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The third Monday in January has been coined ‘Blue Monday’, a coalescence of failed New Year’s resolutions, return to work, low motivation levels, and grey winter days. The promise of enchantment that hung over Christmas passes away and returns us with a crash to the reality of the everyday. This dissatisfaction captured by the term Blue Monday has often been capitalised upon by UK travel companies as visions of utopian destinations burst out of our screens and into our living rooms, promising us relief and escape from of everyday life.
It is however not escape from, but attention to, the domestic setting that characterises much of the wide body of work developed by American artist Mary Cassatt. Cassatt worked much of her adult life as a painter in France, concerning herself with attention to modern life and the domestic space. She is celebrated as a modern painter of women and children, centring her focus often on maternal relationships and women’s work in the home. Critics of her work have taken aim at her focus on ‘dull’ domestic scenes. Edgar P. Richardson in a 1954 review in Art News dismissed her work, commenting ‘there is an odd contrast between the boldness of her style and the world of perpetual afternoon tea it serves to record.’ Whilst some look with disapproval on her scenes of slow-paced, bourgeois life as conventional and uninteresting, others recognised her achievement: the elevation of women’s work and her ability to make visible the tender beauty and intimacy of the everyday.
The Crocheting Lesson (1902) is an example of this. The work lacks Cassatt’s characteristic bold and open pastel treatment, but retains her preferred subject. In this print we see the outline of a woman, fixed on the craft in front of her. Her arms are hooked round the figure of a young girl, simultaneously working and holding her in a one-arm embrace. The young girl grips her mother’s wrist, fixing her eyes also to the craft in hand – creative productivity is being shared and passed down across a generation.
Many have referred to Cassatt’s works as ‘modern Madonnas’, noting parallels between her work and depictions of the Madonna and Child from Old Masters such as Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510). Cassatt admired how Botticelli stretched his ‘love of truth to the point of painting her hands with the fingernails worn down with field work.’[1] Cassatt was attuned to the realism of Mary and her relatability as both mother and worker. Cassatt’s Crochet Lesson particularly recalls Boticelli’s Madonna of the Book (1480-81), where Mary is intent on her act of reading and devotion, as the Christ child is hooked in her arms and watches his mother’s focused gaze. Cassatt’s print faintly echoes Botticelli’s emphasis on the work of Mary, imagining the everyday acts of motherhood. Though we learn little of Mary and the childhood of Jesus in the Bible, we might join Cassatt and Botticelli in imagining that in many ways Christ’s childhood was characterised by its relative normalcy.
In borrowing the sacred visual language of the Madonna and Child from Old Masters, Cassatt’s crochet lesson is weighted by the sacred icon. And it is the resonant beauty of this reference in Cassatt’s work that serves to highlight the dignity and sacred nature of the everyday. Her work calls us to contemplate the wonder of the smallest acts of creativity and the responsibility of this being shared generationally. As we consider this, we might ponder how this demonstrates a core aspect of our humanity – work and creativity as a calling built into each one of us, an instinct echoing God’s creativity as we pursue our own. The Crochet Lesson becomes for us a lesson in resisting the urge to escape the difficulties of our mundane lives, and instead to seek out the meaning hidden in the ordinary moments of each day. Faithfulness to God is so often tied to moments just like these, small acts of obedience, of encounter, of resting in God’s arms, watching him and seeking to follow in his way.
Notes
[1] Nancy Mathews, Cassatt and her circle: selected letters (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 306.
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Mary Cassatt, The Crocheting Lesson, c. 1902, drypoint on light blue laid paper, 43.97 x 26.67 cm.
Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker, born in 1844 Pennsylvania. Cassatt died in 1926 near Paris after spending most of her adult life in France. She is closely associated with the Impressionist movement in France and had notable friendships with artists such as Edgar Degas. Her interest in colour, light and the inner life of her subjects was depicted largely through her interest in domestic life and maternal relationships.
Rebecca Nunes has a background in Fine Art and an MA in History of Art. She is based in Cardiff and works for UCCF, focused on equipping and resourcing creative students to consider how to best engage with the challenges and opportunities of the arts, how to contribute well as creative Christians to the dynamic cultural landscape, and how to reach fellow creatives with the life altering message of the Gospel.
