Addenda to "Composition on Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne

"Breton Boats" by Edgar Payne

Edgar Payne's daughter, Evelyn, wrote an addenda to her father's book, "Composition on Outdoor Painting." Here are a few excerpts from it:

"My parents shared many basic attitudes towards art, although their styles were very different. My mother was a good teacher, articulate and well organized in terms of preparing lessons on the basic principle. My father found teaching difficult, and did not take students until the Great Depression. He taught by demonstration, and took students outdoors and made suggestions to them individually.

Both of my parents expressed exasperation with beginners who expected to go out on one or two sketching trips and come back with finished works of art. It was the process, the learning, even the struggle that was to them more important than the product. My father considered his color sketches made in the field as studies for his own use. He did not sign or sell them as a rule, although many are highly regarded today."

"A favorite story about my dad is the account of a time when he was out sketching, far from any sign of habitation. He was surprised to find a man behind him, watching. Then the man said, 'Why, that's nuthin' but puttin' on daubs!' A little later the man shook his head and said, 'But you sure gotta know where to put them daubs!' and walked away."

To be continued

Quotes on Composition from "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne

"Blue Canyon" by Edgar Payne

"A fine painting is a composite of all its factors and influences.  Bringing these together, to form this composite, creates the process of composing. Hence the study of composition is a matter of studying art and all of its factors and influences."

 "Compositional stems in pictures serve the same purpose as armatures in sculpture... With iron pipe and wire, the sculptor builds his central supporting framework, indicating the proportions and direction of the main lines or angles of the plan. To this he adds the principal masses, and finally the smaller planes or more subtle modeling... As a matter of fact, in sculpture this stem is a concrete reality, while in painting merely its principle is observed."

"It is a very good practice for every student to make a collection of reproductions of paintings; hundreds can be accumulated. A large variety of compositional plans is a liberal education to anyone studying art. Seeing the pictorial ideas of others gives confidence and encouragement, and a respect for the profession of artist."

"The first and last thing to consider is the instinctive feeling for balance. The more this can be exercised, the more pleasing will be the harmony."

"Compositional stems should be considered as a means to an end rather than an objective in themselves. Therefore, they should be valued only for their place and limitations - then utilized with a happy anticipation of their worth and possibilities."

To be continued

More Quotes on Rhythm from "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne

"Pack Train in the High Sierras" by Edgar Payne

"Rhythm being an attribute of music, is felt in the recurrence of similar sounds, contrasts and subtle nuances of near tones. Poetry, too, must have rhythm. In languages, also, this quality may be felt. For instance, Spanish has beautiful undulation and repetition - a continuity of certain near evenness, broken or interspersed with the contrasts of climaxes and anti-climaxes."

"Painting is like handwriting - the grace and swing in curves, ovals, and the general rhythm in the line of written words is possible only when the hand easily and confidently makes the strokes."

"The significance of line has much to do with rhythm in painting. Lengthy vertical and horizontal straight lines not opposed or interrupted are always more or less static. Curved lines contribute more to rhythmic feeling than any other type of line. Yet a curved line generally needs opposition by at least a few straight lines." 

"The recurrence of contrasts, accents, extreme values or color; the repetitions of closely-related values and color are also some of the visual factors in the picture which cause rhythmic feeling."

To be continued

 

Quotes on Rythym from "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne

"Eucalyptus Grove" by Edgar Payne

"Rhythm comes mainly from a receptive state of mind, which is usually brought about by what is seen and felt. To feel the spirit of animate and inanimate nature - the rhythm of life and the universe... Sometimes a view will reveal a lazy stream winding through gently moving foliage, with distant meadows, shadowless hills, all perhaps enveloped in hazy atmosphere. Here is peace and quietude. The mood of nature becomes our mood."

"Nature has visual rhythm in form, line, color and movement."

"Rhythmic feeling when observing nature is caused by seeing both the moving and stationary parts. In creating the proper state of mind to feel rhythm, vision and appreciation must be employed... The semi-stationary quality of substance in foliage is balanced by the more rigid limbs and the strong foundation in the attachment of the trunk in the ground. This accents the grace and movement felt in the texture of loose foliage and small twigs as they respond to the varying strength of the breezes... The symmetry in the banks of streams and slow or swift-moving water gives an example of nature's rhythm."

"Whether the movement of clouds is seen or felt, there is always a certain rhythmic quality in them... Here is a fine example of the need for balancing of moving impermanent masses by the more stationary elements. Some of the more stationary ground parts are essential."

"Rhythm may be said to be the lubricating element in pictorial composition. A sort of easy co-ordination of time and circumstances is needed to relax the mind in order to sense nobility and visual quality in nature and relate this in the visual parts on the canvas... As the dancer uses rhythm to integrate time, space and movement, so too, does the painter utilize this element to integrate the factors in art."

To be continued

 

Quotes on Mountains and Clouds from "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne

 

"Canyon de Chelly" by Edgar Payne

 

"High Sierra" by Edgar Payne

"If we decide to make a specialty of painting hill or mountain subjects, we should study their characteristic forms as the figure painter studies the human figure. Height is one of the strongest points in hills or mountains. They are also massive and suggest solidity and permanence. These characteristics should be brought out when composing such subjects."

"One other important thing to remember when composing hills and mountains is that form extends from their top crests towards the painter as well as to the right and left of their peaks. Picturing this foreshortening is not an easy matter. The ridges and canyons are generally irregular and their form deceptive. Their general appearance is often like an upright flat place. The artist must use considerable ingenuity to foreshorten form, arrange values and color to create recession in hill and mountain pictures."

"There used to be a rule that wherever clouds are used in the composition in considerable quantities, their shadows should be placed on some part of the picture, and there is no laudable reason why this rule cannot be applied today."

"By shadowing the ground, placing the horizon or land contours low and keeping the proportions unequal are the main postulates in cloud compositions." 

To be continued

Quotes from "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne, Pt. 2

 "The point to be emphasized is, if big simple masses are naturally presented, the composing is simplified and made easier."

"The idea in any composing is to get the work to a sense of completion as soon as possible and then proceed with a feeling that the work may be left off at any time. As a matter of fact, many good pictures are ruined by constant striving to make them better. Over-modeling and accenting detail or highlights is an over-influence of realism."

