illustration of books. Her pictures are in private collections. At the
Royal Academy in 1903 she exhibited "The Day of Reckoning," a wolf
pursued by hunters through a forest in snow. A second shows a snow scene,
with a wolf baying, while two others are apparently listening to him.
"While the wolf, in nightly prowl, bays the moon with hideous howl," is
the legend with the picture.
<b>AUZON, PAULINE.</b> Born in Paris, where she died. 1775-1835. She was a
pupil of Regnault and excelled in portraits of women. She exhibited in
the Paris Salon from 1793, when but eighteen years old. Her pictures of
the "Arrival of Marie Louise in Compiègne" and "Marie Louise Taking Leave
of her Family" are in the Versailles Gallery.
<b>BABIANO Y MENDEZ NUÑEZ, CARMEN.</b> At the Santiago Exposition, 1875,
this artist exhibited two oil paintings and two landscapes in crayon; at
Coruña, 1878, a portrait in oil of the Marquis de Mendez Nuñez; at
Pontevedra, 1880, several pen and water-color studies, three life-size
portraits in crayon, and a work in oil, "A Girl Feeding Chickens."
<b>BAILY, CAROLINE A. B.</b> Gold medal, Paris Exposition, 1900;
third-class medal, Salon, 1901.
[_No reply to circular_.]
<b>BAKER, ELIZABETH GOWDY.</b> Medal at Cooper Union. Member of Boston Art
Students' Association and Art Workers' Club for Women, New York. Born at
Xenia, Ohio. Pupil of the Cooper Union, Art Students' League, New York
School of Art, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Cowles Art School,
Boston; under Frederick Freer, William Chase, and Siddons Mowbray.
This artist has painted numerous portraits and has been especially
successful with pictures of children. She has a method of her own of
which she has recently written me.
[Illustration: A PORTRAIT
ELIZABETH GOWDY BAKER]
She claims that it is excellent for life-size portraits in water-colors.
The paper she uses is heavier than any made in this country, and must be
imported; the water-colors are very strong. Mrs. Baker claims that in
this method she gets "the strength of oils with the daintiness of
water-colors, and that it is _beautiful_ for women and children, and
sufficiently strong for portraits of men."
She rarely exhibits, and her portraits are in private houses.
<b>BAKHUYZEN, JUFFROUW GERARDINA JACOBA VAN DE SANDE.</b> Silver medal at
The Hague, 1857; honorary medal at Amsterdam, 1861; another at The Hague,
1863; and a medal of distinction at Amsterdam Colonial Exhibition, 1885.
Daughter of the well-known animal painter. From childhood she painted
flowers, and for a time this made no especial impression on her family or
friends, as it was not an uncommon occupation for girls. At length her
father saw that this daughter, Gerardina--for he had numerous daughters,
and they all desired to be artists--had talent, and when, in 1850, the
Minerva Academy at Groningen gave out "Roses and Dahlias" as a subject,
and offered a prize of a little more than ten dollars for the best
example, he encouraged Gerardina to enter the contest. She received the
contemptible reward, and found, to her astonishment, that the Minerva
Academy considered the picture as belonging to them.
However, this affair brought the name of the artist to the knowledge of
the public, and she determined to devote herself to the painting of
flowers and fruit, in which she has won unusual fame. There is no
sameness in her pictures, and her subjects do not appear to be
"arranged"--everything seems to have fallen into its place by chance and
to be entirely natural.
Gerardina Jacoba and her brother Julius van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the
landscape painter, share one studio. She paints with rapidity, as one
must in order to picture the freshness of fast-fading flowers.
Johan Gram writes of her: "If she paints a basket of peaches or plums,
they look as if just picked by the gardener and placed upon the table,
without any thought of studied effect; some leaves covering the fruit,
others falling out of the basket in the most natural way. If she paints
the branch of a rose-tree, it seems to spring from the ground with its
flowers in all their luxurious wantonness, and one can almost imagine
one's self inhaling their delightful perfume. This talented artist knows
so well how to depict with her brush the transparency and softness of the
tender, ethereal rose, that one may seek in vain among a crowd of artists
for her equal.... The paintings are all bright and sunny, and we are
filled with enthusiasm when gazing at her powerful works."
