For the third blog post for Jeff’s 131 Survey class, I chose Eva Gonzales as my main subject. I decided upon writing about her after discovering that she was more well known for her connection to her teacher than her own art. Furthermore, she was an artist who knew the limitations she faced as a female artist and worked around them, excelling despite her disadvantage.
Gonzales was a French painter of the impressionist movement. Although she couldn’t attend the “Ecole des Beaux-Arts” in Paris, she was able to get artistic training due to the high “bourgeois” status of her family, her father being a writer and mother a musician. She was Edouard Manet’s sole student.
She is well known, as many enjoy comparing her pieces to Manets as a point of criticism.
Gonzales painted portraits, still lives and a central theme of her pieces are women and children. She was also interested, as other impressionist painters were, in the contemporary life of working-class people in France. Unfortunately, she was limited in what she could depict, not possessing the same ability as male artists to wander around Paris at different times to capture the way the light interacted with the world.
She died at the age of 34 due to childbirth, with an impressive 90 paintings and pastel drawings in her repertoire. She lived a short, but successful life, one defined by her womanhood.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eva-Gonzales
Comments
Sophia,
Nice work on Eva Gonzales here! You have good background information combined with your own personal thoughts about the artist which I’m looking for. Quite obviously her work resonates with you. I’m giving you a 2/2 here. Also your score on the mid term quiz was a stellar 44/50 which an A. Well Done!
Jeff