So what is the true legacy of Lilla Cabot Perry as an artist? Monet once advised her to paint objects that tested her technical variety and capability, hence his own fascination with ever-changing atmosphere and light of outdoor scenes. However, in taking a broader view of Perry’s artistic career, we can see how she eventually deviated from the philosophy of her neighbor and teacher: Perry’s portraits of women with flowers go from being en plein air to eventually always indoors and posed. In works like Portrait of Mrs. Joseph Clark Grew, Perry believed in keeping her portraits personally motivated, in order to explore femininity. The roots of this approach and her fascination with flowers can be traced back to Perry’s earlier poetry, which were done before she began her professional training but still carried the same themes of her later portraits. In one of those poems, simply titled “Art”, Perry foreshadows her eventual viewpoint on her craft by describing the typical artist: “Though he strive/That Nature’s voice alone should speak/From page or canvas to the heart/Yet is it passionately alive/With his own soul!” (Perry, Impressions, 47). Perry here questions the ability of an artist to objectively portray reality, whether it be in a poem or portrait; any form of art always carried some sort of personal reflection of the artist’s life. In order to make these reflections clear in her poetry as her paintings, Perry chose to utilize the symbolism of flowers, since they have been traditionally been associated with some of the themes she desired to explore about women. Although it is a conservative association, it unified and personalized the body of Perry’s works, since Perry’s portraits of women eventually had the same aesthetic effect as her poetry. Instead of imitations of her master teacher, what Perry created through her written and visual works was the sincere reflections of a devoted mother and wife.
Image:
“Lilla Cabot Perry with portrait of Phyllis Robbins” Martindale, Meredith. Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist. Washington DC: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990. Frontispiece.