A balancing act

Just before heading for summer camp, I finished a painting I'd been thinking about for over a year. I'd been reading about Berthe Morisot, "the female Impressionist," and came across a contemporary critic's assessment of the painting she submitted to the famous (in retrospect) 1865 Salon:

"Since it is not necessary to have had a long training in draughtsmanship in the academy in order to paint a copper pot, a candlestick, and a bunch of radishes, women succeed quite well in this type of domestic painting." (-Paul Mantz quoted in BERTHE MORISOT: THE CORRESPONDENCE, ed. Denis
Rouart)

Okay. Copper pot + candlestick + bunch of radishes = "women's work"? Very well. I can do that. I think I'll give it a try.


Some months passed as I finished my Astrological Plants series and then waited for radishes to be seasonable. Meanwhile, the idea came to me to use not just the named threesome, but three of each item and then to see how I could create a balanced, harmonious composition with the 3x3 subject matter.

Usually I play with compositional possibilities via thumbnail sketches, but once I had the June radishes before me, I saw that a quicker way would be to make small prototype objects which I could easily move around. By now, I'd realized that cast shadows could be an interesting design element and so I painted a small family of paper shapes: candlesticks, copper pots, radishes, and "shadows."

In one exciting session (which felt like a cross between playing chess and playing with paper dolls) I tried the pieces in various configurations. The prototype composition, shown here, was planned to sit against folds of background fabric which would run in diagonal opposition to the lines of the shadows.


Here's the final outcome -- which altered the 3x3 concept a bit when I split up one of the radish bunches. You can view the progression here.

The painting's title "Balancing Act" refers both to my compositional game and, with a small feminist salute, to Berthe Morisot herself -- and the immense balancing act she maintained between her role as the daughter of privileged 19th century Parisians and her compulsion, nonetheless, to be an artist.