In Miss Legaré’s landscapes she gives to her coloring and combinations as much idealizing as truth to nature will admit. An artist, who was delighted both with her music and her painting, observed of the latter to her brother Hugh, “It is natural, but more beautiful than nature; it is poetical.” Another, when Hugh remarked that she must go to Italy, replied, “No, your sister studies our own wild nature—rich, romantic, glowing under a tropical sun, luxuriant when touched with frost; if she go to Italy, or study the old landscape-painters, she may give a finer finish, but it will be artificial.” These artistic criticisms gave her encouragement; and when she repeated to Mr. Cogdell what was said in praise of her works, he would say, triumphantly, “I told you so, but you would not believe me!”
Her rich foregrounds, transparent water, and distant mountains, as well as her skies and foliage, have been highly praised by Sully and other eminent artists. She owed to Mr. Cogdell her introduction to the science of perspective, having been accustomed in early efforts to be guided by the eye alone. A knowledge of anatomy was of use, as she always introduced figures into her landscapes, painted with fidelity and spirit. She excels, besides, in the delineation of animals, wild and domestic, especially dogs, cows, and sheep. A Spanish pointer, painted nearly of life size, was so perfect in anatomy that Dr. Sewell of Washington pronounced it a study for a student of that branch. “The Hounds of St. Bernard” is an admirable painting. The piteous, appealing expression in the face of one that is represented howling for aid struck even every child who saw it. A little girl exclaimed, “How sorry that dog is! he is afraid the people won’t come.”
Besides animals, Miss Legaré has painted portraits; but this branch never enlisted her enthusiasm—that was for landscapes.
On the appointment of her brother as a member of President Tyler’s cabinet in 1841, Miss Legaré accompanied him to Washington. Her life of calm enjoyment was soon disturbed by sorrow. She was bereaved of mother, sister, and brother within the space of a year. She had long cherished a purpose of visiting the Western country, and in June, 1849, went to Iowa. Finding the country very productive and well suited to farming purposes, she sent for some of the children of her deceased sister. They came with their families to the new home, and formed a colony of twenty-one persons. The scenery in Iowa, though often beautiful, is tame compared to the mountainous country of the Atlantic states. Green fields, luxuriant woods, flower-bordered streams, and groves carpeted with wild grass, forming a charming variety of landscape, are presented; but there are few scenes that startle with their magnificence or grandeur. Miss Legaré found, in the new cares that surrounded her, and the habits of life so different from those to which she had been accustomed, such a pressure of occupation, that her beloved art was for a time abandoned. The Western housekeeper usually finds little time for the pleasures of the imagination; but she was not one to forget the best interests of others, particularly of her own sex. She established an institution called “Legaré College,” for the liberal education of women, at West Point, in Lee County, Iowa. Her talents and taste, her varied and uncommon learning and energy, as well as her means, were devoted to the support of this institution; but its aim was too far in advance of the age in Iowa, or, rather, its operations were impeded by that utilitarian spirit which has set its heavy, ungainly foot on every high aspiration in this country, and has prevented the progress of woman toward improvement that might enlarge her sphere of usefulness.
A writer who is intimately acquainted with Miss Legaré—now Mrs. Bullen—thus speaks of her accomplishments:
“The literature of the world, its science and its art, are with her as household things. They flow from her eloquent tongue as music from the harp of the minstrel. No pent-up Utica confines her powers—no Aztec theory of woman cripples her labors, or impoverishes her mind or her policy. A Mississippi feeling, and theory, and action actuate her, and we may all look for corresponding results.” Her influence in the community where she resides has directed attention to both art and literature.
Mrs. Bullen intends resuming the pencil she has for years almost entirely laid aside. She has completed a design for a painting to be called “The Squatter’s Home.” It shows a wagon under the shade of a Western group of tall trees, which serves for the sleeping-place of the emigrant family. The mother is washing beside a stream; the children are gathering strawberries.
HERMINIE DASSEL.
Mrs. Dassel was a native of Königsberg, Prussia. Her father’s name was Borchard; he was a banker, and at one time a man of fortune, which enabled him to secure to his children an excellent education. He lost his property in 1839, in consequence of financial troubles in America; the liquidation of his affairs reduced his possessions to a small farm, depriving his family of teachers, servants, horses and carriages, and all the comforts which they had enjoyed. Upon the elder children devolved the duties of housekeeping, and the cultivation of the farm to some extent, as well as the instruction of the younger members of the family. At this time Herminie devoted herself to the art of painting as a profession, hoping to derive from it a support for herself and family. She would attend to her household duties in the morning, and then, with port-folio in hand, wander off over the dusty or muddy road to the city, and again return to attend to the flowers and cabbages, and the making of cheese and butter. She soon had the satisfaction of receiving a commission for a full-sized portrait of a clergyman; this she painted in the church, with her model on the altar, the country folk standing about, astonished and wondering that such a tiny little girl could accomplish such a marvel.
She soon went to Düsseldorf, attracted thither by the pictures of Sohn, which she saw in an exhibition in her native city. She studied with this artist four years, supporting herself entirely by her own exertions. Her pictures found ready sale, consisting of such subjects as “Children in the Wood,” “Peasant Girls in a Vineyard,” “Children going to the Pasture with Goats,” etc.