Young Girl in a Park
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| Young Girl in a Park | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Artist | Berthe Morisot |
| Year | 1888–1893 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 90 cm × 81 cm (35 in × 32 in) |
| Location | Musée des Augustins, Toulouse |
Young Girl in a Park is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Berthe Morisot, created between 1888 and 1893. It has the dimensions of 90 by 81 cm. It is held at the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse.[1]
This canvas, in an almost square format, is a portrait of a young girl named Jeanne-Marie, who also would pose for Julie Manet, the artist's daughter.[1] Morisot began this work in 1888 but quickly abandoned it. She waited until 1893 to return to it and complete it, two years before she died. In 1892, on the occasion of her personal exhibition, the work was not finished and couldn't be shown to the public. The model of the work can be found in several works by Berthe Morisot, including Young Girl Leaning (1887) and Young Woman with a Hat (1888). Jeanne-Marie began posing for this painting in 1888, but in 1893, when Morisot resumed work on it, she was no longer available. The artist decided to continue the work despite the absence of a model, drawing inspiration from her daughter, which explains the slightly fixed appearance of the young girl's face.
The young girl faces us, monumentalized by a frontal position. She is seated on a bench, in the foreground of the work, slightly off center to the right. The frame cuts it through her legs. She is surrounded by a lush garden and wears a large English hat in beige tones. Her wavy red hair falls over her shoulders framing a soft, fixed face, on which a smile is sketched. The curves drawn by the vegetation echo those of her body, underlined by the clothing, as well as the roundness of the hat and the undulation of her hair. Only the vertical and horizontal lines of the bench interrupt this intertwining of soft lines.
The top of her garment, mixing shades of blue, white, green and gray, recalls the color of the bench and the flowers to the girl's right. The bottom of her dress, striped with shades of green, recalls the different tones of the vegetation in the background. The light beige of the girl's skin and the darker beige of the hat echo the golden light found at the top left of the canvas, where the vegetation is less abundant.[1]