Impressionism, the outdoors and luminous modernity

Top 50 female impressionist painters and heirs of light

From Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond and Eva Gonzalès to Anna Ancher, Helene Schjerfbeck, Sonia Delaunay, Georgia O'Keeffe and Vanessa Bell, this guide follows the artists who extended the impressionist light.

The history of Impressionism has long been told around a few big male names. Yet, female painters played a vital role in conquering the outdoors, white, modern privacy, gardens, windows, children, interiors and bright colors.

See the Top 50Understand selection
50classified artists
39
11wikipedia links
Berthe Morisot, grande peintre impressionniste

Before the grid

Women at the heart of luminous modernity

Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond and Eva Gonzalès are not footnotes of impressionism: they are central actresses. They paint modern life from spaces that their colleagues often look at from the outside: bedrooms, gardens, maternity wards, readings, workshops, children and female sociability.

Their heritage goes beyond the historical impressionist group. In the North, light becomes inner silence; in America, it crosses portraits, beaches and modernism; in the Russian and European avant-gardes, it becomes pure color, sign, construction or abstraction.

Top 1 to 10

The Impressionists and pioneers of light

Morisot, Cassatt, Bracquemond, Gonzalès, Perry, Beaux, Ancher, Bashkirtseff, Valadon and Modersohn-Becker show that luminous modernity is also written in the feminine.

Ranks 11 to 20

Outdoors, portraits and Belle Époque modernity

McNicoll, Nourse, Breslau, Boch, Laurencin, Charmy, Marval, Baudot, Abbéma and Bacon expanded impressionism towards portraiture, Fauvism and intimate color.

Ranks 21 to 30

Northern Lights

Hitz, Schjerfbeck, Churberg, Thesleff, Backer, Kielland, Nørregaard, Boberg, af Klint and Hjertén shift light to interiors, northern landscapes and spiritual abstraction.

Ranks 31 to 40

Russian avant-gardes, cubism and simultaneous color

Petrovic, Serebriakova, Goncharova, Ekster, Rozanova, Popova, Sonia Delaunay, Tarsila, Blanchard and Münter bring light into the avant-gardes.

Ranks 41 to 50

Modern heirs of light

Werefkin, Kollwitz, Carr, O'Keeffe, Cossington Smith, Beckett, Carrick Fox, Laura Knight, Gwen John and Vanessa Bell prove that light remained a modern subject in the 20th century.

Method

How the 50 artists were selected

The selection starts from historical impressionism, then extends it to artists who extend the idea of modern light: outdoors, light interiors, post-impressionism, Nabis, Fauvism, Nordic modernism, colorful abstraction and landscapes transformed by perception.

The classification balances historical importance, pictorial quality, influence, geographical diversity and ability to renew light: window, garden, beach, snow, desert, city or pure color light.

Where to start?

Three simple courses

For historical impressionism, start with Morisot, Cassatt, Bracquemond and Gonzalès. For the outdoors and direct heirs, continue with Perry, McNicoll, Bacon, Carrick Fox and Laura Knight.

For the northern lights, look at Anna Ancher, Harriet Backer, Schjerfbeck, Thesleff, Boberg and Hjertén. For the colorful avant-gardes, go to Sonia Delaunay, Goncharova, Ekster, Popova, Tarsila, Münter, af Klint and O'Keeffe.

Impressionist light has never been a single story

These fifty artists show that modern light is not limited to Monet's reflections or Parisian cafés. It also passes through rooms, maternity wards, workshops, beaches, fjords, deserts, textiles, abstractions and silent interiors.

By bringing them together, we see another genealogy of modernity: less linear, more international, and above all much brighter.

Review the Top 10

0 comments

Leave a comment

Please note that comments must be approved before they are published.