RACHEL RUYSCH.
Rachel Ruysch (spelled also Ruisch or Reutch) trod in the footsteps of Maria van Oosterwyck, and carried flower-painting to a perfection never before attained. Descampes says her flowers and fruit “surpassed nature herself.” It is certain that she succeeded in producing the most perfect illusion; and the tasteful selection of her subject and manner of grouping, disposition, and contrast, rendered the effect more exquisite.
This illustrious artist was the daughter of a famous anatomist, and was born in Amsterdam, 1664. She received lessons in painting from Wilhelm van Aelst, an artist who ranked with De Heem and Huysum among Dutch flower-painters. He and his rivals were soon equaled by the fair scholar, and thenceforward she took nature for her teacher.
While her fame went abroad with her pictures, Rachel sat and worked in her secluded room; but she could not hide herself from the arrows of the boy-god. She married—Descampes and others say, at the age of thirty—a portrait-painter named Julian van Pool, who fell in love, and introduced himself to her.
She became the mother of ten children. In the midst of domestic cares, and the duties of attending to her offspring, she managed not to neglect the art she loved so much; yet we are informed that her children were admirably brought up. The toil and study must have been immense which, in spite of the interruptions of household employments and the depression of a narrow income, enabled her to attain such excellence that her praises were sung by poets and poetesses, and her fame traveled to every court in Europe. In 1701 the Academical Society of Haye admitted her into membership; her reception picture was a beautiful piece of roses and other flowers. Her celebrity became so great that, in 1708, the Elector John of the Pfalz sent her a diploma, naming her painter in ordinary to his court, and inviting her to take up her residence in his capital. This prince wrote her another letter, accompanying the gift of a complete toilet set in silver, twenty-eight pieces, to which he added six flambeaux of the same metal. He promised to stand godfather to one of her children. When she took her son to Düsseldorf, the elector decorated the babe’s neck with a red ribbon, to which was attached a magnificent gold medal.
In the elector’s service she produced a number of pictures, most of them for her Mæcenas, who after paying for them always added honorable presents. In 1713, on a second visit to Düsseldorf, she was received with the distinction her great talents merited. The elector sent some of her pictures to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, who admired and placed them among his rich collection of master-pieces. Several of her works were presented to royal personages; some were treasured in the gallery of Düsseldorf, and some excellent pictures were preserved in Munich.
After the death of her friend and patron, the elector, she returned to Holland, and prosecuted her art with unwearied industry. She mourned his loss as her friend and the generous protector of art; but her works met with as great success, and Flanders and Holland even murmured at their being taken to Germany.
The advance of old age could not obscure her rare gifts; the pictures she executed at eighty were as highly finished as at thirty. To genius of the highest order she united all the virtues that dignify and adorn the female character. Respected by the great—beloved even by her rivals—praised by all who knew her—her path in life was strewn with flowers, till at its peaceful close she laid her honors down. She died in 1750, at the age of eighty-six, having been married fifty years and five years a widow.
Her works are rarely seen, from the difficulty of inducing possessors in Holland to part with them. At Amsterdam there are four beautiful pieces. Their chief merits are surprising vigor and a delicate finish, with coloring true to nature. Flowers, fruits, and insects seem full of fresh life.
