Elizabeth Nourse: The Paris Salon

"La Mere" by Elizabeth Nourse

"After only three months of study at the Academie Julian, Nourse was advised by her teachers to leave and work alone because they found her drawing excellent and felt that too much academic training might interfere with the development of her original style. She immediately set to work on 'La Mere,' her first Salon entry, and went to Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran for criticism. The painting was not only accepted by the jury of the Societe Nationale des Artistes Francais, but was hung 'on the line,' a signal honor for a new exhibitor. She signed 'La Mere,' 'E. Nourse,' as she did all her early work, because she apparently thought it would be more favorably received if the public did not know she was a woman. In 1891 she began to sign her full name, 'Elizabeth Nourse,' on her Salon entries and this became her standard signature by 1904, except for small canvases on which she must have felt her full name would be obtrusive.

'La Mere' demonstrates how well Nourse understood the academic standards admired by the jurors of the Salon. First she painted an oil study of the mother's head, for which Louise carved a frame in the Pitman style. She then worked on the major painting, as she had on the study, with small brushstrokes and careful tonal gradations to give both works the finish that the more trditional French painters admired. The result displays her greatest strengths: solide draftsmanship and masterful handling of light and shadow as well as an emotional quality that never becomes sentimental.

For all its rich, dark color and academic finish, 'La Mere' was modern by nineteenth-century standards in its simplicity and realism. There are no anecdotal details and the oblique view of the figures is reminiscent of candid effects made popular by an earlier generation of French painters.

This was an auspicious beginning for the young Cincinnatian in Paris, but the next important step was to sell her work in order to support herself and Louise. Some seven years and exposure at five exhibitions, in Paris, London, Glasgow, Cincinnati and finally Washington D.C., were required before Nourse sold 'La Mere,' presumably for $300 by Parker Mann, an artist. in 1894. By 1914 was hanging in the Princeton study of Woodrow Wilson, then governor of New Jersey, along with Mrs. Wilson's own paintings."

To be continued

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