Chasing butterflies berthe morisot biography

Early Life and Training

Morisot was born in Bourges, Cher, into a highly cultured upper-middle class family with artistic connections. Her grandfather was Jean-Honore Fragonard () who, along with Francois Boucher and Antoine Watteau, was one of the famous French artists of the Rococo style.

Her sister, Edma Morisot, also became a full-time painter.

Chasing Butterflies - Web Gallery of Art

In the early s, both Morisot sisters were informal pupils of the Romantic landscape painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (), who as well as persuading them to take up plein-air painting also introduced them to other artists within his circle. As a result, in , Morisot met Edouard Manet (), who became her principal artistic mentor. After he died, when Morisot was 42, she also learned from Pierre-Auguste Renoir ().

(See also: Impressionism: Origins, Influences.)

Meantime, Berthe and Edma worked closely together until such time as Edma married and started a family, after which her painting activity declined - a s