As part of our researcher spotlight series, we highlight individual researchers and their work in more detail.
Our current Featured Researcher is Mattea Gernentz (she/her).
The title of her thesis is: A Garden of One’s Own: The Effect of Nature on Flânerie and the Women Impressionists
HEI: University of Glasgow, College of Art & Humanities
Supervisors: Professor Clare Willsdon and Dr. Patricia de Montfort
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Below, Mattea gives a synopsis of her thesis and reflects on her research, her experiences as a doctoral researcher, and the lessons she has learned during this time.
About Mattea’s Research:
Summer’s Day
about 1879, The National Gallery
Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 75.2 cm
Sir Hugh Lane Bequest,1917
NG3264
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG3264
In 1890, Berthe Morisot expressed in her journal, ‘I don’t think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that’s all I would have asked for, for I know I’m worth as much as they’. Years earlier, Édouard Manet had jokingly written to artist Henri Fantin-Latour about Morisot and her sisters: ‘The Morisot girls are charming. It is a pity they are not men. However, as women, they could further the cause of art by each marrying an academician and stirring up trouble in the camp of those old fogeys’. It is this insinuation that points to the crux of women’s struggle in this era–that their impact was presumed to be limited to marriage and childbearing, rather than a generative career on their own terms. The École des Beaux-Arts in Paris did not even open its doors to women until 1897, after the death of both Eva Gonzalès and Berthe Morisot.
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Despite the odds, women persisted, challenging the conventions of their time, and I believe these figures fiercely deserve to be studied and recognized. My PhD research rests at the intersection of art history and ecology, using a feminist lens to illuminate the narratives of women artists in the Impressionist movement and their relationship with nature. How were these creatives inspired and liberated by engaging with green spaces? Since the urban realm was deemed ‘masculine’, did natural environments allow women artists of this era to enjoy the freedom of flânerie? How did women artists interact with their environment sensorily?
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In pursuit of answers to these questions, I have engaged in extensive reading and site visits to relevant galleries, archives, parks and gardens, and temporary exhibitions around the United Kingdom, United States, and France. In 2025, I had the privilege of presenting papers on my work at the Nineteenth Century Studies Conference in New Orleans and twice at the University of St Andrews. I have consulted materials at The Met, Morgan Library, Musée Marmottan, Petit Palais, and beyond and wandered the Bois de Boulogne and Jardin des Tuileries. I was also shaped by participation in the SGSAH EARTH Scholars programme, which gathered researchers from around the globe to dialogue about the environmental humanities; I was inspired by hearing others’ perspectives and methodologies and their means of uniting past and present in light of the climate crisis.
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Impressionism is one of the most renowned art movements in history, yet many museumgoers today who are familiar with Degas, Monet, Manet, and Renoir have never heard of Marie Bracquemond or Eva Gonzalès, for example. A lack of emphasis on women artists of the era lingers, with years of misogyny to reckon with–a factor which has deeply impacted what art has been recorded in texts, acquired by institutions, and deemed valuable. I hope that my PhD research can bring attention to the remarkable women producing art in this epoch, bringing further illumination and dignity to their legacy.
Cast of Characters
There is hardly adequate space here to honour these women’s lives (that is what the thesis is
for), but I hope these glimmers promote further curiosity:
Eva Gonzalès (1847-1883) and Jeanne Gonzalès (1852-1924) were raised in an artistic family and
would frequently pose for one another. Eva received tutelage from Édouard Manet as his only
formal pupil and would pass on these lessons to Jeanne. The sisters were true collaborators and
even submitted artworks to the Paris Salon under the joint name ‘Eva-Jeanne’, which is striking.
Their mesmerising artworks range from seascapes to portraiture. When Eva perished, Jeanne
married Eva’s widowed husband, Henri, and took care of her son, Jean-Raymond.
Marie Bracquemond (1840-1916) worked in diverse mediums–spanning ceramics, watercolour,
drawing, and more–and exhibited with the Impressionists in 1879, 1880, and 1886, even
presenting etchings at the Chicago World Fair in 1893. However, despite studying in Étampes in
the 1850s, training under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and working successfully as a painter,
copyist, and drawing teacher, Marie’s career unfortunately did not last. She married another
artist, Félix Bracquemond, who suppressed her artistic endeavours, and Marie left the public eye
entirely in the 1890s.
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) is the only Impressionist to have simultaneously juggled the
vocations of professional artist, wife, and mother. She exhibited in seven out of eight
Impressionist exhibitions and dazzled many critics with her charm and lightness of touch. Her
paintings vividly chronicle her experience of modern womanhood, from the intimacy of
maternity to pastoral scenes, from frivolous fashion and the boudoir to the duties of working
women and the precipice of industry and nature. Morisot hosted weekly gatherings of creatives
in her Passy apartment and was incredibly devoted to her daughter, Julie Manet (1878-1966),
whom she taught to draw and paint. Julie went on to become an artist herself as well as a
collector and patron–a guardian of the Impressionist legacy.
What sparked your interest in this subject?
When I was young, my parents had a Claude Monet print hanging in our home that I enjoyed gazing at:
The Artist’s Garden at Vetheuil (1880). I inherited this love of art, particularly my mother’s admiration of
Impressionism. Throughout my life, Impressionist works have consistently been the paintings that have
moved me the most profoundly. There is just something about the way they communicate the intricate
sensory experience of an ephemeral moment, an extravagant alchemy of colour and light. As I became
older, I began to question where the women of Impressionism were, having only learned about Mary
Cassatt.
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I was influenced by a British Modernism course as an undergraduate student, where we read Virginia
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and I sensed a deep connection between femininity and nature—both inherent
and imposed. In 2019, I attended the Berthe Morisot retrospective at the Musée d’Orsay, an encounter
across time that led to epiphany. Struck by the insight and elegance of her oeuvre, I knew that I wanted
to devote my efforts to studying Morisot and her peers.
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What’s the most surprising thing your research has taught you about your subject?
I have found the entire research process thus far to be full of surprises, an aspect which I celebrate as I
think this attests to the relatively uncharted nature of the topic and the fulfillment of my purpose as a
scholar. My work involves uncovering the lives and accomplishments of women who have been
marginalised and largely forgotten in art historical narratives following their deaths. Every new artwork
or piece of correspondence unearthed has been a clue in making sense of the legacies of these women
and their formative connection to nature. I will also add that speaking to living descendants of these
artists has been serendipitous and the most meaningful application of this research, enabling me to view
my project’s real emotional impact and potential across generations.
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What’s the most surprising thing your research has taught you about yourself?
While it has been a privilege and a joy, the PhD journey has challenged me on many levels. Still, I believe
it is precisely this friction that leads to discovery and growth. Despite viewing myself as a detail-oriented
and organised person, I have struggled to form a consistent rhythm and routine for writing. I have
realised that, although I adore gardens and flowers, I do not naturally have a green thumb. I was a
Teaching Assistant for a semester, but the role confirmed that I do not want to be a professor. I have
studied French but still at times struggle to converse fluently. After being lost in loops of perfectionistic
rumination and exhaustion, I received an OCD diagnosis, which I am still untangling; I may not have ever
received this help if not for the catalyst of the PhD thesis, and I believe we need more open and honest
conversations about mental health in postgraduate life. I think the PhD has served me (and surprised
me) by shattering some illusions of self, yet my passion for my subject remains vibrant.
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CONNECT WITH MATTEA
Email: Mattea Gernentz
LinkedIn: Mattea Gernentz
Instagram / Bluesky: @thewhimsicalowl