"There is always a place to stop painting. This is the point where the maximum quality has been achieved. This statement is easily enough made, but judging when this point is reached is quite a different matter. Many artists have the good sense to quit at the right time; others need to be told. THis gives rise to the old saying that it takes two to make a picture; one to do the work, the other to stop him before he spoils it."

"The practice of painting in a broad impressionistic manner is best brought out with considerable preliminary planning, then painting the picture rapidly."

To be continued

Quotes on Choosing a Subject from "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne

"The High Sierras" by Edgar Payne

Recently I've been digesting "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by artist Edgar Payne (while sitting indoors, waiting for my husband as he does his physical therapy). More than once in a while, I stop and highlight one of Payne's thought-provoking insights, and these are what I'd like to share with you in the next few days:

• William M. Chase admonished his students to develop appreciation, have high ideals, select inspiring motives, paint in a grand style, and never be satisfied with reaching for a mere star but for the greatest one.
  
  
• While it is necessary that the painter look for visual qualities in nature, he needs also to sense attributes which are beyond vision. The power is given to him to feel the mystery and charm of fleeting clouds; the immensity and depth of blue skies and atmospheric distances; the grace and rhythm of living and expanding trees and other growths; the nobility, grandeur and strength of mighty peaks; the endless movement and vitality of the sea and its forms. All these and many more offer unlimited material for worthy ideas. The motive selected should not include anything that disturbs the complete ideology of beauty or pure aesthetic pleasure.
  
  
• When approaching nature for depiction, the primary consideration is the station point which will give the best translation of the motive. To get a proper view and idea of any subject, one should study it from several angles. The idea is to locate the easel at a point which will reveal desirable variations, not only of the size of masses but quality in line, values and color.
  
  
• The location of the easel should be in a position where the shadowed parts and lighted areas will suggest the proper measures, that is, the unequal distribution of light and dark.
   

Honore Daumier: Lithographs and Paintings

"The Third-class Railway Carriage"
by Honore Daumier

"All told, some 4,500 lithographs carry the initials H.D.; prints that have set the high-water mark for all subsequent workers on stone - and you can still buy them for a few dollars. Honore Daumier's oils are few and far between, but intrinsically and in terms of the market, almost beyond price. 

One of the best, 'The Third-class Railway Carriage' at the Metropolitan Museum, and one of several versions of the subject, is about as profound a painting as the world has seen in the last hundred years. It represents his models going about their daily business; three seats in a compartment, with two women in the first, one suckling a baby, the other, very old with a sleeping boy at her side; and in the background rows of passengers, some full-face, some in profile, several in back view. Here are models habitually considered and pondered over, filled with pity and magnanimity, with the human substance poured into them by a great soul; here in plain faces and bodies as solid as clay, we have the story of the dreariness of one aspect of French life, and the portraits of God's creatures fashioned of the stuff that endures forever."

(Excerpts from "Artists and Their Models" by Thomas Craven.)

Honore Daumier: Subject Matter

"Grand Staircase of the Palace of Justice"
by Honore Daumier

"Honore Daumier brought his great work to the completion before the hocus-pocus of modernism and the exploitation of claptrap had alienated art from humanity. In some respects he was unique among Frenchmen. He hired no models to pose for him. 'The people of Paris going about their business are my models,' he said, and he studied their occupational attitudes; dug into their battered souls; observed the lines and planes that hardships had written in their faces and the sculptural twist of their bodies as they washed clothes or swept the streets. His subject matter was gathered from the universal aspects of French life, and he painted with a depth of feeling conspicuously missing in French art.

For example, let us look at one of his most cherished models, the lawyer. As an usher in the courts, he had watched the lawyers perform, and had said, 'There is nothing in the world more fascinating than the mouth of a lawyer in operation.' He had seen shysters puffing out hypocritical arguments in the defense of crooks and felons, making justice a snide thing; and after recording his observations in caricatures of wax, had hurried to his garret to amplify them in lithography. 

As his art matured, he put the lawyers in his magazine cartoons, and in his independents studies. The lawyer did something to Daumier's soul and he, reciprocating, did something to them, and the interaction, combined with years of technical knowledge, produced the work of art, the created lawyer who is indisputably a Daumier job."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Artists and Their Models" by Thomas Craven.)

Honore Daumier: Cartooning

 

"Gargantua" by Honore Daumier*

"Honore Daumier turned his heavy artillery on the Orleans politicians, and each week, when his cartoon appeared, ministers of state shook in their boots. After taking a shot at King Louis-Philippe, Daumier was locked up, but he bore his sentence cheerfully and on his release, proceeded in exactly the same direction. When his paper folded, he went to another, and to his death, earned his bread by cartooning.

He lived in an old house on the Quai d'Anjou in the most ancient quarter of the city with his wife, Marie, a seamstress. In 1848, the year of his marriage, he began to paint in oils and his canvases, though rejected by official juries, won the admiration of the best men in Paris. He derived no money from his oils and to keep alive depended on his lithographs, sometimes slaving at eight stones simultaneously to earn a brief interlude for painting. At the end of the day, sitting by his window above the Seine, he would fix his tired eyes on the boats, the fishermen, the laundresses and poor mothers scrubbing children, and he would remark to himself, 'I have my art to comfort me, but what have these wretched men and women to live for?'

His friends were the celebrities of Paris - Delacroix, Courbet, Baudelaire, and Gautier - but he did not seek them. They assembled in his humble quarters in the spirit of homage, sat on the floor because there were no chairs, smoked and drank beer together. They knew who was the great man among them. One night, while Daumier was busy with his lithographs, a remark was passed. 'Isn't it too bad,' the speaker asked, 'that old Daumier has to work for a living?' Overhearing the comment, Daumier turned, straightened up, and with a toss of his magnificent head, replied very slowly, underlining each word. 'It isn't too bad that I have to work,' he said. 'The trouble is that I have to work too hard, for my eyes are getting pretty bad. But I must remind you kind-hearted gentlemen of something: you have an income - but I have a public. And I'll take the public.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Famous Artists and Their Models" by Thomas Craven.) 

