Manet and Morisot at the Legion

The Legion of Honor Museum occasionally presents concept shows that feel more gimmicky than illuminating, such as the recent Wayne Thiebaud exhibit and his old master influences. Their current exhibit, however, detailing the relationship between the 19th century French painters Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) is fascinating and full of visual surprises.

Both painters were upper-class Parisians who died relatively young, but not before changing Western art history, with Manet's striking modernism in subject and style and Morisot's role in the founding of Impressionism. (Pictured is Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, 1872).

Morisot was a friend, artistic collaborator, and frequent model for Manet, and eventually married his brother, Édouard. (Pictured is the 1874 Berthe Morisot with a Fan.)

One of Manet's most famous paintings is the 1868 The Balcony, where Berthe is seated.

Morisot soon painted her own version of what it was like from the inside, with her sister Edma posing in a chair. (Pictured is the 1870 Young Woman at Her Window. )

The exhibit features quite a number of exquisite Morisot paintings and at first it is fairly easy to spot which artist painted which canvas, but after a while that task becomes more difficult because they both influenced each other's styles so profoundly. (Pictured is Morisot's 1869 The Harbor at Lorient.)

One wall near the end of the show features four paintings by the two painters, similar in subject and style, and is it a Manet or Morisot guessing game is amusing. I guessed wrong, and realized the major clue afterwards was that Manet loved dark black accents while Morisot avoided them almost completely.