'Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism' (Dulwich Picture Gallery until Sept 10 2023)

Berthe Morisot, In the Bois de Boulogne, 1879, National Museum, Stockholm

The fact that Berthe Morisot, one of the major figures of French Impressionism, hasn't had a one-woman show in the UK in living memory, is an appalling indictment of our attitudes to women artists. The fact that her long overdue exhibition is not at the National Gallery or the Tate but at Dulwich Picture Gallery is similarly embarrassing. So well done, Dulwich! But, and there is a but, instead of being treated to a straightforward retrospective of her work - as the title suggests - we have a left-field approach which links Morisot to eighteenth century art. This is not just a case of mis-selling: 'Shaping Impressionism' implies her pivotal role within the movement but that gets lost in the actual gallery display. Equally, it is difficult to see Morisot as a radical mover and shaker when we are constantly being referred back to the previous century. Disappointingly, too, the Rococo drift means that the exhibition is thin on what are arguably her best works, those featuring figures in landscape. And perhaps more unforgivably, the woman should be centre-stage is forced to share wall space with a series of men. 

The Rococo argument is a valid and well-established one: there was a genuine revival in interest following the expansion of the Louvre's eighteenth century collections from the 1840s, and only last year Frankfurt's Staedel Museum hosted Renoir Rococo Revival, Impressionism and the French Art of the Eighteenth Century (a more up front and honest title). The Dulwich exhibition is good at presenting objects and interiors which show Morisot's enthusiasm for eighteenth century design and there are some key comparisons which highlight her knowledge of, and interest in, the art. Her reinterpretation of Boucher's Apollo Revealing his Divinity takes a corner of the original and runs with it, with dream-like swirling arabesques of greeny-purple foliage. Equally, despite more tenuous connections to the original, her engagement with Romney's Mrs Mary Robinson is effectively demonstrated.

The curators make frequent use of quotes by contemporary critics comparing Morisot with Fragonard, to whom she was mistakenly believed to be related. And it is here that the first cracks start to appear. It seems as much a lazy shorthand by prejudiced male writers for the feminine qualities of her work, a convenient critique of softness, prettiness, lightness both of touch and colour; as it is an insightful artistic comparison. The reality which is presented on the Dulwich walls is often out of kilter with the rococo-esque description. For all her use of soft greens, blues and whites in her earlier works, or the warmer pinks and orangey-browns which appear in the 1880s; for all her emphasis on the female form, Morisot is not a 'pretty' painter. Her brushwork has none of the soft featheriness of Renoir. She never looks for the attractive or the quaint. 

One reaches this conclusion despite the best efforts of a curation which focuses on her interiors, her intimate portrayal of female subjects and of children, and the later almost symbolist works, where that agitated, even violent, application of paint is calmed and lengthened into flat areas of colour and languid lines. Morisot went out of her way to study landscape with Camille Corot and you can catch the ghost of his soft silvery-ness in her plein air paintings, in which figures dissolve into grass, into trees, even into the air itself, with sparkling dynamism.  Outside she seems at her most vibrant and her most radical: flowers in gardens, ripples on water, relationships and chores conjured up by a few dashes of paint. In comparison, the female-focused interiors feel just a little staid. Perhaps it's intentional: there is a great deal written about Morisot's gendered approach, but equally, the influence of Manet seems at its strongest in these introverted, contemplative women. 

Any chance to see Berthe Morisot is a good thing. A larger show with a less specific focus would inevitably have drawn out other aspects of her work. But you leave Dulwich energised both by this woman who so determinedly pursued her passion, and by a sense of frustrated anger that she has been sidelined for so long.