About The Artist
- Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May
22, 1844 - June 14, 1926) |
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Mary Cassatt was
an Impressionist painter and printmaker
from America. She is famous for painting
subjects from the normal domestic
and the social lives of women; she
was particularly fond of showing the
intimate bond shared by mothers and
children. |
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About
The Painting - Five O'clock Tea |
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An
accomplished and versatile artist,
Mary Cassatt could paint with mastery
in oil as well as print mediums. She
worked mostly in oil until 1879, after
which she took to making pastels encouraged
by her close friend and Impressionist
painter Edgar Degas. |
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Cassatt's
subjects were women and children and
she set her character in everyday
domestic settings. Her lush stroke
work and eye for detail are the hallmarks
of her painting style. In the Five
O'clock Tea, Cassatt has given equal
attention to the family heirloom as
to the figures in this rather atypical
image of a mundane domestic ritual
of afternoon tea. |
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The
detailed artwork in the Five O'clock
Tea holds the viewer's imagination.
Cassatt's eye for details was so keen
that she even painted the women's
clothes with exquisite detail. The
vertical lines of the background wall
add depth to the painting while matching
in color with the upholstery of the
sofa and the tea table. Cassatt's
study of Japanese Prints helped her
understand that the background of
a composition was as important as
the foreground. She also realized
that creating a tension between the
foreground and background would immediately
capture the propinquity of vision,
as well as help shift focus between
reality and perception. She used these
principles beautifully in the Five
O'clock tea painting. |
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When
the French critic Paul Mantz saw this
painting in the 5th Impressionist
exhibition, he complained, "The wretched
sugar bowl remains floating in the
air like a dream." |
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The
quality of her draughtsmanship was
excellent and this can be seen in
all the media that Cassatt worked
with, especially pastel. Particularly
partial to the theme of mother and
child, she made several paintings
expressing a range of feelings and
emotions. |
