Julie Daydreaming

Dreamy, pensive, bored—whatever your interpretation of the girl’s expression, French artist Berthe Morisot captured a serene mood in Julie Daydreaming, a portrait of her 16-year-old daughter. The plain background is anything but, with its defined brushstrokes in shades of brown and green that complement the hues in Julie’s hair and offset her white dress, itself rendered in pale grays and blues.

Morisot and Mary Cassatt were the only two women painters within the inner circle of the French Impressionists, the most important and influential art movement of the 19th century. She was married to Eugène Manet, the younger brother of fellow Impressionist Édouard Manet. Her husband, also a painter, gave up his career to manage hers. Although considered equals to their male colleagues in terms of artistic talent, Morisot and Cassatt were confined, due to society’s mores, to painting primarily domestic scenes of women and children. Not long after this painting was completed, Julie was tragically orphaned when Morisot, widowed three years earlier, succumbed to pneumonia at age 54.

- Martina Keogan

P.S. Julie Manet was called "the beauty of Impressionism." She was portrayed by many famous painters. Meet her here.  <3