Berthe Morisot Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

There is constant sun, good weather all the time, the ocean like a slab of slate - there is nothing less picturesque than this combination

Berthe Morisot
My ambition is limited to capturing something transient.

Berthe Morisot
The stories of the Manet brothers [Edouard and her future husband Eugène Manet] tell about all the horrors we are likely to face [in Paris, during the war between France and Germany] are almost enough to discourage even the bravest of us. [But] you know they always exaggerate, and at the moment they see everything in the blackest possible light.

Berthe Morisot
The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we [Berthe and her sister Edma both painted, then] have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeed.

Berthe Morisot
He [Manet] holds up that eternal Mademoiselle Gonzales as an example; she has poise, perseverance, she can get her things finished whereas I am incapable of doing anything properly. In the meantime he [Manet] has started her portrait again, for the twenty-fifth time. She poses every day, and every night he rubs out the head...

Berthe Morisot
I have found an honest and excellent man [Eugène Manet, brother of Edouard Manet, the painter] who, I believe, sincerely loves me. I have entered into the positive life after having lived for a long time in by chimeras.

Berthe Morisot
.. once started, nothing could stop him [Edouard Manet, correcting in a painting, fresh-made by Berthe - a portrait of her sister Edma with her young child Cornélie]; from the skirt he went to the bust, from the bust to the head, from the head to the background. He cracked a thousand jokes, laughed like a madman, handed me the palette, took it back; finally by five o'clock in the afternoon we had made the best caricature you have ever seen.

Berthe Morisot
As I admired it [a red pencil and chalk drawing by Degas of a young mother, nursing her child] he showed me a whole series done from the same model and with the same sort of rhythm. He is a draughtsman of the first order; it would be interesting to show all these preparatory studies for a painting to the public, which generally imagines that the impressionists work in a very casual way. I do not think it possible to go further in the rendering of form.

Berthe Morisot
He [Manet] begged me to go straight up and see his painting ['Le Balcon' - Berthe was model for this painting], as he was rooted to the spot. I've never seen anyone in such a state, one minute he was laughing, the next insisting his picture was dreadful; in the next breath, sure it would be a huge success.

Berthe Morisot
The love of art.... reconciles us to our lined faces and white hear.

Berthe Morisot
His agony was horrible, death in one of its most appealing forms, that I once again witnessed at a very close range. If you add to these almost physical emotions my old bond of friendship with Edouard, a entire past of youth and work suddenly ending, you will know that I am devastated.

Berthe Morisot
You [her sister Edma] have a serious attachment, and a man's heart utterly devoted to you. You should realize how lucky you are... A woman has a huge need of affection. To try to withdraw into ourselves is to attempt the impossible.

Berthe Morisot
I do not like this place [Saint-Jean-de-Luz - a small fishing-village on the Spanish border] I find it arid and dried up. The sea here is ugly. It is either all blue - I hate it like that - or dark and dull.

Berthe Morisot
I don't think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that's all I would have asked for, for I know I'm worth as much as they.

Berthe Morisot