The Coiffure

The Coiffure. Mary Cassatt. 1890–1891 C.E. Dry point and aquatint.

• The École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris showcased an exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints. These ukiyo-e images, “pictures of the floating world,” were comprised mostly of scenes of urban bourgeois pleasure—geishas, beautiful women, sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors—and pictures of the natural beauty around Edo, such as the mists of Mount Fuji, cherry blossoms, rain showers, and surging waves along the port of Kanagawa.
• Ever since imperial Japan was available for Western trade in 1853, Europe had become fascinated with Japanese culture. Artists like Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh were among the many who incorporated elements of Japanese design into their work. 
• A woman adjusting her hair is one of the hundreds that Mary Cassatt made in her in-home studio; La Coiffure also has its art historical roots in Old Master paintings of women bathing; becomes a tightly crafted exercise in form and composition. 
• The word “la coiffure” evokes a precise image, one of wealthy women in glamorous settings. The ritual of grooming, dressing, and preparing one’s hair was passed down to nineteenth-century ideals of femininity and beauty. 
• One needed to have a maid to help with one’s hair; yet the woman in Cassatt’s print is tending to her hair alone. Perhaps what we are seeing is a working woman getting ready to start her day; the opposite of the print’s title and the reality of its subject matter characterizes the ironic tension within the image.
• The woman in Cassatt's La Coiffure sits in a plush armchair in front of mirror, her head focused downward, her back arched, as she adjusts her bun. 
• As the viewer, we are placed at a slight leftward angle from the woman in the chair so that we see her through her reflection in the mirror while she is looking away from it. 
• The curve of the woman’s sloping back and neck echoes the curves of the chair which stand in contrast to the vertical lines of the mirror—a compositional counterpoint that further enhances the tension within the tight composition. 
• The limited color palette of shades of rose, brown, and white, enables us to focus closely on the form and clarity of line. 
• In the spirit of ukiyo-e and Impressionism, these prints capture fugitive, fleeting moments of the busy lives of the Parisian bourgeois and working class.
• Artist paints independent women; no presence of men; no unnatural poses; Japanese hair, Japanese point of view; part of a series of prints
• Contrasting sensuous curves of female figure with straight lines of the furniture and wall; pastel