Berthe Morisot

"His [ Edouard Manet's] paintings, as they always do, produce the impression of a wild or even a somewhat unripe fruit. I do not in the least dislike them."

"Men readily believe that they will fill a whole life; but for my part, I believe that however fond one is of one's husband, one does not relinquish a life of work without some difficulty; affection is a very pretty thing provided it is coupled with something to fill one's day; that something, for you, I see as motherhood."

"He [ Manet ] begged me to go straight up and see his painting [ 'Le Balcon'] - Berthe was model for this painting], as he was rooted to the spot. I've never seen anyone in such a state, one minute he was laughing, the next insisting his picture was dreadful; in the next breath, sure it would be a huge success."

"The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl [in his painting 'View on the village' ] in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we [Berthe and her sister Edma] have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeed."

"He [Manet] came about one o'clock [the day for submitting works for The Paris Salon of 1870]. he found it [ 'Reading', Berthe's double-portrait of her mother with her pregnant sister Edma] very good, except for the lower parts of the dress. He took the brushes and put in a few accents.. ..mother was in ecstasies. That is where my misfortune began. Once started, nothing could stop him, from the skirt he went to the bust, from the bust to the head, from the head to the background. He cracked a thousand jokes, laughed like a madman, handed me the palette, took it back; finally by five o'clock in the afternoon we had made the best caricature you have ever seen."

"Corot spoiled the 'étude' [study] we admired so much when we saw it at his home, by redoing it in the studio."

"I will achieve it only [being an artist] by perseverance, and by openly asserting my determination to emancipate myself, [but].. ..I both lament and envy your [Edma's] fate. Bichette [her niece] helps me to understand maternal love; she comes onto my bed every morning and plays so sweetly.. ..life gets more complicated by the day here now I am gripped by the desire to have children, that' all I need."

"During the day I received a visit from Puvis de Chavannes; he saw what I had done [painted in 1869-70 in Lorient] and didn't seem to think it was too bad.. ..The Manet's [the brothers Eduard and Eugene Manet] came to see us [Berthe and her mother] Tuesday evening, we visited the studio; to my great surprise and satisfaction I received the highest praise. it seems that what I do is decidedly better than Eva Gonzalès. Manet is too candid, and there can be no mistake about it. I am sure that he liked these things a great deal; however, I remember what Fantin says, namely, that Manet always approves of the painting of people whom he likes."

"I have heard so much about the perils ahead that I have had nightmares for several nights, in which I lived through all the horrors of war.. .The militia are quartered in the studio, hence there is no way of using it. I do not read the newspapers much any more; one a day is enough for me. The Prussian atrocities upset me, and I want to retain my composure.. .Would you believe that I am accustomed to the sound of the canon [of the Prussians]? It seems to me that I am now absolutely inured to war and capable of enduring everything."

"This painting, this work you miss so much [the two sisters Morisot painted a lot together] is a cause of much trouble and concern, you know this as well as I do and yet, child that you are, you are already weeping for the loss of the very thing that darkened you mood only recently. Think of it, yours is not the very worst lot: you have a real affection, a devoted heart that is yours an yours alone, do not be ungrateful for the dealings of fate, think of the great sorrow that is solitude; whatever anyone says or does, womankind has immense need of affection; to want to retreat into yourself is to attempt the impossible."

"The stories of the Manet brothers [ Edouard and her future husband Eugène Manet ] tell about all the horrors we are likely to face, they [in Paris, during the war between France and Germany] are almost enough to discourage even the bravest of us. [But] you know they [the Manet brothers] always exaggerate, and at the moment they see everything in the blackest possible light."

"It seems to me a painting [she is working on] like the one I gave Manet ['The Harbour at Lorient'] could perhaps sell, and that is all I care about."

"He [ Manet ] holds up that eternal Mademoiselle Gonzales as an example; she has poise, perseverance, she can get her things finished whereas I am incapable of doing anything properly. In the meantime he [Manet] has started her portrait again, for the twenty-fifth time. She poses every day, and every night he rubs out the head.."

"I do not like this place [ Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a small fishing-village on the Spanish border]. I find it arid and dried up. The sea here is ugly. It is either all blue - I hate it like that - or dark and dull."

"There is constant sun, good weather all the time, the ocean like a slab of slate - there is nothing less picturesque than this combination."

"I am keen to earn some money.. ..beginning to lose all hope.. .What I see most clearly is that my situation in impossible from every point of view."

"I have found an honest and excellent man [ Eugène Manet, brother of Edouard Manet ] who, I believe, sincerely loves me. I have entered into the positive life after having lived for a long time in by chimeras."