This artist was born in 1826 and died in 1895. She lived and died in her
family residence. In 1850, at Groningen, she took for her motto, "Be true
to nature and you will produce that which is good." To this she remained
faithful all her days.
<b>BALDWIN, EDITH ELLA.</b> Born at Worcester, Massachusetts. Studied in
Paris at Julian Academy, under Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury; at the
Colarossi studios under Courtois, also under Julius Rolshoven and Mosler.
Paints portraits and miniatures. At the Salon of the Champ de Mars she
exhibited a portrait in pastel, in 1901; at exhibitions of the Society of
American Artists in 1898 and 1899 she exhibited miniatures; also pictures
in oils at Worcester, 1903.
<b>BALL, CAROLINE PEDDLE.</b> Honorable mention at Paris Exhibition, 1900.
Member of the Guild of Arts and Crafts and of Art Students' League. Born
at Terre Haute, Indiana. Pupil at the Art Students' League, under
Augustus St. Gaudens and Kenyon Cox.
This sculptor exhibited at Paris a Bronze Clock. She designed for the
Tiffany Glass Company the figure of the Young Virgin and that of the
Christ of the Sacred Heart.
A memorial fountain at Flushing, Long Island, a medallion portrait of
Miss Cox of Terre Haute, a monument to a child in the same city, a
Victory in a quadriga, seen on the United States Building, Paris, 1900,
and also at the Buffalo Exhibition, 1901, are among her important works.
<b>BAÑUELOS, ANTONIA.</b> At the Paris Exposition of 1878 several portraits
by this artist attracted attention, one of them being a portrait of
herself. At the Exposition of 1880 she exhibited "A Guitar Player."
<b>BARRANTES MANUEL DE ARAGON, MARIA DEL CÁRMEN.</b> Member of the Academy
of San Fernando, Madrid, 1816. This institution possesses a drawing by
her of the "Virgin with the Christ-Child" and a portrait in oil of a
person of the epoch of Charles III.
<b>BASHKIRTSEFF, MARIE.</b> Born in Russia of a noble family. 1860-84. This
remarkable young woman is interesting in various phases of her life, but
here it is as an artist that she is to be considered. Her journal, she
tells us, is absolutely truthful, and it is but courteous to take the
story of her artistic career from that. She had lessons in drawing, as
many children do, but she gives no indication of a special love for art
until she visits Florence when fourteen years old, and her love of
pictures and statues is awakened. She spent hours in galleries, never
sitting down, without fatigue, in spite of her delicacy. She says: "That
is because the things one loves do not tire one. So long as there are
pictures and, better still, statues to be seen, I am made of iron." After
questioning whether she dare say it, she confides to her readers: "I
don't like the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael. The countenance of the
Virgin is pale, the color is not natural, the expression is that of a
waiting-maid rather than of a Madonna. Ah, but there is a Magdalen of
Titian that enchanted me. Only--there must always be an only--her wrists
are too thick and her hands are too plump--beautiful hands they would be
on a woman of fifty. There are things of Rubens and Vandyck that are
ravishing. The 'Mensonge' of Salvator Rosa is very natural. I do not
speak as a connoisseur; what most resembles nature pleases me most. Is it
not the aim of painting to copy nature? I like very much the full, fresh
countenance of the wife of Paul Veronese, painted by him. I like the
style of his faces. I adore Titian and Vandyck; but that poor Raphael!
Provided only no one knows what I write; people would take me for a fool;
I do not criticise Raphael; I do not understand him; in time I shall no
doubt learn to appreciate his beauties. The portrait of Pope Leo X.--I
think it is--is admirable, however." A surprising critique for a girl of
her age!
When seventeen she made her first picture of any importance. "While they
were playing cards last night I made a rough sketch of the players--and
this morning I transferred the sketch to canvas. I am delighted to have
made a picture of persons sitting down in different attitudes; I copied
the position of the hands and arms, the expressions of the countenance,
etc. I had never before done anything but heads, which I was satisfied to
scatter over the canvas like flowers."
