Mary Cassatt (1891). Maternal Caress [drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquaprint on paper]. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

The breaking of pictorial depth and subject development adjusts focus from local areas to the overall composition and the interaction between the subjects. Where Monet’s Gare St-Lazare still had slightly more emphasis on local areas and therefore realism, this work nearly splits the realism/abstraction scale in half but favors simplification. Non-convergence, gestalt and Cassatt’s repeating treatment of floral patterns infuse this work with an Eastern sense of decoration. 

The location of emotional energy, distribution of curved versus angular edges and contrasting field of coolness highlight the exchange between the subjects. The arrangement of the subjects and background roughly mimics the perpendicular energy of the canvas edges. The titled “caress” is placed on a much more dynamic, diagonal axis, infusing an otherwise static composition with a moment of energy. All of these formal interactions and unifications qualify this as a masterpiece in design.

This work is uncharacteristic of not only its time frame but the preceding few centuries in its reliance on contour line to define shapes. The perspective of the subjects and resulting tilting of the horizon line are interest-generating measures and in keeping with the Eastern style. This unexpected sense of balance is echoed by the nearly absolute use of diluted colors, defined textures and more subtle favoring of midtones.

The simplification of forms heralds the severe separation of pictorial elements that would be seen in the early 20^th century works of artists such as Mondrian and Léger. Cassatt favors discordant and recognizable floral and circular forms to build textures to same effectiveness as tromp l’oeil textures. Her use of color is more subjective than optical, and her development of space is unexpected; all measures commonly used by artists in the coming decades.