"..the glimpse of the dome of St. Paul's through the forest of yellow masts, the whole thing bathed in a golden haze."

"Dear sir, Edouard Manet told me that you were kind enough to bring the sketch that you completed of him [Monet painted Manet in his garden, Argenteuil, Summer 1874]. I did not have the time to thank you before leaving Paris [with Eugene Manet, just married]. I treasure your gift all the more because I attribute much value to what you do. My husband and I, when we look out at the English seascapes which around us, often speak of you talent and what you will achieve from this movement.......[unreadable – about the Impressionists?]."

"My work is going badly.. ..it is always the same story: I don't know where to start. I made an attempt in a field, but the moment I had set up my easel more than fifty boys and girls were swarming about me, shouting and gesticulating. On a boat one has another kind of difficulty. Everything sways, there is an infernal lap of water; one has the sun and the wind to cope with; the boats change position every minute, etc.. .The view from my window is pretty to look at, but not to paint. Views from above are almost always incomprehensible; as a result of all this I am not doing much.."

"If you read some of the Parisian newspapers, among others the 'Figaro', so beloved of the right-thinking public, you must have learned that I am part of a group of artists who opened a private exhibition [in the art-gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris, April 1876]. You must also have seen what favour this exhibition enjoys in the eyes of these gentlemen [Berthe refers to the critical articles in Paris with all their mockery about her works]. On the other hand, we have been praised in the radical newspaper, but you don't read those [her aunts]! Well, at least we are getting attention, and we have enough self-esteem not to care. My brother-in-law Edouard Manet is not with us [Manet didn't participate in this first Impressionist show, initiated by Degas ]. Speaking of success, he [Manet] has just been rejected by the Salon; he, too, is perfectly good-humored about his failure."

"The love of art.. ..reconciles us to our lined faces and white hear. [Berthe Morisot was 40 years then]"

"The touch, sure and light [is] fixing something of the passing moment.. ..memory is the true, imperishable life, that which has sunk without trace and been forgotten was not worth experiencing, the sweet hours, and the great and dread, are immutable. Dreams are life itself – and dreams are more true than reality; in them we behave as our true selves – if we have a soul it is there."

"I can not get over everything you did for me in that first day [for his support to hang her works on the 7th Impressionist exhibition, Spring 1882], it seems to me that you are working yourself to death, and all on my account. This touches me deeply and vexes me at the same time."

"These last days [of Manet, dying] were very painful. Poor Edouard suffered atrociously. His agony was horrible, death in one of its most appealing forms, that I once again witnessed at a very close range. If you add to these almost physical emotions my old bond of friendship with Edouard, a entire past of youth and work suddenly ending, you will know that I am devastated."

"I think that it will be a great success, that all this painting [of Edouard Manet, shortly after his death], so fresh, so vital, will electrify the 'Palais des Beaux Arts' [in Paris], which is accustomed to dead art. It will be the revenge for so many rebuffs, but a revenge that the poor boy only in his grave."

"It is odd that Edouard [Manet] with his reputation as an innovator, who has survived such storms of criticism, should suddenly be seen as a classicist. It just proves the imbecility of the public, for he has always been a classic painter."

"This project [an Impressionist exhibition in Paris] is very much up in the air. Degas' perversity makes it almost impossible of realization; there are clashes of vanity in this little group [of impressionists] that make any understanding difficult. It seems to me that I am the only one without any pettiness of character. This makes up for my inferiority as a painter.. ..the truth is that our value [of woman] lies in feeling, in intuition, in our vision that is subtler than that of men, and we can accomplish a great deal provided that affectation, pedantry and sentimentalism do not come to spoil everything."

"..scumbled froth.. ..capable of indicating a mouth, eyes, a nose with a single stroke of the brush, the rest of the face modeled by the perfect accuracy of these indications."

"Would you do us the great favour, you and Mademoiselle Geneviève, of coming to dine next Thursday? Monet will be there, Renoir also.."

"As I admired it [a red pencil and chalk drawing by Degas of a young mother, nursing her child] he showed me a whole series done from the same model and with the same sort of rhythm. He is a draughtsman of the first order; it would be interesting to show all these preparatory studies for a painting to the public, which generally imagines that the impressionists work in a very casual way. I do not think it possible to go further in the rendering of form."

"He [Renoir] is a subtle and brilliant draughtsman.. ..all these preliminary drawings [in Renoir's studio] would astonish the public who obviously imagine the 'Impressionists' work at tremendous speed. I don't believe one can go further [in making sketches as studies] than this in the study of form in a drawing. I am charmed by his 'Nude Bathers' quite as much as those by Ingres. He [Renoir] tells me that he thinks the nude is absolutely indispensable as an art form."

