One of her finest maternal pictures is “ The Child ’ s Bath ,” from 1893 . Seen from the viewpoint of a standing adult , a woman tenderly places her toddler daughter ’ s feet in a basin . Both the mother and child are superbly drawn . The grey stripes on the woman ’ s dress are cleanly painted , but the wallpaper , the carpeting , and the cabinet are as loosely brushed in as the foliage in a Monet landscape . Most surprising of all is the pitcher in the foreground . If it were in accurate perspective , the rim would be a nearly full circle . We would be able to see inside all the way to the bottom . The violation of perspective is obviously intentional , a means of flattening out the image in the Japanese manner .
Although Cassatt was still little known in her native land , she got a plum commission in 1891 : a huge mural for the Women ’ s Building of the World ’ s Columbian Exposition in Chicago . Working in France , she painted an enormous allegory crowded with female figures . The painting is legendary today , but its whereabouts if it still exists , are unknown . The building was demolished before the turn of the century .
Mary Cassatt received the Order of the Legion of Honor in 1904 . By now , her health was getting in the way of her work . Suffering from diabetes and rheumatism , she lost nearly all her eyesight . But she had finally achieved fame in the United States , and in the process , introduced her compatriots to the work of the great Impressionists . Unlike the French , the Americans welcomed Impressionism . The works of Monet , Renoir , and Cassatt were so popular that they engendered an American school of Impressionism , led by such great Americans as Childe Hassam and William Merritt Chase .
The third great American artist , John Singer Sargent , is often referred to as an expatriate , but his native land was Italy . When he visited the United States , it was as a tourist . But he eagerly sought , and obtained , American citizenship , and when he was offered the British Order of Merit in 1912 , he refused on the grounds that he was not a British subject .
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