The Family

For centuries, depictions of the Holy Family lay at the center of Western art. With this painting, Mary Cassatt embraced and refreshed that tradition. Her family is fully secular and stylistically up to the minute, adding a new degree of pictorial and psychological complexity to the subject. Free brushstrokes, broad areas of flat color, and tight cropping all reflect her involvement with the Impressionists. Cassatt was one of the few women and the only American who worked and exhibited with the French artists.

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