Lake Shore 1888 - 1889

Curator: Let's consider Berthe Morisot's "Lake Shore," currently housed at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It’s so delicate! Like a whisper of a memory, the way she’s used the etching. It feels almost fragile. Curator: Absolutely. Notice how Morisot uses the etching process to capture the scene. Her deliberate choice of this printmaking technique, rather than painting, underscores her engagement with materiality and her place amongst her contemporaries. Editor: The lines are so sparse, but she conveys so much with so little. It makes me think about capturing a moment, just a glimpse, like poetry. Curator: A beautiful point. And perhaps that brevity also speaks to the social constraints she faced as a woman artist within the art world of her time. Editor: It is hard not to notice the effect, and the skill used in creating this artwork, it takes us on such a journey into the woods! Curator: Indeed. We have much to consider about the labor of etching and its reflection of societal constraints.