Her enthusiasm for her art constantly increased. She was not willing to
acknowledge her semi-invalidism and was filled with the desire to do
something in art that would live after her. She was opposed by her
family, who wished her to be in fashionable society. At length she had
her way, and when not quite eighteen began to study regularly at the
Julian Academy. She worked eight and nine hours a day. Julian encouraged
her, she rejoiced in being with "real artists who have exhibited in the
Salon and whose pictures are bought," and declared herself "happy,
happy!" Before long M. Julian told her that she might become a great
artist, and the first time that Robert-Fleury saw her work and learned
how little she had studied, and that she had never before drawn from a
living model, he said: "Well, then, you have extraordinary talent for
painting; you are specially gifted, and I advise you to work hard."
Her masters always assured her of her talent, but she was much of the
time depressed. She admired the work of Mlle. Breslau and acknowledged
herself jealous of the Swiss artist. But after a year of study she took
the second prize in the Academy, and admitted that she ought to be
content.
Robert-Fleury took much interest in her work, and she began to hope to
equal Breslau; but she was as often despondent as she was happy, which no
doubt was due to her health, for she was already stricken with the malady
from which she died. Julian wondered why, with her talent, it was so
difficult for her to paint; to herself she seemed paralyzed.
In the autumn of 1879 she took a studio, and, besides her painting, she
essayed modelling. In 1880 her portrait of her sister was exhibited at
the Salon, and her mother and other friends were gratified by its
acceptance.
At one time Mlle. Bashkirtseff had suffered with her eyes, and, getting
better of that, she had an attack of deafness. For these reasons she
went, in the summer of 1880, to Mont-Dore for treatment, and was much
benefited in regard to her deafness, though not cured, and now the
condition of her lungs was recognized, and what she had realized for some
time was told to her family. She suffered greatly from the restrictions
of her condition. She could not read very much, as her eyes were not
strong enough to read and paint; she avoided people because of her
deafness; her cough was very tiresome and her breathing difficult.
At the Salon of 1881 her picture was well hung and was praised by
artists. In the autumn of that year she was very ill, but happily, about
the beginning of 1882, she was much better and again enthusiastic about
her painting. She had been in Spain and excited admiration in Madrid by
the excellence of her copy of "Vulcan," by Velasquez. January 15th she
wrote: "I am wrapped up in my art. I think I caught the sacred fire in
Spain at the same time that I caught the pleurisy. From being a student I
now begin to be an artist. This sudden influx of power puts me beside
myself with joy. I sketch future pictures; I dream of painting an
Ophelia. Potain has promised to take me to Saint-Anne to study faces of
the mad women there, and then I am full of the idea of painting an old
man, an Arab, sitting down singing to the accompaniment of a kind of
guitar; and I am thinking also of a large affair for the coming Salon--a
view of the Carnival; but for this it would be necessary that I should go
to Nice--to Naples first for the Carnival, and then to Nice, where I have
my villa, to paint it in open air."
She now met Bastien-Lepage, who, while he was somewhat severe in his
criticism of her work, told her seriously that she was "marvellously
gifted." This gave her great pleasure, and, indeed, just at this time the
whole tone of the journal and her art enthusiasm are most comforting
after the preceding despairing months. From this time until her death
her journal is largely occupied with her health, which constantly failed,
but her interest in art and her intense desire to do something worthy of
a great artist--something that Julian, Robert-Fleury, and, above all,
Bastien-Lepage, could praise, seemed to give her strength, and, in spite
of the steady advance of the fell tuberculosis from which she was dying,
she worked devotedly.
She had a fine studio in a new home of the family, and was seized with an
ardent desire to try sculpture--she did a little in this art--but that
which proved to be her last and best work was her contribution to the
Salon of 1884. This brought her to the notice of the public, and she had
great pleasure, although mingled with the conviction of her coming death
and the doubts of her ability to do more. Of this time she writes: "Am I
satisfied? It is easy to answer that question; I am neither satisfied nor
dissatisfied. My success is just enough to keep me from being unhappy.
That is all."
Again: "I have just returned from the Salon. We remained a long time
seated on a bench before the picture. It attracted a good deal of
attention, and I smiled to myself at the thought that no one would ever
imagine the elegantly dressed young girl seated before it, showing the
tips of her little boots, to be the artist. Ah, all this is a great deal
better than last year! Have I achieved a success, in the true, serious
meaning of the word? I almost think so."
