In Germany and Austria, in Russia, Switzerland and Spain
By Wilhelm Schölermann.
Translated into English by Wilfrid Sparroy
WHEN we look into the past history of the present subject, the first German name we come upon is that of the Nun of Nuremberg, Sister Margareta, who worked from 1459 to 1470, and who copied many religious works. A century later, at Udina, in Italy, Irene von Spilimberg was born, descending from a noble German family; and although Irene died at the age of nineteen, she yet lived long enough to win the hearty admiration of her great master, Titian. As a picture by Irene von Spilimberg could not be obtained for this book, the editor has begun the German section with Anna Maria Schurman and with Maria Sibylla Merian. The first was a clever painter-etcher as well as the most learned lady of her time; the second was the daughter of Matthew Merian, and the exquisite studies she made, in water-colour, of insects and of plants and flowers, have never been excelled in their own line.
From Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) we pass on to an admirable mezzotint, after Morland, by Maria Prestel, who died in 1794; and then we are brought into the heart of the 19th century by the searching industry and skill of Anna Maria Ellenrieder, a very capable painter-etcher, who lived between the years 1791 and 1863. Ellenrieder looked to the past for her inspiration, going to the art of the early Dutch masters. She has little or nothing in common with the other German women artists of her time. How different is her ideal, for instance, from that of the well-known painter of historical subjects, the Baroness Hermione von Preuschen, whose dramatic and sensational spirit appeals so strongly to the great public, as in that canvas in which is represented the Corpse of Irene von Spilimberg, young and beautiful, lying in state in her Venetian gondola, draped with black and covered with flowers. Artists do not often care for pictures of this romantic type; and they find higher and more subtle qualities in the quiet wisdom of Julie Wolfthorn, a Berlin painter of note, and a follower of the modern school of psychological portraiture. Julie Wolfthorn combines depth of feeling and refinement of taste with keenness of penetration into the mystery of individual character. Her portrait of a young sculptor, given in the illustration on page [304], is a good example of the painter's methods.
Another Berlin artist of note is Fräulein Käthe Kollwitz, whose principal field of artistic expression has hitherto been restricted to the burin and copper plate. She has studied etching almost entirely by herself, and by dint of persistent courage and skill has developed her gifts in a direction all her own. The subjects that appeal most forcibly to her mind are taken with scarcely an exception from the darkest and most painful sides of social life and social unrest. Take a glance at the father, mother, and child, reproduced on page [302], and entitled "Destitution and Despair." Are you not inclined to marvel, almost, how a woman had the courage to depict, without flinching, the sad truths of such bitter poverty? Can you not fancy that you hear the moan of misery, the shrill scream of starvation, the cries of rebellion and death, as when, on the outbreak of the strike, the bulk of the working classes casts itself upon the streets? Such masses in motion have been made real to us in her series of plates from the "Peasants' War."
An artist of considerable versatility and intuition is Dora Hitz, of Berlin. Born at Altdorf, near Nürnberg, she began her studies at Munich, afterwards continuing them at intervals in Paris. In 1878 she acted upon the invitation of Carmen Silva, the Poet-Queen of Roumania, and executed a series of decorative panels for the royal castle of Pétès, at Sinaivo, the pictorial subjects of which were chosen from the literary works of her Majesty. Four years later she settled in Paris, and there she remained till 1891. During all that time her industry never flagged, and she was much indebted to the friendly interest which Eugène Carrière took in her work. The portrait of a little girl which may be seen here on page [303], belongs to the modern collection in the Berlin National Gallery.
Our next lady painter, though of German descent, her grandfather being a native of Hamburg, was herself born in Sweden. Her name is Jeanna Bauck. When she was twenty-three years of age she saw the fulfilment of her life-long yearning to go to Germany for the purpose of studying painting, and there, with a few short breaks, she has remained ever since, first in Dresden and Düsseldorf, and then at Munich, where she has now taken up her abode. She was also in Paris for a while, for the sake of study. At first exclusively a landscapist, she afterwards turned to portrait painting, an example of which may be found on page 300. For seven years (1897-1904) she lived in Berlin, and painted landscapes and portraits alternately, whilst superintending a flourishing school of art for ladies. In drawing your attention to her landscape on page [301], I should like to add that Jeanna Bauck takes rank among the most serious women painters of to-day.
