and even

Cassatt purchases Utamaro and Hiroshige Hokusai’s prints. She was so impressed that she intimated and perfected her drypoint technique and produced her first print style called “The Tea” in 1890 and nine other print series. Many had considered that Cassatt’s elegant prints were her finest work she had made from 1889-1899 (Carson 81). Even though Cassatt’s prints are different from the beautiful, simple but elegant Japanese woodblock prints, she still attempted to imitate the similar print methods of line and colors with incised metal plate techniques, print, etching, and aquatint. For example, the details from Kitagawa Utamaro’s “Geisha as Lovers from Seirô Niwaka Geisha Ni No Kawari” and Mary Cassatt’s “The Fitting” it shows the women’s daily activities. In the Japanese print, Utamaro’s style has shown its flat forms with bold outlines and especially the women’s dress, to the umbrella and the background of the print. In Cassatt’s print the viewers can see the influence in “The Fiiting” (Firgure B). from “Geisha as Lovers from Seirô Niwaka Geisha Ni No Kawari”. (Figure A). In Cassatt’s fifth series out of the ten prints she had imitated Utamaro’s art, from both figures of the women standing and sitting, to the flat

Due to Westerns strong interest in Japanese prints, it made a greater impact for many artists’ even entered into the twenty first century. Like Japanese popular mangas show “Death Note” and many others were inspired by the Hokusai’s print. Ukiyo-e print influenced many artists in different ways: whether it’s the bold design, intense color, and the simple elegant lines or from contours and facial expression. Either way, it can be seen and still reflects as the Japanese visual art