Customer Reviews

Mary Cassatt - A Brush With Independence

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I finally took the risk and ordered this DVD even though there was no clip on You Tube to give me a preview and very few customer reviews to go by. I am very glad I did. It is an excellent introduction to the life and work of Cassatt. I knew very little about her life (I have one book of her paintings so I was familiar with her work) so I found it informative, it touched on important aspects of her life briefly but not in much depth, which is what you would expect from a 57min (HDTV) piece designed to accompany an exhibition at the Art Institute Chicago. It has lots of images of her work, and the places that she lived including footage of her large estate in France(Beaufresne?), and gave me insight into her extremely close relationships with her family and how their deaths affected her ability to work. I hadn't realised how important she was as a mentor to younger American artists making the pilgrimage to France and in encouraging American collectors to buy significant modern art so that the American public would eventually have some of the finest collections in the world. Perfect for a classroom situation, home schooling and for anyone with a general interest in the artist.

I enjoyed the DVD of Mary Cassatt. Even though she is not one of my favorite artists I loved this film of her. The film is good quality and I would recommend it to any other artist who enjoy
watching films on the Impressionist.

I saw this quite a while ago, but I wrote down somewhere that it's a 5-star work. This work answers how an American became involved with the impressionist school. It also speaks a bit on women artists. I forgot whether it supports or dismisses the idea that Cassatt painted women and children because she was saddened by her own childlessness. It must be noted that Impressionism was considered radical at the time, but now that it's deemed peaceful and pretty, many viewers, especially those with girly sensibilities, will love seeing so much of Cassatt's ouvre.