By Liz Soares
Then she met Edgar Degas, and he swept her into his circle of friends that included Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Berthe Morisot. Degas was tempestuous, infuriating, rude—and exquisitely talented. He may have been Mary’s lover, but, before she died, she burned any evidence that was contained in the many letters they exchanged over their lifetimes.
What we do know is that, in the turpentine-drenched maelstrom that was late-19th century Paris, Mary found her own unique style, which led to both artistic and financial success, and the rich legacy of paintings still beloved and admired today.
Author Robin Oliveira (My Name is Mary Sutter) imagines the relationship between Cassatt and Degas in her new novel, I Always Loved You. It is the story of the joy and pain of the artistic life and the difficulty of balancing work and love.
It is set in a glorious time in Paris, the period of hope and growth following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Mary and her friend, Abigail Alcott, the sister of Louisa May, seem almost staid amidst the colorful tumult of Parisian life, but both of them lived in France for the rest of their lives.
Mary’s aura of propriety was a mask, anyway. She was strong-minded, stubborn, and given to fits of pique. Mary infuriated her father when she refused to come home from Paris after a decade of mediocre sales. As the book opens, she is dealing with her father’s demands. Astonishingly, he ultimately decides that if Mary won’t come home, the rest of the family will go to Paris.
This is not as great a stretch as it appears, as the family had lived abroad for years at a time when Mary was growing up. Still, the irony will not be lost on any reader who went to Europe as a youth to escape parents and siblings.
Her father, Edward, is pig-headed and irascible—it’s obvious where Mary gets her temperament. Mother Katherine is sweet, and Mary loves and worries about her ailing sister, Lydia.
The family settles down in an apartment Mary found for them, and while she rues the loss of her combination studio-flat, she locates another studio and returns to painting. Mary somehow manages to enjoy her bourgeois family life as well as her involvement with the renegade Impressionists, but sometimes worlds collide.
When Degas comes to dinner, and the topic of the American Civil War comes up, he comments that the Yankees destroyed the South's way of life.
Mrs. Cassatt is taken aback, and Mary says, “I should have warned you that Monsieur Degas says things he doesn’t mean just to roil the conversation.”
Mary and Edgar’s relationship runs fiery, then frigid, then fiery again. What is Mary to think when she spends weeks creating etchings for Edgar’s new journal—which he then decides not to publish? Or when the Impressionists organize an exhibition, and Edgar doesn’t bring any of his work?
Their complicated relationship is echoed in the bond between Manet and Morisot. They are both married to other people (Berthe is the wife of Édouard’s brother), but their passion for each other is lifelong. Morisot stays by Manet’s side as he dies from syphilis, not caring by that point what anyone thinks of her.
Love and Paris might be quite enough for one novel, but Oliveira also delves into the minds and visions of the artists. When Mary forgets to meet Abigail for tea, she sends a note: “I’ve fallen in love with color. Please forgive me, but the attraction was irresistible.”
We see Edgar at work, creating his famous paintings and sculptures of ballerinas. He would “hire” a young dancer for the evening and examine her naked body intimately, but in a purely artistic way.
It is Edgar who brings the child of friends to Mary’s studio. He wants her to paint the girl’s portrait, so he won’t have to. Mary has never painted a child before but takes on the challenge, all the while trying to silence her doubts. “This painting was much more ambitious, much more complex than anything she had ever attempted.”
Mary pushes through the agony of not knowing what she is doing, where she is going with the piece, until she finally finds her way. The rest is history—we now know Mary Cassatt best for her depictions of mothers and children, together and apart.
She never married, or gave birth, but Edgar told Mary she “painted love.” She wanted to love him, but he was impossibly self-centered, obsessed with his work, and irresponsible. Mary was pragmatic, disciplined. A matchmaker would never bring them together. But in fiction—ah, what a divine couple they make.