Rachel’s style combined a softness, lightness, and delicacy of touch with a certain grandeur of disposition and powerful effect, which caused the universal recognition of a manly spirit and nobility of feeling in her works. In her portrait her hair is short, with low-necked dress and beads round the throat. The features of the artist, large and strongly marked, bear the same brave, open character that spoke in the grouping and arrangement of her flowers—in the freedom that marked her compositions and was blended with their surprising lightness and grace. In the depth of coloring a delicate poetic fragrance seemed to be infused.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Unfavorable Circumstances for Painting in Germany.—Effects of the Thirty Years’ War.—The national Love of Art shown by the Signs of Life manifested.—Influence of the Reformation.—Inferiority of German Art in this Century.—Ladies of Rank in Literature.—A female Astronomer.—The Fame of Schurmann awakens Emulation.—Distinguished Women.—Commencement of poetic Orders.—Zesen, the Patron of the Sex.—Women who cultivated Art.—Paintresses of Nuremberg.—Barbara Helena Lange.—Flower-painters and Engravers.—Modeling in Wax.—Women Artists in Augsburg.—In Munich.—In Hamburg.—The Princess Hollandina.—Her Paintings.—Maria Sibylla Merian.—Early Fondness for Insects.—Maternal Opposition.—Her Marriage.—Publication of her first Work.—Joins the Labadists.—Returns to the Butterflies.—Curiosity to see American Insects.—Voyage to Surinam.—Story of the Lantern-flies.—Return to Holland.—Her Works published.—Republication in Paris afterward.—Her Daughters.—Her personal Appearance.—The Danish Women Artists.—Anna Crabbe.—King’s Daughters.—The Taste in Art in Denmark and England governed by that of foreign Nations.—Female Artists in England.—The Poetesses most prominent.—Miniaturists.—Portrait-painters.—Etchers.—Lady Connoisseurs.—The Dwarf’s Daughter.—Anna Carlisle.—Mary Beale.—Pupil of Sir Peter Lely.—Character of her Works.—Rumor of Lely’s Attachment to her.—Poems in her Praise.—Mr. Beale’s Note-books.—Anne Killegrew.—Her Portraits of the Royal Family.—History and still-life Pieces.—Her Portrait by Lely.—Her Character.—Dryden’s Ode to her Memory.—Her Poems published.—Mademoiselle Rosée.—The Artist in Silk.—Wonderful Effects.—Her Works Curiosities.—The Artist of the Scissors.—Her singular imitative Powers.—A Copyist of old Paintings.—Her Cuttings.—Views of all kinds done with the Scissors.—Royal and imperial Visitors.—Her Trophy for the Emperor Leopold.—Poems in her Praise.—The Swiss Paintress Anna Wasser.—Her Education and Works.—Commissions from Courts.—Her Father’s Avarice.—Sojourn at a Court.—Return home.—Fatal Accident.—Her literary Accomplishments.
While in the Netherlands, under the influence of the national elevation, art grew into a school of peculiar nationality, much less favorable circumstances existed in Germany. It may be said, indeed, that none less favorable could be found in any country. It was not merely that the land had been wasted by the Thirty Years’ War, for art and knowledge have been known to bud and bloom amid a severe national struggle. This contest, however, was one hostile to every generous impulse and lofty aspiration, and tended to crush the noble energies that are called forth in other conflicts. It was an internecine and sordid strife; Germans were arrayed against Germans, and hordes of foreign robbers were encouraged to plunder the country desolated by her own children. In the reign of mean and base passions, there was no soil where such flowers might bloom as then made beautiful the Netherlands.
There was wanting, also, such a central point as was afforded in France and Spain by the courts of Versailles and Madrid. All things revolved in a narrow and sordid sphere of individual interest. That Germany, in spite of this disastrous and gloomy condition, should have produced artists, and that even women, with self-sacrificing zeal should have manifested their predilection for the calling, is a proof of the deep love for art implanted in the heart of the nation, showing itself in brilliant flashes during the sixteenth century, and in the midst of troubles not entirely extinguished. The Reformation, while it had inspired Germany with the spirit of a new epoch, at first assumed a position hostile to the arts that had contributed to embellish the old faith. For three hundred years, by open force, blind fury, and cold contempt, this misapprehension of the true scope of art threatened to destroy what preceding ages had left of excellence; nor did the struggle terminate till the nineteenth century.
Signs of life in art had been first perceived in Germany toward the beginning of the thirteenth century; and there had been progressive stages of improvement. The stiffness and seriousness prescribed by tradition were replaced by softer execution and an easier flow of outline. Flowing drapery and grace marked the earliest attempts to express the artist’s own feelings in his works, and a subjective principle was allowed in paintings.
