The Boating Party

A dark-suited man rows with his back to us, his powerful form filling the entire foreground, while across the boat a mother in a bonnet holds her child, all set against a high band of brilliant blue water with no horizon. Mary Cassatt builds the Boating Party on bold, flat shapes and a daring, cropped design learned from Japanese prints. Now in Washington's National Gallery, it is among her most ambitious works - the everyday outing transformed by striking composition, the looming oarsman and the bright expanse of water lending unexpected drama to a quiet family scene.