Brilliant Debut Novel of French Impressionism: "With Violets" by Elizabeth Robards

With Violets
Elizabeth Robards
Avon A
ISBN: 978-0-06-157912-7

Berthe Morisot was an important French painter of the Impressionism School, although it’s far more likely that readers will be familiar with her counterparts’ names (Degas, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro) than Morisot’s. In that way, With Violets, a fictionalized account of the real life love affair between Morisot and painter Edouard Manet, may bring new fans to her work, and more attention to a woman painter whose life and work have remained out of the spotlight for too long.

The story opens when Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot meet while she is painting at the Louvre (copying the works of Old Masters, a common practice for studying the techniques of great painters). Each is smitten, but there is a problem. Monsieur Manet is already married. Nonetheless, the attraction between the two is sealed, and the book follows as both struggle against the passion they feel toward each other.

Along with way, readers are introduced to the life of Paris in the 1860s: social gatherings, artistic developments, and even political strife are all encapsulated within the love story between Manet and Morisot. Author Elizabeth Robards perfectly recreates the Parisian setting of this time period and helps her readers understand the birth of the Impressionism movement in painting, while never straying from the love story and the social constraints felt by Berthe Morisot, the daughter of a prominent family, whose interest in life (painting) makes her an outcast of sorts.

Even Morisot’s closest relationship (with her sister Edma) will be tested by her choices in romance and art. Intertwined in the storytelling are descriptions of the settings and occasions for Morisot’s most famous paintings, and readers will find themselves running to the bookshelf to seek out old art books with reproductions of Morisot’s work. Here is her sister posing along a sea wall in a harbor town, there a field in the country. If nothing else, With Violets is the perfect excuse for readers to reacquaint themselves with the work of the Impressionists. Author Elizabeth Robards, for example, perfectly integrates into the love story a scene from perhaps the most famous art exhibition ever held (where Claude Monet so scandalously displayed his “Impression Sunrise” painting that gave name to their art movement), one in which Morisot‘s work was shown.

With Violets is a book to be enjoyed on many levels. It’s a brilliant debut novel about a real relationship in a very interesting time in history. Even if the reader knows little about art, the story is compelling. When adding the richness of Impressionism to the mix, the story presented becomes a masterpiece of its own.