MARY CASSATT

In the Garden belongs to a group of pastels, drawings, and paintings done after 1900 and based upon children living in the village near the artist’s home in France. Cassatt’s practice with these child models was to use them again and again so they became accustomed to her and the demands of posing. The composition has several features common to impressionism: the high vantage point, the extension of the ground almost to the top of the canvas, the placement of the cropped figures in the immediate foreground, and the bold juxtaposition of the figures and the background.