mother and child

by completing an entire series of prints on mothers with their children, utamaro kitagawa, one of mary cassatt's favorite japanese printmakers, gave her permission to do the same. this had not been seen as a valid subject for fine art until this time.

daniel pipes, in a 1992 copy of society magazine, said,




"Outstanding artists directly affected by the wood blocks included Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Théodore Duret, Paul Gaugin, van Gogh, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pierre Renoir, and, above all, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec derived his subject matter directly from Japanese models; his posters of the Parisian demi-monde, for example, resembled Kitagawa Utamaro's courtesans of Tokyo's pleasure quarters. Further, he imitated the Japanese in the heavy use of shadowless pure colors and other elements of design, and in his print-making technique. James Abbott McNeill Whistler had an important role in popularizing Japanese styles in the United States. Impressionists did not shy from crediting Japan. Duret called the Japanese "the first and finest impressionists," while van Gogh dubbed Japanese art 'true religion.'"