Girl Arranging Her Hair

I walked into my art history class in early January. We were studying the impressionists at the time, and there was something about this group of artists that caught my eye, but I wasn’t sure what it was exactly that caught my eye. I knew there was something special here waiting to be discovered. That day in class, each of my classmates was assigned an impressionists artist to do a presentation on. I was given Mary Cassatt. At the time, I had no idea who this women was, but little did I know that over the course of t he next two weeks, I would become intensely obsessed with this women and with a certain oil on canvas portrait done by her. The painting that would haunt my thoughts was called Girl Arranging her Hair. From the minute I saw this
Looking at the painting more closely with an observant eye reveals how much more than that there is. The moment in the scene is casual, maybe even private, and yet the girl’s pose and the arrangement of the furniture are artfully contrived. The girl has her chin up and refuses to make eye contact with the viewer. She stands tall; ready to take whatever is ahead of her. She refuses to stoop to the level of the viewer. She refuses to be influenced by the judgmental eyes boring into her frame. The fact that she is arranging her unruly hair into a braid instead of giving up leaving it in a mess shows she is trying to fix her flaws. She is not perfect and she knows that, but she is not satisfied with what is. She doesn’t mind working hard for an outcome. The chair and mirror in the background are composed parallel to the upward moving arm creating a powerful upward sweep. That combined with the proud stance radiates confidence and motivation. With the elegant s-shape of the girl’s arm combined with the harmonious blend of pinks and blues, this painting truly embodies timeless style and
It all boils down to the fact that the subject of the painting is a female adolescence, a group of people most likely to be dismissed and ignored. In the art world, there are so few works that have a teenage girl as the main focus. Think about it. How many teenagers have you seen as the subject of a work of art? Not very many. Some might argue that it’s not worth painting a portrait of a teenage girl, saying, “She has not done anything, special, she is not important enough, she has not even finished maturing yet.” Well I say that’s why a young woman is the perfect subject! An adolescent is the perfect subject to paint because the subject will never be able to be recreated for it is an on going conveyer belt of life not stopping for anything or anyone. To capture a moment as rare and fleeting as a day in the ever-moving life of a young woman who is growing her foundation to become a strong, influential, prosperous person, is mind-blowing. This girl in the portrait is searching, trying to learn about the world. Having a young girl be the subject of a painting has undeniable and amazing consequences. Cassatt’s painting argues that girls are important, valuable creatures. I was on the precipice of understanding this idea, thanks to Cassatt’s pivotal