Impressioniste Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzalés, Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt

This book is not only an analysis of the artistic path and the results obtained by the protagonists, but the story of their lives with aspirations, desires, successes and of course also difficulties, defeats and disappointments.This book talks about talent and achievements, about a beautiful art story still little known: author\’s pleasant writing accompanies the reader through Paris and Europe at the end of the 19th century, presenting one by one the four women who, born all in the 1840s, are the only ones of their generation to have largely surpassed the status of amateur amateur, perhaps talented, and to have devoted their entire lives to painting, ignoring social disapproval, suspicion and derision; the bourgeoisie to which almost all of them belonged, in fact, if it was ready to encourage the practice of painting by young girls as a decent and graceful pastime, certainly did not like to see a respectable woman put herself in the position of professional painter, perhaps sacrificing her family and motherhood.An analysis of the exceptional circumstances that led these four figures to develop (at least in three cases; Eva Gonzales died very young, at the age of 34 in 1883) their talent and style, is the first of the tasks in this volume, which then examines their creative path caught against the background of the context of exchanges, mutual influences and friendships that united the artists with the circle of the Impressionists and other painters and men of culture of the time.