Forbidden Fruit: Mary Cassatt’s Mural of “Modern Woman” at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893

This paper considers a large mural of “The Modern Woman” painted in France by the American artist Mary Cassatt for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It focuses in particular on the large central panel of the mural titled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science that depicts women and girls apple-picking. Cassatt’s mural drew on various traditions and myths. Apple harvesting was a common sight in America. Cassatt’s title though points to the story of Eve and forbidden fruit, in which Eve seeks knowledge, but is severely punished for it. Cassatt employs the historical tradition of allegory to subvert the biblical message. In Cassatt’s mural, the women and girls are all part of a symbolic appropriation of knowledge as they pluck the apples. Her mural depends on carefully balanced forms, so that the viewer perceives the scene as more like a tableau than as a representation of labour. The painted figures are modernised through a contemporary visual language that draws on Japanese prints and Impressionist art, so distancing them from the narratives of the early scriptures as well as from classical art. Cassatt’s Modern Woman also wears loose and comfortable garb that references the contemporary dress reform movement, unlike the Exposition visitors who still displayed their corseted waistlines. Cassatt’s mural sadly is now lost and we are left only with traces of her Modern Woman.