Women artists in all ages and countries

by E. F. Ellet

Her power of copying whatever pleased her childish fancy increased, though she did not then appreciate the necessity of a patient study of the elementary principles of art. Her health was at this time so delicate that her parents feared she would not live to reach maturity. The desire to afford her the advantage of country air and exercise, with the want of very attractive prospects for their enterprise in New York, determined them to go to the West. They purchased a farm in Ohio, a few miles from Marietta, where they soon had a picturesque Swiss cottage, with a beautiful garden, and a mineral closet filled with the presents of Mr. Martin’s former pupils.

Lily was enchanted with the change from a city life, and with the liberty she enjoyed of roaming at will through woods and fields, for, her health being the paramount object, no restraint was placed on the child. Her time was passed in working in her garden, playing and racing with other children, hunting for insects, shells, and minerals, often wet up to the waist in the search, while her drawing was forgotten. Thus constantly, like Rosa Bonheur, in the open air, she rapidly regained strength and health. One day, when about thirteen years old, she was walking in the woods with her father. A deer, frightened from his covert, dashed by them to leap a fence. Lily wanted a pet, and instantly ran after the animal. As he sprang over the fence she caught his hind legs and clung to them, while her father’s dog throttled the captive. Some men came up directly, and, seeing the girl with her face covered with blood, killed the deer, notwithstanding her entreaties that he might be spared.

On another occasion they were killing hogs at Mr. Martin’s place. A powerful young porker fled foaming and champing from the slayers of his brethren, and got over a fence into the orchard. Lily ran to stop his flight, and the desperate animal made at her. She tried to get a stick to defend herself, but her feet slipped on the apples that strewed the ground, and she fell, in the very gripe of the hog. The maddened creature might have injured her fatally, but her faithful dog sprang upon him, and diverted his rage to another enemy. Lily saw his teeth buried in the poor dog’s shoulder, and, resolved not to abandon her deliverer, struck the hog a violent blow and ran; the foe, still held by the dog, in swift pursuit. She was overtaken close to a drain, into which the three combatants tumbled together. At this juncture the men came running to the spot with three or four dogs, and rescued both her and her preserver, that to the last would not relinquish his hold of the porker. Lily’s first care was to pull into place the poor dog’s dislocated shoulder.

An illustration of her impulsive nature, and readiness to give assistance where it was needed, is an incident that occurred a few months later. Six or seven men were burning logs in a field. She saw them from the house making signals that they wanted one more hand to lift a log. Seizing a crowbar, the young girl ran to the spot, placed it under the log, and helped to raise it to the burning pile.

Her love of sketching soon began to revive. In her fourteenth year she took a fancy to see the effect of a new style of costume which she thought would be very becoming to herself. She drew a lady’s figure, thus attired, with black crayons and coarse chalk, on the wall of her bedroom. Pleased with her creation, it occurred to her that the lady ought to be attended by admiring beaux, and she added the figures of two gentlemen. The group was delineated one day when the other members of her family were absent, and, fearing that her mother would be displeased at her for daubing the walls, she hung her dresses over the sketch, so as to screen it from observation.

The next day her young brothers were playing ball in her room, and chanced to discover the group on the wall. Full of boyish mischief, they decided that the richly-dressed lady would make a fine target, and, in spite of their sister’s remonstrances, they commenced throwing their balls at her. Lily, in great distress at the menaced destruction of her work, complained to her mother; and instead of being reprimanded for defacing the wall, was told to go on with her sketch, while the boys were reproved, and forbidden to enter her room. Encouraged by the praise she received, Lily worked on diligently. She drew a colonnade behind her figures, then added other groups, representing persons enjoying themselves at a place of fashionable amusement. The background was a landscape of hill and valley, rock and sea. This picture being much admired, she went on covering the walls of her room from floor to ceiling with the creations of her romantic imagination. Columns and statues, fountains and grottoes, appeared in her scenes of luxury and magnificence; and her landscapes were as charming as the forms with which she enlivened them. In every panel was a distinct picture. All her leisure hours, after milking the cows and hoeing the corn, were devoted to this amusement. It was true of her, as Halleck says it was doubtful of his Wyoming maiden, that she worked in the field “with Shakspeare’s volume in her bosom borne;” with Sismondi also, and volumes of history from her father’s splendid library.

The farmers in the neighborhood, and the ladies and gentlemen of Marietta, came to see the curious sketches, both on the walls and on canvas, of which they had heard. Saturday afternoons were appointed for the reception of visitors. The fame of Lily’s talents began to spread rapidly, and she was mentioned with praise in several newspaper notices. At her father’s persuasion she tried to study perspective and anatomy, but it was more agreeable to her impetuous nature to sketch from her own glowing fancy, than to pore over the dry bones and plates of different parts of the human frame. In coloring, also, she would trust to her intuitive perceptions rather than to a regular course of study. Her father procured her muslin for her experiments, and, after covering many yards, she became fully aware of her own deficiencies, which she resolved to conquer. Her unwillingness to be taught arose from the self-reliance of an independent character, and not from an inflated idea of her own acquirements.

Her parents became more and more solicitous to give her all the advantages they could procure; and a letter from a wealthy gentleman of Cincinnati, describing the opportunities that would be offered for studying in that city, determined them to leave the farm and remove thither.

Miss Martin’s pictures were exhibited in Cincinnati, and attracted the attention of connoisseurs. They were large, as her figures of life size best enlisted her own sympathies. Her battle with the world now commenced in earnest. The jealousy of rival artists was awakened by the certainty that a rising genius had come among them. Flippant critics pleased others and their own vanity by decrying her productions. But she continued to paint, and sometimes had good fortune in disposing of her pictures, practicing her art with undiminished industry and enthusiasm, even while discouraged by the want of patronage.

On one occasion she was in company with Lord Morpeth. Addressing him as “Mr. Morpeth,” she was reminded apart by her father that she ought to say “my lord.” “No, indeed,” replied the young lady; “I never saw a man I would call ‘my lord’ yet.”