Cecilia Beaux, First Impressions

"A Little Girl" by Cecilia Beaux

Cecilia Beaux wrote: "Long before it was discovered that I had more proficiency with a pencil than I had on the piano, I accompanied my aunts on visits to what picture galleries and special exhibitions there were. The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts was at that time quite far downtown, in a dark old building. Memory retains only one impression of our visit there. While my aunts were wandering and examining, I fell behind, intrigued by an enormous oil painting which hung over a descending stairway.

The huge canvas depicted three life-size horses in full career, ridden by enigmatical personages; cloud and flame surrounded; prostrate and suppliant figures filled the foreground. The foremost steed was white with flowing mane and tail, and was rearing in the pride of conquest. The title of the picture was 'Death on the Pale Horse' by Benjamin West. I remained curiously gazing until I was found. It was the first painting I consciously observed.

It must have been several years after this that a private collection was opened by William C. Gibson in Philadelphia to privileged persons on certain days. I was first taken to the gallery on a cold winter day. After our long bleak journey in the horse-car, the entrance, and the door opened by a solemn servant, were not very hopeful; but once inside, at the end of a dark hall shone Paradise itself. Light filtered through immense pale green fronds of lofty ferns.

I had never dreamed of a conservatory before, and my delight was unmixed. But, far more than even this, there were a number of small galleries opening from it where the pictures hung. The lighting, all daylight from above, was soft and equal, and showed every touch of color and value at its best.

My favorites were, first of all, a head of a young man, by Couture. The 'Angelus' itself was there. The pink and polished sweetness of the peasants of Bouguereau and Merle had the appeal of dimpled flesh, limpid eyes, and dewy lips. The great tree by Courbet is one of the pictures most vividly remembered. There were handsome compositions by Gerome, Vibert and Madrazzo.

If I did aught but gaze, if I pondered at all, it was before the Boldini and the Fortuny that I stood longest and puzzled most. I am still thrilled by the recollection of those fresh, pure strokes, mixed with morning light, the pearly light of France, strokes so enigmatical when examined, so wrought with whim and fantasy, yet so sure, with the firmness of reality when one walked away. 'I cannot understand, I love,' I would have thought, if I had known my Tennyson.

I found much more in the gallery than painting. I had my first taste of foreign ways, places, light, palaces, churches, gardens and ceremonies and people of the past, or moving in the scene and atmosphere of old Europe. My embryonic sense took hold, once for all, of something that was mine, and that nothing should cheat me of some day."

(Excerpts from "Background with Figures" by Cecilia Beaux.)