Two words . . . Mary Cassatt

     In schooling my daughter, I am exposed to many different things that I don't remember having learned as a child.  One of these is art appreciation.  I was taught general artistic styles, for example pointillism, tissue paper flowers, paint blowing, tearing, sculpture, pottery, basic drawing etc.  But I was never told to look through a selection of famous paintings, choose my favorite, find the name of the artist and do a biography of him or her.  We recently (this week) completed this assignment.  I decided to do it right along with her.  We borrowed a book that traced art through the history of the world.  I discovered many that I liked, but I think my favorites were Renoir and Cassatt.  In the case of Cassatt, it was a rediscovery.  I had been introduced to her art and "lovdored" (love+adored) it at first sight.  Where, you might ask, were we introduced?  The North Pole post office.  I saw a set of stamps dedicated to her, with four samples of her art in stamp form.  I, of course, bought two or three sets, one or two to use and one to put in my collection.  (Yes I am an amateur, eclectic stamp collector.)  But I digress . . .

     Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania.  Much of her painting is classified as "Impressionist."  I prefer to classify it as "real life beauty."  Her art contains studies of life that, to me, looks like my life right now.  There are cherubic children, mothers with their cherubs, and young women all dressed up (just to name a few).  For a look at some of her art, here is a link to copy and paste in your address bar.

http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=mary+cassatt+art+work&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=lU9_S4HZEoimswOl9tiKBA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCsQsAQwAw


Back to Mary. . . She studied in Paris, as all the great do, for a time, then returned to America due to the Franco-Prussian War.  She continued to paint, despite the loss of loved ones, and a struggle with diabetes.  During the last 11 years of her life she had to give up painting because the diabetes had cost her most of her vision.  This caused her to become bitterly unhappy because she felt "robbed of her greatest source of pleasure."

When I read this last chapter of her life I could not help but think how her life might have ended differently had she only found her greatest pleasure in Christ alone.  She could have looked forward to painting with her Savior in truly perfect health.  There would have been sadness at her loss, but hope in her eternal future.  I cannot find anywhere if she was or was not saved, but I pray that maybe she was before she died.  This makes me so thankful for my Savior and His sacrifice for me.  I can look forward to things infinitely more beautiful that Mary's paintings.