After the Bullfight

Notes from the museum

During her first years as a professional artist, Cassatt traveled largely on her own to study European art, including an extended stay in Italy and Spain in 1872–73. She looked especially to Renaissance and Baroque art of the 15th to 17th centuries and to the avant-garde explorations of her French contemporaries for inspiration. Cassatt harmonized these various elements in After the Bullfight , executed in Seville: The figure’s controlled, tonal modeling recalls that of Spanish Baroque painter Diego Velázquez, and the dynamic flourishes of rich pigment describing the bullfighter’s regalia evoke the modernist techniques of Frenchman Édouard Manet.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, but lived most of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

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