Elizabeth Nourse: Artistic Preferences

"Lavoir, Paris," watercolor by Elizabeth Nourse

"Although Elizabeth Nourse never publicly discussed her artistic preferences, in 1902 she expressed some of her views on contemporary painting saying: 'While I admire Monet, Raffaeli, and the pronounced realistic paintings, I see more with the eyes of Cazin and of Dagnan.' Art history has taught us to think of Impressionists like Monet as completely at odds with the Realists who showed at the Salon, but Nourse and her contemporaries viewed them more as a part of the same movement. She allied herself with Cazin and Dagnan-Bouveret because they were more interested in rural themes and worked in a variety of styles between the poles of Impressionism and traditional academic painting. She considered the Impressionists' scientific rendering of light and color as too experimental for her subject matter, but she was just as anxious to avoid the sleek classicism of Alexandre Cabanel and Bouguereau, which would have been equally unsuited to her interests.

In a further attempt to sell her work, Nourse entered an increasing number of exhibitions from 1903 to 1908. She sent paintings to Liverpool again and, for the first time, to Antwerp, Rouen, Nantes, and Liege and to the annual Philadelphia Watercolor Exhibition. She was invited to enter the newly inaugurated exhibitions of American painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and several women's groups, such as the Lodge Art League in Paris, provided other opportunities for her to show her work. She also exhibited in 'la Quatorzieme exposition annuelle des Femmes artistes' with the Union de Femmes peintres et sculpteurs, and at the International Art Union of Paris in 1909, an annual art exhibition held by the International Young Women's Christian Association (YMCA).

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career)