* "Probably the most famous of Daumier’s caricatures was one he completed in 1831, entitled 'Gargantua' (see above). It was one of the first major political lithographs completed by Daumier. In the work, we see King Louis-Philippe seated on his high throne, which is actually a giant commode!  It is an unflattering caricature of the monarch but this pear-shaped head was Daumier’s constant caricature depiction of Louis-Philippe.  From the king’s mouth runs a stepping board to the ground on which the servants carry the sacks of money which, on reaching the top, tip into the king’s mouth.  Daumier is portraying the king as a devourer of his subjects’ hard-earned money." https://mydailyartdisplay.uk/2013/11/20/honore-daumier-lithographs-and-caricatures/

Honore Daumier: Humble Beginnings

"The Print Collector" by Honore Daumier

"Honore Daumier was born in Marseilles in 1808 and came to Paris as a child when his father, an excellent glazier but a mediocre poet, hoped vaguely to gain recognition in the world of letters. The recognition was denied him and the Daumiers, desperately poor, allowed their son to take his destiny in own hands and make what he could of it. There was no need to lie awake at night worrying about the boy: he was sure of himself from his seventh year and his life, though hard and materially less profitable than a hod carrier's, was artistically rich and satisfactory.

Honore began to draw before he learned the secrets of the streets, and hating formal training, had the best education open to a boy of his resolution - the gutter. He grew up in the streets, and to mitigate the sting of poverty, roamed the Louvre, looking at pictures. In middle-age, a famous man, he made a lithograph of a party of visitors in the big museum of art: two pedagogues shepherding groups of helpless children. One says to the other: 'You take yours on this side, and I'll do the other, and we'll finish the room in a jiffy.'

Nobody told him what pictures to admire. Nobody tried to impress him with a little learning. He was on his own, and naturally, was attracted to the works of art containing something of himself - to Rembrandt who binds together all unfortunate souls and to the sculptures of Michelangelo for there was, as Balzac pointed out, 'much of Michelangelo in the boy.' The art student from the gutter made sketches in emulation of his favorites, and from the sketches, little modelings in clay or wax which hinted of the power to come.

For a time he was an usher at court, which meant that he wore a black gown and conducted idlers to their seats to watch the behavior of the law. Next, he was a bookseller's drudge and after that a professional artist. Before he was twenty he had somehow mastered lithography and had published in this medium a series of pictures which, for draftsmanship and characterization, are unexcelled in French art. His work caught the eye of the editor of a radical sheet, and he joined the staff, at twenty-one, on the promise of unlimited freedom."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Famous Artists and Their Models" by Thomas Cravens.)

Patience Wright: Postrevolutionary Plans

Illustration of Wright modelling a
waxwork head in "Wonderful Magazine"

"Patience Write saw a great future for herself in America, a new nation in need of icons, and wrote to George Washington that she hoped to make a wax portrait of him, based on her son Joseph's study. Washington replied that it would be 'an honor done me and if your inclination to return to this country should overcome other considerations, youwill no doubt, meet a welcome reception from your numerous friends; among who, I should be proud to see a person so universally celebrated; and on whom Nature has bestowed such rare and uncommon gifts.' Using this letter as a reference, she now began to drum up business seeking to 'make the likeness of the five gentlemen who assisted at the signing of the peace that put an end to so bloody and dreadful a war.'

"While laying plans for a grand finale to her career, Wright kept in touch with John Adams, now the American ambassador in London. She haunted the embassy, supplying Adams with inside tips about trade with Ireland and other tidbits. It was on returning from such a visit in 1786 that she fell and subsequently died of the injuries at age sixty-one.

Wright's flamboyant personality threatens to overshadow her art, yet according to contemporary accounts the realism of her figures was extraordinary. The sculptor sent many pieces to her sister Rachel, which were later bought by an exhibitor who showed them with his own work until a fire destroyed them. Only two of the fifty-five perishable waxes remain. Even formerly attributed small wax portrait medallions have since been reattributed - the one of George Washington to her son Joseph.

Only an authenticated full-length figure of William Pitt in Westminster Abbey's Islip Chapel remains to give a substantial idea of her style and working methods. When the statue was cleaned in 1935, the keeper of the muniments of the Abbey found the realism 'striking and convincing' - even the hands were 'veined and tinted by coloured underslips with hairs painted on the surface.' The wax head is attached to a wooden trunk with cardboard and glue-filled papier-mache strips, and the forearms are also cardboard and glue. The figure is supported at the back by an iron that screws into the wooden trunk.

A legend in the United States and England, Wright received obituaries that claimed her for both lands. The 'New York Daily Advertiser' wrote on 16 May: 'America has lost in... the celebrated Mrs. Wright... a warm and sincere friend, as well as one of her first ornaments to the arts... Those brave fellows who during the late war were fortunate enough to escape from the arms of tyranny and take sanctuary under her roof, will join us in lamenting her loss.'"

(Excerpts from "American Women Sculptors" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein.) 

Patience Wright: Spy

Lifesize waxwork of "William Pitt"
by Patience Wright

"Patience Wright's reputation as one of the 'lions of London' was soon threatened, however. War was imminent, and as an ardent patriot, Wright used the waxworks as a rendezvous for plotters, a place where military information could be wormed out of visitors and sent in hastily scribbled letters to Franklin, Adams, and others - or stuffed into wax heads and sent across the sea to her sister Rachel in the States. After the Boston Tea Party she sent information to Lord Chatham that helped him support the American cause in Parliament.

The value of most of this amateur spying is dubious, but Wright was certainly effective in her efforts to help a number of endangered Americans. Although she was tolerated for a while by the Crown, Wright soon overstepped the bounds. According to several accounts, she stamped into the palace after the battles of Lexington and Concord and berated the king for his oppressive policies. At a public gathering she announced that the Americans could never be defeated.

The laudatory articles in the newspapers stopped abruptly; her movements were closely watched and her correspondence intercepted. The political climate was so warm that Wright wrote to Franklin in Paris:

'I have moved from Pall mall with the full Perpose of mind to settel my afair and get Ready for my Return to america... I shall take France in my way and call at Parris where I hope to have the Pleaser of seeing my old american Friends - and take off some of your cappatal Bustos in wax. England will very soon be no longer a pattron for artists. The Ingeneous must flye to the Land of Pease & Liberty... I beg the favr of you to Recommend my Performans. Yr. old Friend, P. Wright'

In spite of this, after the American victory, Wright returned to London and lived quietly with her daughter and son-in-law, distinguished portrait painter John Hoppner."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "American Women Sculptors" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein.)