The picture was called the "Meeting," and shows seven gamins talking
together before a wooden fence at the corner of a street. François Coppée
wrote of it: "It is a _chef d'oeuvre_, I maintain. The faces and the
attitudes of the children are strikingly real. The glimpse of meagre
landscape expresses the sadness of the poorer neighborhoods."
Previous to this time, her picture of two boys, called "Jean and
Jacques," had been reproduced in the Russian _Illustration_, and she now
received many requests for permission to photograph and reproduce her
"Meeting," and connoisseurs made requests to be admitted to her studio.
All this gratified her while it also surprised. She was at work on a
picture called "Spring," for which she went to Sèvres, to paint in the
open.
Naturally she hoped for a Salon medal, and her friends encouraged her
wish--but alas! she was cruelly disappointed. Many thought her unfairly
treated, but it was remembered that the year before she had publicly
spoken of the committee as "idiots"!
People now wished to buy her pictures and in many ways she realized that
she was successful. How pathetic her written words: "I have spent six
years, working ten hours a day, to gain what? The knowledge of all I have
yet to learn in my art, and a fatal disease!"
It is probable that the "Meeting" received no medal because it was
suspected that Mlle. Bashkirtseff had been aided in her work. No one
could tell who had originated this idea, but as some medals had been
given to women who did not paint their pictures alone, the committee were
timid, although there seems to have been no question as to superiority.
A friendship had grown up between the families Bashkirtseff and
Bastien-Lepage. Both the great artist and the dying girl were very ill,
but for some time she and her mother visited him every two or three days.
He seemed almost to live on these visits and complained if they were
omitted. At last, ill as Bastien-Lepage was, he was the better able of
the two to make a visit. On October 16th she writes of his being brought
to her and made comfortable in one easy-chair while she was in another.
"Ah, if I could only paint!" he said. "And I?" she replied. "There is the
end to this year's picture!"
These visits were continued. October 20th she writes of his increasing
feebleness. She wrote no more, and in eleven days was dead.
In 1885 the works of Marie Bashkirtseff were exhibited. In the catalogue
was printed François Coppée's account of a visit he had made her mother a
few months before Marie's death. He saw her studio and her works, and
wrote, after speaking of the "Meeting," as follows:
"At the Exhibition--Salon--before this charming picture, the public had
with a unanimous voice bestowed the medal on Mlle. B., who had been
already 'mentioned' the year before. Why was this verdict not confirmed
by the jury? Because the artist was a foreigner? Who knows? Perhaps
because of her wealth. This injustice made her suffer, and she
endeavored--the noble child--to avenge herself by redoubling her efforts.
"In one hour I saw there twenty canvases commenced; a hundred
designs--drawings, painted studies, the cast of a statue, portraits which
suggested to me the name of Frans Hals, scenes made from life in the
open streets; notably one large sketch of a landscape--the October mist
on the shore, the trees half stripped, big yellow leaves strewing the
ground. In a word, works in which is incessantly sought, or more often
asserts itself, the sentiment of the sincerest and most original art, and
of the most personal talent."
Mathilde Blind, in her "Study of Marie Bashkirtseff," says: "Marie loved
to recall Balzac's questionable definition that the genius of observation
is almost the whole of human genius. It was natural it should please her,
since it was the most conspicuous of her many gifts. As we might expect,
therefore, she was especially successful as a portrait painter, for she
had a knack of catching her sitter's likeness with the bloom of nature
yet fresh upon it. All her likenesses are singularly individual, and we
realize their character at a glance. Look, for example, at her portrait
of a Parisian swell, in irreproachable evening dress and white kid
gloves, sucking his silver-headed cane, with a simper that shows all his
white teeth; and then at the head and bust of a Spanish convict, painted
from life at the prison in Granada. Compare that embodiment of
fashionable vacuity with this face, whose brute-like eyes haunt you with
their sadly stunted look. What observation is shown in the painting of
those heavily bulging lips, which express weakness rather than wickedness
of disposition--in those coarse hands engaged in the feminine occupation
of knitting a blue and white stocking!"
