Elizabeth Nourse: Peasant Women of Borst

"Peasant Women of Borst"
by Elizabeth Nourse

"After a stay of more than seven months in Rome following their Assisi sojourn, Elizabeth Nourse and her sister Louise left Italy and journeyed to Borst, a mountain village in southern Austria, in search of different peasant subjects. Borst was so remote that the last part of their journey was made by oxcart. As they were later to do in Brittany, they chose a small Catholic hamlet that offered no hotel accommodations for tourists and enlisted the aid of the local priest to help them find lodgings and models for the artist. In this way they could live very economically and immerse themselves in the life of the village.

Elizabeth's sketches from Borst show that she was as fascinated by the peasants' costumes as she was by their customs. As an accomplished seamstress who enjoyed designing and making her own hats and clothes, she was able to appreciate the peasants' skills in weaving and embroidery. She painted several oils during her stay, including 'Peasant Women of Borst,' an intriguing composition that shows devout villagers approaching the viewer in a religious procession. Her first drawing of the scene and its subsequent watercolor are almost identical, but several major changes were made when she transferred the composition to canvas. The dramatic impact of the oncoming figures, for example, was enhanced by enlarging them to fill the canvas and by giving greater variety to the circle of women's heads. For the same reason, perhaps, the festive touches of red and blue in the watercolor have been eliminated in the oil, giving the latter a more somber and dignified aspect.

In 1892 seventeen prominent Cincinnati women purchased the painting for their art museum, where it was hung in a carved oak frame donated by Benn Pitman. Many of these women were old friends of the artist's and had been active in forming the Women's Art Museum Association of Cincinnati in 1877 to 'advance women's work, more particularly in the direction of industrial art.' Their goal had been the establishment of a museum in the city based on the South Kensington model, together with a school for training draftsmen and designers to provide employment for women and to encourage their creativity. Their efforts had culminated in the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1886, and the following year, of the adjacent Art Academy, which replaced the school in which Nourse had studied. Cincinnati would always prove to be a receptive market for Elizabeth's work, especially among women who consciously set out to promote employment opportunities for their sex."

To be continued

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