In the revival of art toward the end of the fifteenth century the sacred subjects of earlier ages had been much chosen. Afterward, the artist’s own mind and emotions came forth in self-productive energy; and, at a later period, rose into favor the accurate delineations of nature’s forms.
The inferiority of Germany in an artistic view, in the seventeenth century, is undeniable; but many were found who longed after the excellence of which other lands could boast. Women there were in abundance who cultivated ornamental literature; noble ladies and princesses patronized poets and courted the muses. Henrietta of Orange, the consort of the great Elector, was one of several royal dames yet remembered in their sacred songs. The lower orders could boast their cultivated women; and the name of Maria Cunitz deserves mention as learned in the science of astronomy.
The fame of Anna Memorata, Fulvia Morata, and Anna Maria Schurmann meanwhile filled the German women with emulative desire to inscribe their names beside those accomplished persons. Gertrude Möller was learned in the languages, and Sibylla Schwarz in poetry. Even Rist, who excluded women from his literary society, corresponded with the poetess Maria Commer.
This was the beginning of honorary poetic orders, and women were not excluded from these, especially from those established by Zesen. He was the patron and encourager of female genius and enterprise; his pen was dedicated to the service of the sex, and his praises were reciprocated by the grateful fair. In his “Lustinne” he sings of the lady poets of his day.
The female artists of that time seemed, indeed, to lack such generous appreciation; and it may be that the enthusiastic eulogies lavished by poets on each other had a selfish aim. Yet the period was not without a goodly number of women who cultivated art, and it is not improbable that the success of the poetesses had some effect in stimulating their zeal. The example of the illustrious Schurmann, who wore the double wreath of both branches of study, was before their eyes; and the Dutch school had much influence in forming tastes in Germany.
The love of exercising creative power naturally developed itself in various ways. Nuremberg, the seat of the Pegnitzschäfer order of bards; Hamburg, the residence of the chivalrous Zesen; Saxony, where flourished many fair devotees to literature—were not abandoned by the spirit of art. In the first-mentioned city we hear of two paintresses descended from families celebrated for artistic excellence: Susannah Maria von Sandrart, who also did etching in copper; and Esther Juvenel, who drew plans for architecture. To these may be added the name of Barbara Helena Lange, who earned celebrity by engraving on copper, and carving figures in ivory and alabaster. She was admitted to the Pegnitz order, on account of her poetical talent, in 1679, her poetical name being entered as Erone. In 1686 she married one Kopsch, and with him removed to Berlin, and afterward to Amsterdam.
The names of Maria Clara Eimart and Magdalena Fürst may here be mentioned as flower-painters; that of Helen Preisler as an engraver on copper; and Joanna Sabina Preu as both an engraver and modeler in wax. All these obtained no insignificant reputation.
In Nuremberg also lived, in 1684, Anna Maria Pfründt, born in Lyons. She modeled portraits in wax, some of which were those of persons of high rank, and, adorned with costly drapery and precious stones, gained a wide-spread reputation for the artist.
Augsburgh was also rich in evidences of woman’s artistic taste. Susannah Fischer and Johanna Sibylla Küsel excelled in painting, while her younger sisters, Christina and Magdalena Küsel, with Maria Wieslatin, engraved in copper. Others surpassed the Nurembergers in fine carving.
In Regensburgh lived Anna Catharina Fischer, a flower and portrait painter; in Munich, Isabella del Pozzo was appointed court painter by the Electress Adelaide, and the miniature-painter Maria Rieger was employed very frequently by princely personages. Placida Lamme distinguished herself about the same time by painting miniatures and carving pictures, with which she occupied her time in the Bavarian cloister of Hohenwart.
In Hamburg, Mariana Van der Stoop and Diana Glauber were painters by profession, and in Saxony we find a skillful portrait-painter in Margaretta Rastrum, who pursued her art in Leipzig. The above-mentioned Anna Catharina Fischer lived a long time in Halle, with her husband, a painter named Block. Toward the end of this century we hear of Madame Ravemann, who executed a beautiful medal—an exquisite specimen of cutting—for Augustus the Second.