Close Reading on Mary Cassatt's Paintings

1.) In this picture my first impression is one of sympathy for the ignored child. The mother is busily sewing and it is beautiful outside while the child is cooped up inside looking bored. The subject of the piece is the mother and child because of the way they are the brightest points of color in the painting. I know they are the subjects because they both have brighter colors surrounding them and have lines from the woman's outfit even to the chair that point towards the woman and child.

2.) I think because this is an impressionist painting what sticks out most to me is the way in which the the whole painting is softer. I mean this in the way that Mary Cassatt was able to use her brushstrokes in such a way as to soften and therefore make it more up to the viewer as to what their interpretation of the painting would be. I am also convinced this painting is speaking about women being caged because the woman is kept indoors and she is facing away from the forest with a beautiful view and the forest seems as if it keeps going on forever and that is all the opportunities this woman is missing because her back is turned from it all.

3.) The effect of this painting is that it makes the viewer think about the circumstances of the time in which the painting was painted and also questions the motives of the painter. For example, why did Mary Cassatt not just draw a pretty little wall in the foreground? Why did she instead have a window leading out to infinite possibilities?

4.) Therefore, I think that this painting is a showcasing of how women's life during Mary Cassatt's time period were almost suffocating. They had there one place as shown in the painting where all they did was look after a child and know that all those possibilities and opportunities to further their knowledge and skills (as shown by the window's view of the forest) were always out of reach. So why does this matter? It matters because it makes us think about women's places and if they are so strictly cemented in, for example, the home. Today still begs the question because women are still looked at as needed to stay in the home while the husband works. This relates to my idea about Cassatt portraying this idea of restricted opportunities women are faced with and how the mother in the picture is the symbol of that era that even is somewhat present in today's society.