On the Balcony is an Impressionist painting by French artist Berthe Morisot painted in 1872 when she was 31 years of age. Morisot effaces any concern with psychology – and indeed individuality as the mother’s features are barely discernible and the little girl has her back turned to us.
Just as the colors are vague and seem to bleed into each other in this watercolor, the prevailing effect, or rather affect, is the maternal emotion beyond which the outside world visually and emotionally is distant and trivial.
Berthe Morisot’s On the Balcony is in the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, United States.