Manet Vs Cassat

The “Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge” by Mary Cassatt is a 19th century French painting. Mary Cassatt uses oil on canvas to bring out the rich colors in the painting. The subject in the painting is likely Mary Cassatt’s sister who is having a night out at the Paris Opéra House. Cassatt is portraying the modern woman sitting in an “elite” booth enjoying herself. As you can see from the painting she is able to capture the current moment of her sister during an intermission of the play. You can tell this because the chandelier is down and the lights are on. This is an impressionist art style, the painting was meant to capture a moment in time where she is enjoying herself at the opera. The way in which the opera was designed enabled the other guests to peer in to the “elite” booths where the upper class were seated. This is likely an image of someone …show more content…
Both Cassatt’s and Manet’s painting were of the impressionist style, they used loose brushwork, and aimed to capture the momentary, sensory effect of a scene. In Manet’s painting there are four people in the composition, a woman in a lake in the background, and the foreground consists of two men fully clothed and a woman completely naked looking right at us, the viewer, giving her a more seductive nature. You can also really see the progression of time and light in this painting with the sun and golden yellow in the background, and the dark cooler tones in the foreground. The use of vibrant colors that Cassatt contrasts with the more earthly tones of Manet, a discussion of the natural world, and the modern world of opulence and change. In Cassatt’s work, since she herself is a woman, she is able to portray women in a different perspective that men cannot. She gives an individuality of the woman, she is not there specifically for the viewer, she is there for herself, caught in a moment in time, as a normal modern