The Child’s Bath, 1890. Mary Cassatt. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The piece below is an oil painting. In this work, a woman in a striped dress is bathing her child. The viewer will notice much detail in the front of the image and in the back, notice the very loose shapes in the furniture. This allows the viewer to focus on the mother’s relationship with her daughter, which is the only focus that the mother has.
I really love this painting. My mother will always say that this is her favorite work of art. My mother is not a big fan of art. She doesn’t really know much about it and she can only provide a listening ear when my father goes on tangents about his art opinions. However, here at Penn State, my mother took one (and only one) art history course.
My mother’s favorite painter is Mary Cassatt. She is a Pittsburgh artist who came from money. She attended art school in Paris, and over the course of my life, she’s become one of my favorite artists because Cassatt is my mother’s favorite.
Something that I love about Cassatt’s work is that she perfectly captures motherhood. Cassatt was one of the first influential women in the art world. She was an especially important figure during the impressionist movement.
The mother’s relationship with her daughter is tender, just as it is in every other piece that Cassatt has made. I really enjoy her work and the common expressions of the mother and child. Each piece is a window into the real life of a mother, not a portrait that a family prepared at length for. While viewing, you can feel the mother’s love for her young.
We have a few prints by Mary Cassatt hanging around our house. Child in Bath is my favorite. It’s placement is perfect: right outside of my room. With a multiple blogs about my father and a blog about my own work, I really wanted my mother to shine through. She is someone I am passionate about talking about as well and though my connection with her is not dependent on art, I think that my love for her shines through in this piece.
Being a female engineer and a project director for Westinghouse, my mother is no nonsense because she had to be. My mother’s love for me is casual and essential. She is not extremely nurturing and caring, but she is reliable. I do not expect sympathy from my mother. I expect my mother to come into the room with a white board and a marker to make a pros and cons list. Cassatt’s work captures the duty of a mother to her children and I think that is why my mother connects with her work so well.
- For my advocacy project, I want to create a short 3-4 minute short video that informs the public about health communication and the importance of honesty in care.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cast/hd_cast.htm