Patience Wright: Taking London by Storm

Profile bust of Benjamin Franklin
attributed to Patience Wright, ca. 1775

"Patience Wright sailed to England in 1772, intent upon making a name for herself in the great center of art and power. Bearing a letter from Benjamin Franklin's sister, she visited the statesman and showed him a bust of his old friend Cadwallader Colden. Franklin, astonished and delighted, consented to pose for a bust. He wrote back to his sister saying, 'She has shown me some of her work which appears extraordinary. I shall recommend her among my friends if she chooses to work here.'

Indeed Patience chose the best part of town near Buckingham Palace, amidst the ateliers of such renowned artists as the American, Benjamin West, painter to the king and a Quaker, who soon became her friend. Lesley Parker wrote, 'She could not have made a more propitious move. In the metropolis of empire she felt at home and established herself immediately as a personality to be reckoned with. Tall, broad of beam, with sharp features and a sharp tongue, she brought to the precious society of the time an arresting candour and zealous hospitality.'

To the sophisticated nobility who began to crowd into her exhibition rooms to see her marvelous waxworks, she was a droll original who brought to their jaded world a fresh vision of an Arcadian land. Even the liberties she took - kissing the men on both cheeks in typical Quaker greeting or speaking to her 'betters' as equals - were greeted with amusement as the symbols of a new order of being.

But her exhibition was more than a sensational sideshow - it was something of a propaganda statement. In addition to the portrait of Franklin, Wright modeled several Britons sympathetic to the American cause: William Pitt, who opposed the Stamp Act; Lady Macaulay, another supporter of the colonies; Viscount Augustus Keppel, a British admiral opposed to the American war; and the Prince of Wales, who was hostile to his father.

Be that as it may, the King and Queen induced her to do their portraits as well. Soon she was striding in and out of Buckingham House, modeling the king and queen in wax and addressing them as 'George' and 'Charlotte.' The appearance of the royal busts in her exhibition gave it the ultimate cachet."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "American Women Sculptors" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein.)

Patience Wright: Marriage

"Patience Lovell Wright" by Robert Edge Pine

 "By 1748, Patience Wright was back home in 'straitened circumstances' and, acceding to custom and necessity, married Joseph Wright, 'a substantial Quaker, who had nothing but Age and Money to recommend himself to her Favour.' They settled down in a house in Bordentown which is still standing. 'This Connection, however, enabled her to buy such materials as she wanted and to pursue the Bent of her Genius; and while the old Gentleman produced her four living Children, she modelled him an hundred in Clay, but not one to his taste.' Mr. Wright evidently disapproved of his wife's messy habit of modeling.

Patience bore a son, Joseph, and three daughters. Her once prosperous husband was now working as a cooper and living in Philadelphia when he died in 1769, leaving behind a peculiar will. He left his small estate to the children but willed her the house in Bordentown on condition that she raise and educate them. Now a forty-four-year-old widow with children to raise, Wright decided to use her lifelong hobby as a means of support. She and her widowed sister, Rachel Wells, who was already modeling portraits in wax, set up a waxworks show and were soon touring the colonies with it, traveling to Boston, Charleston, and other cities.

No ordinary exhibition, it was innovative for its time. While it was considered 'lower-class' than sculpting with bronze or stone, it was cheaper to manufacture and gave the sculptures a more life-like quality. Wright sculpted the hands and the faces of her sitters in wax, created a metal frame, attached the wax appendages, and dressed the wax/metal mannequin in clothes provided by the sitter. These sculptures and busts were life-size and fascinated the local population who visited her waxworks in Philadelphia and New York City. 

After moving to Queen Street in New York City, Wright returned from a business errand one day in 1771 to discover that her children had accidentally set fire to the house, destroying almost all her work. Diligently, the two sisters repaired or replaced the work, which was acclaimed by the 'New York Gazette,' as showing 'superior skill and judgment.'" All of this served to precipitate a significant change in the days to come.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "American Women Sculptors" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein and "Patience L. Wright" from a page on the American Battlefield Trust site
.)

Patience Wright: America's First Professional Sculptor

Framed wax bust of Washington, circa 1864,
by Patience Wright

"Patience Wright (1725-1786), considered by many to be America's first professional sculptor, was so highly regarded that the following lines about her were part of an epic poem by Joel Barlow dedicated to the new nation:

'See Wright's fair hands the livelier fire control,
In waxen forms she breathes impassion'd soul...
Grief, rage and fear beneath her fingers start,
Roll the wild eye and pour the bursting heart.'

Freely associating with men of power, demanding a role in the artistic, social and political structure, an expert at publicity and self-promotion, she made her way by sheer force of personality as well as exceptional talent. 

Born in Oyster Bay, Long Island, the fifth daughter of a prosperous Quaker farmer, John Lovell and his wife, Patience, she moved to Bordentown, New Jersey, with them when she was four. Lovell raised ten daughters and one son in accordance with the rather extreme religious principles of an obscure theologian, Thomas Tryon. A vegetarian who was opposed to the taking of animal life (the Lovells wore wooden shoes rather than leather), he insisted that the girls go veiled to protect them from defilement and that they dress in white clothing from head to toe as a symbol of 'temperance and innocency.'

According to Patience, it was in response to this color-drained and sensually repressed early experience that she and her sisters rebelled by secretly engaging in bouts of colorful painting, using natural pigments such as berry juice. and despite her community's injunction against 'graven images.' Patience began to model small figures from bread dough and local clay at an early age.

Her family, however, was not devoid of links with the art world. One of her Oyster Bay cousins became an outstanding colonial portrait painter and may have been her escort when, in 1745 at the age of twenty, she 'became a little disobedient' and ran away from her strict family to Philadelphia in order to see the dazzling works of art she had heard existed in that city. It was also there that she tasted meat for the first time."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "American Women Sculptors" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein.)

