Eva Gonzalès

Eva Gonzalès was a french impressionist painter who typically portrayed contemporary Parisian life. Although Gonzalès was considered an impressionist, her pieces displayed a realist style and stayed within the confines of what was considered acceptable in academic salons. She began painting at the age of 16 by studying under Charles Joshua Chaplin. She was unable to go to the École des Beaux-Arts because female students were not allowed to attend at the time, but her high social status granted her enough financial resources to allow her to have this artistic career. A few years later, she met Edouard Manet who would soon be a major influence on her style of painting. Manet took her on as a student after she did some modeling for his work; but as time went on, her audience and critics criticized her for being overly similar to Manet.

Even though Gonzalès’ paintings were judged for sharing nearly identical characteristics with Manet’s work, I feel like they also have dissimilar qualities. I found that Gonzalès had a better depiction of the human face; whereas Manet’s faces look sort of distorted, especially in his painting, Woman Reading. Overall, I don’t think that she deserved the backlash that she received because there were tons of artists in art history who drew inspiration from other painters’ work. The important part was that she stuck to her own content, she never copied the work of her mentor. Finally, I personally love Eva Gonzalès’ work because of the fact that she had that realistic aspect while also having a looser characteristic to her art. I am particularly drawn to that type of work because I feel that it shows a special type of talent that I’ve only ever seen in Manet’s art.

“Summary of Eva Gonzalès.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/gonzales-eva/. Accessed 29 October 2021.

“Eva Gonzalès.” Naomi Blumberg, Brittanica, 2016, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eva-Gonzales. Accessed 29 October 2021.