Chasing Butterflies

Morisot was a French Impressionist painter. She was the daughter of a top civil servant in the Department of Cher and a grand-niece of the Rococo painter Fragonard. She started to take drawing lessons in 1857. Berthe Morisot was a tireless copyist. She began with the Old Masters and ended up with Corot, whose work she had the advantage of discussing with the artist himself. From 1860 to 1862 she and her sister Edma were pupils of Corot (later Mme Pontillon). Corot advised her to go to Auvers-sur-Oise and learn to paint en plein air. Influenced by Camille Corot and Edouard Manet, she gave up her early classical training to pursue an individualistic Impressionistic style that became distinctive for its delicacy and subtlety. In 1874 she married Eugène Manet, the brother of Edouard Manet. Among her closest friends and admirers was the French poet Stephane Mallarmé, whom she met in her brother-in-law's (Edouard Manet) house.