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| "Dorothea and Francesca" by Cecilia Beaux |
"Tyringham Valley is a realized version of the Twenty-Third Psalm.
It is a valley one may enter and behold, lying between its hillsides
and modelled by its river..."Four Brooks," the Gilders' Farm, lies upon
one of the enclosing hillsides, near the upper end of the vale. The
Mountain Hill hangs like a tapestry behind it, and it was upon this
hill, among laurel, pine, rock, and sugar maple, that I spent most of
the mornings of my summer-long visits at the farm.
They gave me the unused tobacco barn for a studio. It was a huge
enclosed shed on the edge of the orchard. Its walls were single upright
boards, one inch apart. The ground itself was its floor, and when I
took possession there was only one window at the farther end, a square
opening with a heavy wooden shutter, through whose frame one could see
the near surroundings of the farm, and beyond. When I entered it, the
barn was more than half filled with winter and other farm-furnishings,
sledges, broken farm tools, ploughs, old wagons, etc., a veritable
heaven for the summer hours of children. They (my benefactors this
time) put in a long large window on the orchard side, at the farther
end, and cleared the space there. I had already had a clear view of the
painting I would do there. I saw straight through the ploughs and
wagons, and when three glazed windows went into the long opening in the
wall, light actually fell upon a canvas (the ghost of one) which would
stand in perfect view from a deep ample corner.
The big and little sisters, Dorothea and Francesca, used to execute a
dance of the simplest and all too circumscribed design, invented by
themselves, and adorned by their unconscious beauty alone.
This was the subject. I built a platform with my own hands, as the
girls could not move easily on the bare earth. When it rained hard, in
September, the orchard let its surplus water run down the hill and
under the barn-sill, so that, as my corner was rather low, I put on
rubber boots and splashed in and out of my puddle, four inches deep.
October was difficult, for it grew bitterly cold. But valiant posing
went on, though the scenic effect of the group was changed by wraps.
Summer, indeed, was over, when on a dark autumnal night, in the
freezing bard, the picture was packed by the light of one or two
candles and a lantern."
To be continued
(Excerpts from "Background with Figures" by Cecilia Beaux.)
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