The painter most like you

You are most like Mary Cassatt

You see the ordinary days of the people close to you as the most beautiful

The Child's Bath · 1893

Your nature

You are the warm-hearted one

This is a playful reading of your nature, not a scientific personality test.
The grey lines below come from Mary Cassatt's real life and work.

Your strength
You are the first to notice small changes in the people beside you. You show what you feel through a touch more than through words.
Cassatt loved to paint mothers bathing and holding their children.
When you shine
You shine brightest when you help someone or bring people together.
She advised her friends the Havemeyers as they collected Impressionist paintings.
What wears you out
When someone close to you is struggling, you tire as if it were your own trouble.
In her last years Cassatt's eyesight failed and she could hardly paint at all.
How you work
Your heart is soft, but at work you are careful and firm.
She learned printmaking techniques such as drypoint and aquatint and made colour prints.
With other people
Even in unfamiliar places, you bravely make a place for yourself.
Cassatt was the only American among the painters who showed at the Impressionist exhibitions.
How you rest
Warm tea and a quiet evening with familiar people is your best rest.
Women drinking tea appear several times in her paintings.

Why Mary Cassatt?

You treasure the days of the people beside you. Mary Cassatt painted ordinary moments of mothers and children together again and again. In The Child's Bath, too, the mother holds the child on her lap and washes its feet in a basin.

Cassatt was American, but as a young woman she moved to Paris and lived there as a painter. At Degas's invitation she joined the Impressionists' exhibitions.

Deeply struck by an exhibition of Japanese prints in Paris in 1890, she made a series of prints with clear areas of colour and crisp lines. She also helped American collectors buy Impressionist paintings.

If you connect people through kindness, you are like Mary Cassatt.

Kindred painter · Opposite painter

Among the eight painters,
who is near and who is far

Kindred painter
Vermeer
You like to sit in a quiet room and look at one thing for a long time
You both treasure the ordinary days of the people close to you. You two would be good company for a quiet evening.
See the Vermeer result →
Opposite painter
Seurat
You trust preparation over luck, and principles over impulse
The Seurat type starts with principles and plans, the opposite of your heart-first way. Their calm can steady you.
See the Seurat result →

Spend a day like this painter

Today, like Mary Cassatt

Three small ideas. Trying just one is enough.

Have a cup of tea with someone close, and turn your phone face down for a while.
Look at the hands of a family member or friend for ten seconds and keep their shape in mind.
Send a short thank-you message to someone you were grateful for today.

Mary Cassatt

Step into Mary Cassatt's paintings

While you are here, stand in front of a painting for three minutes.
For each one, here is where to look first.

The Child's Bath1893
How to lookLook in turn at the broad stripes of the mother's dress, the patterned rug on the floor, and the flowers on the jug at lower right.