Women Caring for Children in “the Floating World”

figure of a woman, is lining up a billiard shot, while the figure of a man…stands dreaming in a doorway, " writes artist-printmaker Peter Milton (b. 1930). He is describing the photograph by Gertrude Kasebier in 1908, which inspired his print Mary's Turn. " …it was the drama of the purposeful woman and the pensive man which established the direction Mary's Turn was to take " (1). The pensive man was Edgar Degas; the purposeful woman none other than Mary Cassatt, grand dame of impressionism. Born to an affluent Pennsylvania family, Cassatt enjoyed a privileged childhood and cultural opportunities at home and abroad. Independent and strong willed, she prevailed upon her reluctant parents to let her enroll, at age 16, in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Against convention, she soon resolved to pursue an artistic career and set off to Paris to study the Old Masters. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, she returned briefly to the United States but left again to travel in Italy, Spain, and Belgium and to finally settle in Paris, where she lived the rest of her life. In the late 1800s, Paris was the center of the art world. Its architecture and transportation system set the standards for 20th-century urban living. Émile Zola described the travails of common people, Claude Debussy found new musical expressions, and French politics was undergoing a democratic revolution. Cassatt set up her studio and studied with academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. Her early work was influenced by the realism of Gustave Courbet and Eduard Manet (2). She sent her work to the Salon, an annual showcase that judged art on its adherence to agreed upon subjects and strict rules. In 1868, her painting The Mandolin Player was accepted. The rigid rules of the Salon and passion for creative freedom drove artists to independent exhibits. " I only began to live, " Cassatt asserted, " …at the moment Degas persuaded me to… exhibit with his friends in the group of Impressionists. I accepted with joy….I hated conventional art " (3). The only American painter to do so, she exhibited often with the impressionists, and under their influence she revised her approach to composition, color, and light, showing admiration for the group, especially Degas. " It's true. There is someone who feels as I do, " Degas once exclaimed in front of one of Cassatt's paintings (4). …