<b>BAUCK, JEANNA.</b> Born in Stockholm in 1840. Portrait and landscape
painter. In 1863 she went to Dresden, and studied figure work with
Professor Ehrhardt; later she moved to Düsseldorf, where she devoted
herself to landscape under Flamm, and in 1866 she settled in Munich,
where she has since remained, making long visits to Paris, Venice, and
parts of Switzerland. Her later work is marked by the romantic influence
of C. Ludwig, who was for a time her instructor, but she shows unusual
breadth and sureness in dealing with difficult subjects, such as dusky
forests with dark waters or bare ruins bordered with stiff, ghost-like
trees. Though not without talent and boldness, she lacks a feeling for
style.
<b>BAUERLÉ, MISS A.</b>
[_No reply to circular_.]
<b>BAXTER, MARTHA WHEELER.</b>
[_No reply to circular_.]
<b>BEALE, MARY.</b> 1632-97. This artist was the daughter of the Rev. Mr.
Cradock. She married Mr. Beale, an artist and a color-maker. She studied
under Sir Peter Lely, who obtained for her the privilege of copying some
of Vandyck's most famous works.
Mrs. Beale's portraits of Charles II., Cowley, and the Duke of Norfolk
are in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and that of Archbishop
Tillotson is in Lambeth Palace. This portrait was the first example of an
ecclesiastic represented as wearing a wig instead of the usual silk coif.
Her drawing was excellent and spirited, her color strong and pure, and
her portraits were sought by many distinguished persons.
Several poems were written in praise of this artist, in one of which, by
Dr. Woodfall, she is called "Belasia." Her husband, Charles Beale, an
inferior artist, was proud of his wife, and spent much time in recording
the visits she received, the praises lavished on her, and similar matters
concerning her art and life. He left more than thirty pocket-notebooks
filled with these records, and showed himself far more content that his
wife should be appreciated than any praise of himself could have made
him.
<b>BEAURY-SAUREL, MME. AMÉLIE.</b> Prize of honor at Exposition of Black
and White, 1891; third-class medal, Salon, 1883; bronze medal,
Exposition, 1889. Born at Barcelona, of French parents. Pupil of Julian
Academy. Among her principal portraits are those of Léon Say, Félix
Voisin, Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Mme. Sadi-Carnot, Coralie Cohen,
Princess Ghika, etc. She has also painted the "Two Vanquished Ones," "A
Woman Physician," and a "Souvenir of a Bull-Fight," pastel, etc.
This artist has also contributed to several magazines. At the Salon of
the Artistes Français, 1902, she exhibited a portrait and a picture of
"Hamlet"; in 1903 a picture, "In the Train." Mme. Beaury-Saurel is also
Mme. Julian, wife of the head of the Academy in which she was educated.
<b>BEAUX, CECILIA.</b> Mary Smith prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts, 1885, 1887, 1891, 1892; gold medal, Philadelphia Art Club, 1893;
Dodge prize, National Academy of Design, 1893; bronze medal, Carnegie
Institute, 1896; first-class gold medal, $1,500, Carnegie Institute,
1899; Temple gold medal, Pennsylvania Academy, 1900; gold medal, Paris
Exposition, 1900; gold medal, (?) 1901. Associate of National Academy of
Design, member of Society of American Artists, associate of Société des
Beaux-Arts, Paris. Born in Philadelphia. Studied under Mrs. T. A.
Janvier, Adolf van der Weilen, and William Sartain in Philadelphia; under
Robert-Fleury, Bouguereau, and Benjamin-Constant, in Paris.
Her portraits are numerous. In 1894 she exhibited a portrait of a child
at the Exhibition of the Society of American Artists, which was much
admired and noticed in the _Century Magazine_, September, 1894, as
follows: "Few artists have the fresh touch which the child needs and the
firm and rapid execution which allows the painter to catch the fleeting
expression and the half-forms which make child portraits at once the
longing and the despair of portrait painters. Miss Beaux's technique is
altogether French, sometimes reminding me a little of Carolus Duran and
of Sargent; but her individuality has triumphed over all suggestions of
her foreign masters, and the combination of refinement and strength is
altogether her own."