Bartolome Murillo: Death

"Nicolas Omazur" by Bartolome Murillo

"In 1682 Bartolome Murillo was sixty-four years of age. He was possessed of a sufficiency of this world's good, and a reputation second to that of no painter in Spain. Still an almost passionate love of Seville remained one of his strongest characteristics. It must, therefore, have been his sympathy with and affection for his friends the Franciscans that induced him to accept an offer to visit Cadiz and paint five pictures for the church of the Capuchin Friars.

He was engaged upon this work when he met with the accident which caused his death. He had almost completed the principal group of figures and was mounting a scaffolding to reach the upper part of his canvas when he stumbled so violently as to cause a rupture in the intestines. We are told that the natural modesty of the master deterred him from revealing the nature of the injury. His reticence cost him his life.

He was brought home to Seville, where he grew rapidly worse. His notary received instructions to draw up his will, but at six o-clock on the evening of the same day, the 3rd of April, 1682, and before he could sign the will, he expired. His friend and patron, Justino Neve, held him in his arms when the end came, and beside his deathbed was his second son, Gaspar Esteban Murillo, and his pupil, Pedro Nunez de Villavicencio.

During the long days of his painful illness Murillo had himself carried into his parish church of Santa Cruz. Here he performed his devotions before Pedro Campana's powerful painting of the 'Descent from the Cross,' which hung over the altar. It was Murillo's wish that his body should be laid beneath this picture, and thither it was conveyed on the day after his decease. 

His funeral was celebrated with great pomp, the bier being borne by two marquesses and four knights, and attended by a great concourse of people of all ranks, who loved and esteemed the great painter. At last in 1864, a bronze statue of Murillo was placed in the Plaza del Museo, at the entrance of the old Convento de la Merced, now the Museo Provincial, the shrine of his works. But his pictures are the noblest monuments of his fame, while the record of his life is a memory that will last while Spain endures."

Bartolome Murillo: El Pintor de las Concepciones

"The Immaculate Conception"
by Bartolome Murillo

"Bartolome Murillo painted no fewer than twenty pictures on the subject of the Conception - the 'darling dogma of the Spanish Church' - and the unrivaled grace and feeling for his treatment won for him the title of 'El Pintor de las Concepciones.' The worship of Spain in Murillo's day was, in fact, practically centered in the adoration of the Virgin Mary. The doctrine of the immaculate conception had just become an official article of the Spanish Catholic faith in 1617, and the event had been celebrated in a frenzy of joy.

The rules for the guidance of painters in their treatment of the Mother of Jesus were strict, and it is interesting to see what Pacheco, father-in-law to Velazquez, laid down for the treatment of this all-important subject:

The Virgin's feet were not, on any account, to be visible. It was enjoined that 'Our Lady is to be painted in the flower of her age, from twelve to thirteen years old, with sweet grave eyes, a nose and mouth of the most perfect form, rosy cheeks, and the finest streaming hair of golden hue; in a word, with all the beauty that a pencil can express... Our Lady's eyes are to be turned to Heaven, and her arms are to be meekly folded across her bosom; that the mantling sun is to be expressed by bright golden light behind the figure. The pedestal moon is to be a crescent with downward pointing horns, and the twelve stars above are to be raised on silver rays, forming a diadem like the celestial crown in heraldry. [These symbolic elements reflected verses from the book of Revelation.] The robe of the Virgin must be white and her mantle blue, and round her waist must be tied the cord of St. Francis.

Reactions to Murillo's portrayals of the Virgin were varied. Some criticized them harshly, while others found them absolutely inspirational. 'Standing before that picture,' wrote Edmondo de Amicis, 'my heart softened, and my mind rose to a height which it had never attained before. It was not the enthusiasm of faith. It was a desire, a limitless aspiration towards faith, a hope which gave me a glimpse of a nobler, richer, more beautiful life than I had hitherto led...'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and an Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)
 

Bartolome Murillo: Marshal Soult's Rapacity

"The Immaculate Conception of
the Venerable Ones" by Murillo

"Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult was one of Napoleon's best generals, but notorious for looting artwork from territories under his command, including Spain. Indeed, the whole story of the long premeditated picture-stealing campaign of Soult fills one with indignation. Spies preceded his army, disguised as travellers, and furnished with Cean Bermudez' 'Dictionary of Spanish Art History,' were thus able to track down the prey of plate and pictures.

Convents and cathedrals - venerable shrines of art - were beset by these 'connoisseurs' provided with squadrons of soldiers, demanding the surrender of the Murillos, Canos, Zurbarans, and Pachecos within. Some may say that to strip some dark churches and convents was often to rescue fine works of art from oblivion or from the decay caused by monkish neglect; but to despoil others of its pictures was to rob them not only of their glorious heirlooms, but the poor of the charity of strangers, whom these pictures attracted and inspired gifts of charity to the institution's causes. Regardless, it was robbery.

In Seville only the Capuchin monks, who knew the intentions of the French beforehand, took down works by Murillo, moved them to Cadiz, where they hid them in private homes. They returned the artwork to Seville at the end of the war. For this reason, the Sevillian Museum of Fine Arts now has an important collection of Murillo artwork that would otherwise be hung in the Louvre or distributed in various private collections.

It was well they had done so, for Soult took the first works Murillo produced, the ten paintings produced for the Franciscan convent; 'The Birth of the Virgin' from the Cathedral of Seville, now located in the Louvre; four paintings from the church of Santa María la Blanca and the 'Immaculate Conception' painting from the Hospital de los Venerables. From the church of the Hospital de la Santa Caridad, Soult removed four paintings that would decorate his own luxurious mansion.

Although much has been written in denunciation of the collecting propensities of the French generals during the Peninsular War, it must be admitted that their robberies did draw wider attention to the stores of artistic masterpieces that until then had been unknown, unappreciated and unsuspected, hidden away in Spain. Twenty-five years before that war Murillo was very little known beyond the boundaries of his own province of Andalusia. Afterwards it was a different story."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, A Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert and "The Looting of Murillo's Works."

