Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper

by Harriet Scott Chessman

Harriet Scott Chessman takes us into the world of Mary Cassatt's early Impressionist paintings through Mary's sister Lydia, whom the author sees as Cassatt's most inspiring muse. Chessman hauntingly brings to life Paris in 1880, with its thriving art world. The novel's subtle power rises out of a sustained inquiry into art's relation to the ragged world of desire and mortality. Ill with Bright's disease and conscious of her approaching death, Lydia contemplates her world narrowing. 

With the rising emotional tension between the loving sisters, between one who sees and one who is seen, Lydia asks moving questions about love and art's capacity to remember. Chessman illuminates Cassatt's brilliant paintings and creates a compelling portrait of the brave and memorable model who inhabits them with such grace. Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper includes five full-color plates, some of the most beautiful paintings Mary Cassatt made of her sister.

• ISBN10: 0670040274
• ISBN13: 9780670040278
• Publish Date: 2001
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Random House India
• Imprint: Penguin
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 163
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

This is the author's fictionalised attempt to get into the head of Lydia Cassatt as she posed for her sister, impressionist artist Mary Cassett, in Paris in the late 1880s.   

Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, full of unfinished thoughts and hints of past tragedies never fully explained, this is nevertheless a quick and engrossing read.  I neither loved it nor hated it, but Lydia isn't a fully three dimensional character so the story feels incomplete.  What is here though makes the reader feel as though they are present in the studio, in Lydia's room, while Mary paints.   

If you're a fan of Mary Cassatt you might find this of marginal interest (say, if you were to stumble upon it at the library).