There is yet another portrait painter who deserves a memory for the sake of her refinement and sensibility. I refer to the wife of Wilhelm Jensen, the historical novelist and poet of Schleswig-Holstein. Now, Frau Marie Jensen (Munich), once a pupil of the late Emil Lugo, devotes herself to her art in private. Most of her portraits, too, give proof of this same love of retirement, originating as they do in the family circle (see page [303]).
The portrait of a lady, on page [300], is the work of that very gifted portrait painter, Fräulein Maria Davids. This capable artist has produced some excellent likenesses; among others those of the poet Gustav Frenssen, of Professor Weber, of Freiburg, of Fräulein von Sydow, a daughter of the Minister of State, and of Frau Vermehren of Lübeck. Another portrait painter of fame and much power of expression, is Frau Vilma Parlaghy, her draughtsmanship being particularly good. Hungarian by birth, she lives and works for the most part in the German capital. Her handling of the brush is vigorous, yet sober, her colouring is warm and harmoniously balanced, and her insight into character quite strikingly true and convincing. The finest and most successful efforts, in my opinion, are the portrait of the aged Field-marshal Count von Moltke, taken in his eighty-ninth year, shortly before his death, and that of Windhorst, the German statesman.
In Austria, in the dominions of the Emperor Francis Joseph, women painters are numerous, but those of more than average gifts are not perhaps so plentiful as elsewhere. In the Bohemian capital of Prague, Fräulein Hermine Laucota has worked her way up to a position of distinction quite on her own grounds. Leading a most retired life, devoted chiefly to the pursuit of natural history and art, she studied first in Prague, and then partly at Antwerp and in Munich, but since the year 1888 she has resided altogether in her native town. It is not in colours so much as in etching on the copper plate that she has found her medium of artistic expression, and the subjects she has chosen are for the most part of a symbolical character, as in the distinguished etching on page [307].
To come to Vienna, a couple of names of good repute occur to me: Frau Olga Wisinger-Florian and Frau Tina Blau-Lang, the latter a refined landscapist (see pages [306] and [308]). The two views of the Prater will speak for themselves. With their charming freshness and their genial breadth of handling, they tell us as plain as words that "all's right with the world" in the springtime. Every touch is so bracing that it needs no praise. Frau Blau-Lang is an optimist beyond a doubt, and that as much by temperament as by choice of motive.
And when we look beyond Austria and Germany, we find everywhere among women the same enthusiasm for art, and the same unflagging courage in mastering the difficulties that thwart their every effort. That their persistence has been crowned with much success is shown in a very remarkable manner by this present book. How admirable, for instance, is the work done in Finland by Maria Wiik and Helene Schjerfbeck! In Switzerland, too, if we take a glance at the country where Anna Wasser, at the beginning of the 18th century, achieved fame by her paintings—there, too, we are welcomed by a particularly interesting painter's painter, Mdlle. Louise Breslau, who, with her thorough knowledge of modern realism, never truckles to the taste of the general public; and there, also, we find another woman painter whose art has been inspired on several occasions by the life of Christ: a woman painter so much occupied with the conception of her pictures that her technique has a tendency to lag behind the almost literary eloquence of her design. But Mdlle. Ottilie Roederstein is nevertheless an artist of real ability.
From Switzerland we must turn to Spain if we would do for ourselves what the accompanying illustrations will do for us in the pleasantest of pleasant ways. Take, for example, the airy, fresh, excellent landscape, a "Scene at Comillas," painted in water-colour by the Infante Doña Paz de Bourbon. Then, again, the "Carriage Race at Naples," by Doña Stuart Sindici, with its splendid dash and dexterity of composition, and the court outside a "Roman Hostelry," by Elena Brockmann, likewise a sunny scene, simply teem with warmth and colour, and with life and beauty. Not quite so strong and independent are the "Fisher Boys," by Antonia de Bañuelos, the conception and the execution alike being apparently inspired by that mild and noble master of Spanish painting, Esteban Murillo. Again, in Russia, we meet with a portrait-painter, Olga de Boznanska (page [316]), whose work unites a certain independent character of its own with the influences of her Parisian training: qualities that marked in a much higher and more perfect degree the pictorial appeals of that young and marvellously spirited genius whose premature death cut short a career of infinite promise: Marie Bashkirtseff, the friend of Bastien Lepage, and a realist full of subtlety and of penetration.
WILHELM SCHÖLERMANN.