Bartolome Murillo: The Public Academy of Art, Seville

"The Birth of the Virgin" by Bartolome Murillo

"Bartolome Murillo established the Public Academy of Art in Seville in 1660. He had remembered the disadvantages under which he had laboured in his own artistic beginnings, and his estimate of the importance of painting as an educational and religious influence enabled him to overcome all obstacles. 

Twenty-three of the leading artists of the city assembled on the 11th of January, 1660, and drew up a constitution for the new society. Murillo and Herrera were elected to the two presidential chairs and officiated on alternate weeks as director of studies and the guide, philosopher and friend to the students. The other officers formed the council of the president and superintended the business side of the Academy. The working expenses were to be defrayed by the members of the society, whose liabilities were limited to a monthly subscription of six reals each, while the pupils were admitted on the most liberal terms. 

They were only asked to pay whatever they could afford and to faithfully obey the few simple but strictly enforced rules. Each students, on admission, was to pronounce his orthodoxy in these words - 'Praised be the most holy Sacrament and the pure conception of Our Lady,' to bind himself to refrain from swearing or loose talk, and to eschew all conversation on subjects not relating to the business of the school.

Students were numerous from the first, but differences among the subscribing members led to many changes among the officeholders, and in the second year of the Academy's existence Murillo appears to have had sole control in the management of its affairs. While Murillo was actively interested in the direction of the Academy, it flourished, and it continued to exist until his death, when it was closed."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Bartolome Murillo: Marriage

"A Peasant Boy Leaning on a Sill" by Bartolome Murillo

"In 1648 Baratolome Murillo's circumstances were so secure that he was accepted as the husband of a rich and noble lady. Of Dona Beatriz de Cabrera y Sotomayor, who he married in that year, we know little beyond the fact that she possessed property at Pilas, a village situated five leagues from Seville. That she made him a discreet and dutiful wife is generally accepted, and there is certainly no evidence to the contrary.

There is a kind of legend that Murillo first met her at Pilas, where he was painting an altarpiece for the Church of San Geronimo. The story alleges that he wooed the lady by painting her as an angel in that composition. But it is extremely doubtful whether the painter employed her as a model in any of his pictures.

Murillo appears to have had great fondness for his models, and he reproduces the same faces as saints, angels or beggar boys with unfailing persistence. One of his favourite models is said to have been the son of Sebastian Gomez, the painter's Mulatto attendant, who profited so well by the tuition he acquired in the studio that he was able to finish the head of a Madonna that Murillo was prevented from completing. In appreciation of his skill, the artist gave the slave his freedom. The juvenile Gomez is immortalized in the head of the 'Boy Looking Out of Window' in the English National Gallery, and he is seen in other pictures by Murillo as an angel, a fruit seller and a figure in a crowd.

Murillo's house after marriage became the resort of the brethren of his craft and of the most cultured men in Seville. But the artist, instead of limiting his output, devoted himself to the production of pictures with unabated, self-assured industry and enthusiasm."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Bartolome Murillo: Success!

"Return of the Prodigal Son" by Bartolome Murillo

"Bartolome Murillo came back to Seville from Madrid as quietly as he had departed and waited for an opportunity to reveal the craftsmanship he had learned under Velazquez. Nor had he long to wait for his chance. The friars of the local Franciscan convent had collected a small sum of money by one of their begging brotherhoods to employ in painting a series of pictures for their small cloister. But it was no slight thing they wanted - nothing less than eleven large pictures! Their paltry sum was not sufficient to enlist any painter of fame, but it was enough for the needy, unknown, aspiring Murillo. That ill-paid commission was to make the Franciscan convent of Seville famous throughout the world, and forever to establish the reputation of Murillo.

As it is said: 'Tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'

When the work was completed it burst on the Sevillians as a miracle of wonder. They could not understand the amazing transformation that was now revealed in Murillo's style. It was said that in these paintings, there was 'much of the strength of Ribera, with added softness and delicacy of tone.' Another compared them to 'all the life-like truth and accuracy of detail which distinguished the early studies of Velazquez,' and that a face in a third picture 'might have been painted by Van Dyck himself.' High praise indeed!

Murillo accepted the public verdict, which ordained him the pictorial exponent of Roman Catholicism, and his success inspired him to great efforts in the production of yet more pictures. In a moment he became the most popular painter in Seville. His reputation was established and commissions began to pour in. His fortune was made!"

To be continued

(Excerpts are from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Bartolome Murillo: Velazquez

"The Holy Family (The Virgin of Seville) by Bartolome Murillo

"The attitude of the great Velazquez, painter of Spanish royalty, towards Bartolome Murillo, shows him in a most favorable light. He not only questioned his visitor about his family and ambition, and his motive for undertaking so long a journey, but being satisfied with his honesty of purpose, he provided him with lodging in his own house. He also procured him admission to the royal galleries. More than this, he examined the young student's paintings, pointed out his deficiencies, warned him of the pitfalls most dangerous to his genius, and submitted examples of his work to the King and the all-powerful minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares. What the art of Murillo owes to Velazquez can never be overstated.

Murillo's spirit responded to the inspiration of the new world which Velazquez revealed to him. By the advice of his master he restricted himself largely to the study of Ribera, Van Dyck and Velazquez, and surprised his mentor with some pictures of such undoubted excellence that his judicious critic pronounced him ripe for Rome. He even offered him money to cover his expenses, and letters of introduction to facilitate his visit, but Murillo declined to leave his native soil.

His apprenticeship was at an end, and his beloved province was calling him back to Seville. In 1645 he parted from Madrid and returned. An Andalusian he was born, and in the charmed atmosphere of his beautiful native city, he lived and worked to the close of his life, a life varied only by an occasional journey to Cadiz. In point of fact, his visit to Cadiz, on which he met with the accident which caused his death, is the only authentic instance we have of his ever again leaving the shadow of the Giralda Tower."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Bartolome Murillo: Ambition Awakened

"Two Women at a Window" by Bartolome Murillo

"In Seville Bartolome Murillo's friend and fellow apprentice, Pedro de Moya, showed him his copies of the soft lights and delicate colouring of Anthony van Dyck. These were a revelation to the student of Castillo's hard contours. As he pondered these, his ambition was awakened. He determined to visit Rome or Flanders, and see for himself the artistic wonders of which he heard - but the young enthusiast was penniless. Although Italy and the Low Countries were beyond his reach, Madrid was comparatively accessible.

