Baby`s First Caress 1891

Mary Cassatt created 'Baby's First Caress' using pastels on paper, a medium that beautifully captures fleeting moments with soft, diffused light. The pastel medium is crucial here. Cassatt builds up layers of dry pigment, creating a surface that feels both immediate and intimate. The strokes are visible, drawing our attention to the physical act of drawing. Her sensitive handling models the forms of mother and child, whose embrace becomes more tender. The choice of pastels wasn't accidental. Pastels were associated with spontaneity and accessibility. They were favored by women artists like Cassatt, in part because they didn't carry the same weight of expectation as oil painting. Cassatt elevates this medium, demonstrating its potential for serious artistic expression. She challenges the traditional hierarchy that often placed painting above drawing, and public art above private moments. By attending to the material qualities of pastel and its cultural associations, we appreciate Cassatt's artistic project. Her work is more than just an image, it's a statement about the value of women's experiences, and the expressive potential of so-called minor materials.