"I have descended to the depths of suffering, and it seems to me that after that one cannot help being raised up. But I have spent the last three nights weeping. Pity! Pity! Remembrance is the true imperishable life.. .I should like to live my life over again, to record it, to admit my weaknesses; no, this is useless; I have sinned, I have suffered, I have atoned for it. I could write only a bad novel by relating what has been related a thousand times."

"Another stroll along the quays with Julie asking questions all the time. We stood for a long time examining the sun and the planet at a mapmaker's.. ..There in the Tuileries Gardens.. ..sitting down I began to ponder over my painting of the garden, watching the shadows on the sand and on the roof of the Louvre, and trying to find the relationship between light and shade. Julie saw pink in the light and purple in the shadows."

"I do not think any man would ever treat a woman as his equal, and it is all I ask because I know my worth."

"Your phrase: 'I am working hard at growing old', is absolutely me. What if you were always to speak in my place.."

"I saw the passers-by on the avenue clearly and simply, in the way they are in Japanese prints [she saw some earlier, together with Mary Casatt in the 'Ecole des Beaux Arts', Paris]. I was thrilled, I knew definitely why I had been painting badly and why I would never paint that way again. I mean to say, I am fifty years old and once a year at least I have the same joy and the same hope."

"I say, 'I should like to die', but that's not true at all, I should like to get younger.. ..youth and old age are similar in more ways than one, and they are the two moments in life when one can feel one's own soul which would be a proof that it exists."

"With what resignation we arrive at the end of life, resigned to all its failures on the one hand, all its uncertainties on the other, for so long I have hoped for nothing, and the desire for glorification after death seems to me an overblown ambition; my own ambition has been confined to a desire to fix something of all that passes, oh! Something, the least little thing, well! That ambition, too, is overblown."

"My dearest little Julie, I love you as I lie dying; I shall still love you when I am dead. I beg of you, do not cry; this parting was inevitable. I would have liked to be with you until you married – Work hard and be good as you have always been; you have never caused me a moment's sorrow in you little life [Julie is 16, then]. You have beauty, good fortune; use them well. I think the best thing would be to live with your cousins in the Rue de Villejust, but I do not wish to force you to do anything. Give a memento of me to your aunt Edma [Berthe's sister] , and to your cousins too; and give Monet's [painting] 'Bateaux en reparation' to your cousin Gabriel. Tell M. Degas that if he found a museum he is to choose a Manet [of her Manet paintings]. A keepsake for Monet; one for Renoir, and one of my drawings for Bartolomé. Give something to the two concierges. Do not cry, I love you more than I can tell you."

"Music and painting should never be literary, a very subtle distinction according to Renoir. As soon as I try to represent an individual, their physiognomy and attitudes, I become a literary artist."

"My ambition is limited to capturing something transient."

"They [the sisters Berthe and Edma ] will become painters. Are you fully aware of what that means? It will be revolutionary – I would almost say catastrophic – in your bourgeois society. Are you sure you won't curse Art, because once it is allowed into such a respectable and serene household, it will surely end by dictating the destinies of your two children."

"Since it is not necessary to have had a long training in draughtsmanship at the Academy to paint a copper pot, a candlestick and a bunch of radishes, women succeed quite well in this domestic type of painting. Miss Berthe Morisot brings to the task really a great deal of frankness with a delicate feeling for light and colour."

"There are works for exhibition, others for the studio, you need to follow the public's taste if you want to succeed.. ..with some works you make your reputation with the artists, with others you do good business if possible"

"I would also point out two landscapes by Mesdemoiselles Morisot, - doubtless two sisters [Berthe and Edma]. Corot is sure to be their master. These canvases show a freshness and naivety of expression and atmosphere that provided some respite from the suave, mean-minded work lapped up with such enthusiasm by the crowds. The artists must have painted these studies quite deliberately on the spot [in open-air] determined to reproduce what they saw."

"I quite agree with you, the Mademoiselles Morisot are charming. What a pity they are not men. All the same, they could serve the cause of painting, in their capacity of women, by each marrying an academician and bringing trouble to those old bogeys in the enemy-camp. Or perhaps that's asking too much sacrifice."

"I am often with you, my dear Berthe, in my thoughts. I follow you everywhere in your studio and I wish that I could escape, were it only for one quarter of an hour to breathe again that air in which we lived for many years."

"We also consider that Miss Berthe Morisot's name and talent are too important to us to do without."

"If possible, come and take care of the placing [for the first Impressionist painting show of Spring 1876, in the art-gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris, with nineteen pictures of Berthe Morisot]. We are planning to hang the works of each painter in the group together, separating them from any others as much as possible.. .. please, do come and direct this."