Murillo purchased a quantity of saga-cloth [a loose-textured material with a rough surface], and cutting it into the most marketable sizes, he primed and prepared the little squares, and immediately set to work to cover them with saleable daubs. Saints and Madonnas, flower pieces and landscapes, sacred hearts and fanciful cascades - he painted them all and disposed of his entire stock to a speculative shipowner for re-sale in the South American colonies. He then placed his sister under suitable protection, and without informing anybody of his plans or his destination, in 1642 he disappeared from Seville.

Three years later he returned as mysteriously as he had gone, to be acclaimed by his admiring countrymen as the first painter of Andalusia. What had transpired? The interval had been occupied in unceasing work. Murillo had copied the masterpieces of the Spanish, Venetian and Flemish schools, drawing much from casts and from life, and following a thorough system of education under the advice and protection of the King's painter, Velazquez!"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Bartolome Murillo: Apprenticeship

"The Young Beggar" by Bartolome Murillo

"As a non-paying apprentice in the studio of Juan del Castillo, Bartolome Murillo's duties consisted in the mixing of paints, the stretching of canvases, and other less artistic utillity work. Castillo, who was brought up in the Florentine traditions of a much earlier period was a dry and hard colourist, and although his design may perhaps be accounted good, he was certainly one of the worst painters the school of Seville has produced. Unfortunately young Murillo's early work understandably reflected his master's.

When Castillo moved to Cadiz, twenty-three year old Murillo remained in Seville to fend for himself and his younger sister - an obligation almost beyond his powers to fulfil. He was very poor, and, being without friends or influence, was often hard put to it to procure the means to satisfy their few modest needs. 

He was compelled to paint pictures on very rough cloth, and hawk them in the weekly fair, the Feria, held every  Thursday. The pictures he managed to produce were bright and pleasing, and while they hardly commanded decent prices, they found ready buyers, which were the poor folk in the area. Indeed his work must have excelled the norm since a picture which possesses exceptional merit is commended to this day as a 'Murillo.'

It was in the Feria that Murillo studied the beggar boys, who were to be the subjects of so many of his famous pictures, and it is obvious that he studied them with an eye to their saleability. In order to sell they must please, and in his determination to please, the artist transformed these dirty, unkempt, disreputable mendicants of Seville into incarnations of picturesque innocence - smooth, smiling, and cherubic. Thse examples of 'genre' are as well known as any of Murillo's pictures.

But the day was approaching when he was to make his last descent upon the Feria before starting on his life's work."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Bartolome Estaban Murillo: Humble Beginnings

"Self-Portrait" by Bartolome Esteban Murillo

"Diego de Silva, who is known to the world as Velazquez, and Bartolome Esteban, who like his great contemporary is more generally called by Murillo, had many points in common. They were both natives of Seville. Both embraced the pursuit of Art with the same singleness of purpose, and each achieved a brilliant career - the unblemished careers of men who, as has been written of one of them, 'in the height of worldly success never lost the kindness of heart and simplicity of disposition which had characterized the student years.'

However, their paths in life were placed wide apart, and from the first their aims were different. Velazquez, the eagle, soared in the rarefied atmosphere of the Court. He was robed in jewelled velvets, and was carried to his last resting place by nobles as became a Knight of Santiago. Murillo's way took him through shady cloisters and the dim-lit stillness of convents and cathedrals. From a life devoted to the Spanish Catholic religion and the companionship of priests, he passed to an honoured grave beneath a stone slab, still preserved behind the high altar of the Church of Los Menores.

Murillo was born in Seville as the year 1617 ended, and was baptised on the 1st of January, 1618. His parents were humble toilers in the city and nothing is recorded of Murillo's life until he had entered his eleventh year, when both his parents died in an epidemic. The lad with his little sister went to live with a kindly uncle who resided in Seville. But the uncle's means were meager, and young Murillo, who had already revealed his power in drawing was speedily transferred, as a non-paying apprentice, to the studio of Juan del Castillo, certainly one of the worst painters the school of Seville has produced."

To be continued

(Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)

Alfred Stevens: Impressions on Painting

"The Lady with the Umbrella"
by Alfred Stevens

In 1886 Alfred Stevens published his thoughts on painting in a small book entitled "Impressions sur la Peinture." Knowing how reluctant publishers are to risk their money, the fact that this book came out in separate French, English and American editions is proof of its success and, no doubt, its influence. Because 'Impressions' is simply a collection of thoughts on art, succinctly expressed, it is easily read.

Below are a few examples:

"The student should learn to draw, as much as possible, with his brush."

 

"It is better to give a nail's breadth of one's self than an arm's length of what belongs to others."

 

"A painter is only great when he is a master workman."

 

"Great workers must not be confounded with mere drudges."

 

"A painter, however mediocre, who has depicted the era in which he lives will become more interesting in time than he who, having more talent, portrays an epoch he has never seen."

 

"One should formulate aesthetically and not imitate servilely."

 

"Once the painter has a great artistic soul, the tortoise becomes as interesting as the horse, much more difficult to execute, the soul of the painter giving its imprint to everything."

 

"People have a sad tendency to run after the qualities of their neighbors and to neglect those with which they themselves are endowed."

 

"I would rather have painted four bladders and a palette, as did Chardin, than the 'Entrance of Alexander into Babylon' of Lebrun, the official painter of Louis XIV."

 

"There should be no haste in the erection of a statue to a man. Neither should we hasten to introduce our masters into the Louvre. Time alone is an infallible classifier."

"The more one knows, the more one simplifies."

"A man's hand has the same expression as his face."

"In painting, it is an art to know when to stop."

 

"A fine picture, the effect of which is admired at a distance, ought equally to bear analysis when looked at near by."

"If the old masters could return to earth, no matter what school, be assured that they would not hesitate to cause not a few of their works to disappear."

 

"In a portrait, it is better to let the sitter take an habitual pose than to strive for effect by an unusual one."

"Before thinking of pleasing the public, one should be satisfied with himself."

"The moon beautifies everything. It lends accent to sterile landscapes that the sun itself is powerless to animate, because it suppresses details and gives value only to the mass."

"Nothing is as useful as comparison."

"By looking at the palette of a painter, one knows with whom one is dealing."

 

"If a painter represents Rembrandt in his studio he is dominated by Rembrandt; in spite of himself he seeks for effects of light and shade; if he represents Veronese he is possessed by Veronese, and will seek for open-air effects. One enters involuntarily into the temperament of the painter whom one wishes to recall."

 

"A man should have the courage not to allow the successes of the Salon, the opinion of the press or the contingency of recompenses to occupy his mind, and should be chiefly concerned with living up to his own ideal."

 

"Do not exert yourself to make too perfect studies from nature. A study should be an exercise without pretension."

 

"There is no artist's studio, even a mediocre one, in which a study may not be found superior to his finished works."

 

"To paint a good portrait, it is indispensable to enter into the spirit and the character of the model, and to compel one's self to depict him not only by exactly reproducing his features, but more particularly by interpreting his mind." 

"Painting is nature seen through the prism of an emotion."

"To make a pupil paint many flowers is excellent instruction."

"The masters have not always produced masterpieces. Happy he who, in our day, shall be able to leave behind him a fine bit of painting!"

"The born painter never believes that he has succeeded; he is constantly seeking to enlarge and elevate his art, even above his strength; that is, besides, for an artist, the only means of not weakening at a certain age."

"The painter contemplating nature should depict it so as to preserve the flavor of his first impression."

"Too good sight is often a fatal gift to a painter, because the retina is maddened by seeing too many things in detail."

"People do not trouble themselves enough in our day about the workmanship, the trade, painting for painting's sake; but they will be forced to return to it, and only those who possess this master quality will be certain of immortality."

"The sincere approbation of his professional comrades is, for the painter, the most flattering of recompenses."

"So many painters stop where difficulty begins!"

"Painting executed in the open air gains in the studio."

"One should sometimes place his picture in the penumbra in order to properly judge if it preserves its harmony."

"Nothing can equal the happiness that a painter feels when, after a day's work, he is satisfied with the task accomplished. But, in the contrary case, what despair he experiences!"

 

(Excerpts from both "Alfred Stevens" by Peter Mitchell and "Impressions on Painting" by Alfred Stevens.)

Alfred Stevens: A Grand Finale

"The Japanese Mask" by Alfred Stevens

"In 1890 Alfred Stevens joined the group which left the traditional Salon to show separately at the Champs de Mars, calling themselves the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts. He had eleven exhibits. In September of that year the first of a series of blows fell upon him. His beloved brother, Arthur, died. Only six months later, Marie Stevens, his wife of over thirty years, passed away, and the following year, Joseph, his elder brother was also lost to him. The final blow was of a different nature - a lack of money.

Stevens, in common with so many artists, had had little idea of money or accounts, and spent his money freely in the firm belief that he could always paint another picture and replace it. The letters to his children are pitiful, but nothing prevented his painting well. 

Having been unable to exhibit in the previous year's Salon, he had now sixteen paintings on display and enjoyed having his son's work on show with his. He had a successful exhibition in Brussels at La Maison d'Art the following year. He tried to paint himself out of debt and in doing so the quality sometimes suffered, but to the end, he could pull himself together and paint fine paintings when he had a mind to.

In 1899, he fell by accident, failed to recover properly and was confined to a wheelchair. This could have been a sad ending for Stevens, but his friends rallied round and wrote to the authorities asking for a retrospective exhibition for him at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This honour had never been awarded to a living artist, but the Minister granted the request. We can imagine the joy for Stevens of being wheeled around the exhibition of over a hundred and eighty of his paintings. He died in 1906 and was given a grand funeral and endless obituaries in the press."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Alfred Stevens" by Peter Mitchell.)

Alfred Stevens: Panorama of the Century

A Fragment with Sarah Bernhardt of Stevens'
"Panorama of the Century"

"In the late 1880's , Alfred Stevens embarked on a project that only a man of his energy would undertake in his mid-sixties. The idea came from his friend Henri Gervex. Alfred, his brother Arthur and others put up the capital to paint a 'Panorama of the Century' to be exhibited in the Tuileries Gardens during the Exposition Universelle of 1889. 

The subject was a commemoration of one hundred years of French history from the Revolution of 1789 to the present day, in the form of 641 portraits of all notable figures standing in imaginary, elaborate architectural settings based in the Tuileries where the Rotunda would be erected. The idea of a panorama was not new, but the artist wanted to make accurate portraits of the celebrities included, whether live or from research. It would be nothing less than a pageant of the century.

Gradually the project took shape and a team of assistants was assembled, including Alfred's eldest son Leopold. Months of research were needed, and much time was spent in libraries to find accurate records of women's fashions if, indeed, such documents had been preserved. The sketching of the different scenes had taken two years, and it was time to transfer the four large oil sketches which had been made, and which fortunately have survived, unlike the Panorama itself.

The transfer to the 120-meter-long canvas meant that each drawing had to be enlarged to eight times the original onto large sheets or cartoons. The outline was pricked through in the time-honoured method of the Italian fresco painters. When powder was applied to the holes it went through and the outline was there ready on the canvas to be worked up. Prominent scenes from each reign had been chosen and the team set to work to paint them working among 'a disorderly array of stuffs, uniforms, helmets, and objects of all kinds, the bric-a-brac of a century.' 

When it was completed the visitor to the circular structure could, upon purchase of a one-franc ticket, walk round from the doomed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Napoleon III and beyond, into the present day of the Third Republic. Many people of the day had tried to get themselves included in the last scene offing substantial sums for the privilege. 

Alas, the careful planning did not include what was to happen to the Panorama after the Exposition was over. After the Exposition, the panorama was exhibited in Chicago, Saint Louis, Brussels, and Barcelona. But, unable to secure a permanent exhibition space, Stevens was forced to cut the work into sections for dispersal, in one case, as far away as Florida, where it is now on display in the Ringling Museum. The Ringling’s portion shows prominent dramatists, writers, and musicians, but its real star is Stevens’s adored friend, the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Dressed in the costume she wore as the Queen in Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas, a stiff, white meringue of a gown which renders her utterly striking in a crowd of men in dark suits"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Alfred Stevens" by Peter Mitchell.)