The Red Rose Girls: Alphonse Mucha

"The Child and Tradition" by Violet Oakley

"Cogslea was in easy walking distance of the Allen's Lane train station, and Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley took advantage of their proximity to convenient transportation and started going into Philadelphia frequently. Even Violet, who was making good progress on the Harrisburg panels was ready to go out and have some fun.

When the great Alphonse Mucha, icon of the French Art Nouveau movement, was sponsored by the Plastic Club to speak at Witherspoon Hall in Philadelphia, they were in the audience. Mucha, who spoke no English, lectured with the aid of an interpreter. In high spirits, Violet commemorated the occasion to amuse Henrietta who, as usual, stayed home.

'Mr. Mucha says: Vat is Arrt? It is bewtee. The pairson who is onable to comprehend the mor-r-ral ar-r-monies in onable to comprehend feesicle ar-r-monies. The Amer-rican landscape is a r-rich if not r-richer than the Eur-r-ropean landscape. In composition everything should be in proportion of two to three. If not, we say it is ogly - illustrates on blackboard - then it is bewtee. Vat is bewtee? It is the manifestation of mor-ral ar-rmony (develops the 2 to 3 formula.'

In 1906 after four years of concentrated effort, Violet finished the murals for the Governor's Reception Room. On November 23 the lights burned all night in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg as Violet, forfeiting any sleep at all, supervised the workmen hired to install the panels. They finished at 6 a.m., just as the crowds started to arrive fort he ceremonies. The governor, Samuel Pennypacker, who reached his office early in the morning, was surprised to see thousands already assembled. 

When the paintings were unveiling, Pennypacker was as pleased with the murals as any of the citizens. The critics were kind too, and Violet was elated with the subsequent acclaim, which secured her a place as an important member of the American Renaissance Revival movement. The former managing director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, praised her great achievement: "Miss Oakley's work precisely resembles the better achievements of the Venetian School... This great achievement will grow with every year it is seen and studied. In it there has been depicted what is unquestionably rare in modern art - a genuine spiritual conviction.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Cogslea

The Garden Fountain at Cogslea

"In August of 1905, after several months of secret negotiations, H. S. Kerbaugh, purchased the Red Rose Inn and two hundred surrounding acres for $200,000. In January, Violet Oakley, Jessie Smith, Elizabeth Green and Henrietta Cozens were served with an eviction notice stating: 'Each of you are hereby notified and required to quit and deliver up to me possession of the said premises, which you now hold as tenant under me, at the expiration of the said lease, namely, the first day of May, A.D. 1906, as I desire to have such possession.'

The eviction notice caught the Red Rose Girls completely off guard. Later, friends would tell them that so many people advised Henry Kerbaugh not to disturb his famous tenants, that he lost his temper and shouted, 'I don't want any beggarly artists on the place!' His decision to turn them out put the household in turmoil. What were they to do?

Help came from one of Philadelphia's wealthiest citizens, Dr. George Woodward. After much discussion, Woodward agreed to renovate a partially burnt-out house located on his property near the picturesque Cresheim Creek. The old house had thick stone walls and an adjacent barn and carriage house that could serve as studio space. He hired the noted architect Frank Miles Day to make the necessary improvements. George Walter Dawson was engaged to lay out the gardens, which the artists stipulated should, as closely as possible, duplicate the grounds at their beloved Red Rose Inn - complete with the fountain, distinctive pergola, clematis and red roses. The extraordinary generosity of the Woodward family mitigated the artists' distress over leaving their home, and the four companions were able to relocated with minimal interruption of their busy schedules. 

They named their new home Cogslea, keeping the acronym they had devised for their eccentric family and adding 'lea' for the sloping land of the new estate. They were forever grateful for the generosity of the Woodward family and affectionately called their benefactor St. George. The name stuck, and although the original address for Cogslea was Allen's Lane, the present address of the home (now a national historic site) is St. George's Road."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Murals at the Pennsylvania Capitol, Pt. 2

"Penn's Examination in the Tower of London"
by Violet Oakley

"When Violet Oakley returned from Europe, she began to work in earnest on the murals for the Governor's Reception Room at the Pennsylvania State Capitol building in Harrisburg. She called the series, 'The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual.' There were to be eighteen horizontal panels, all six feet in height, the longest panel measuring nineteen feet. She composed a narrative beginning with the events in Europe that led to William Penn's vision of religious freedom in a peaceful, unarmed state, and ending with his first sight of the shores of Pennsylvania.

 Violet felt the realization of Penn's dream was imminent and would devote much of her life to pursuing his hope for international disarmament, harmony and understanding. She worked productively, completing six panels and a study for the seventh, which she submitted to the jury at the Pennsylvania Academy's 100th anniversary exhibition. All her hard work, the long hours in the studio, and the costly research trip to Europe were rewarded by the Academy's gold medal. 

However, three of her panels on display led to serious controversy. As part of her narrative they showed the vehement opposition of the Catholic Church to William Tyndal's translation of the Bible into English in 1525, which ended in his strangulation at the stake with his corpse being burned. The president of the American Catholic Historical Society wrote a long letter to the governor contending that the subject matter was 'irrelevant' and 'inappropriate' for the new State Capitol, and that it would be impolitic to install them.

An upset Violet explained that in order to understand William Penn's motivations for leaving his native land, it was necessary to understand the magnitude of the religious intolerance that existed in England. She noted that the rest of paintings in the series would tell a different story. When the sequence was concluded the public would understand 'the beauty of tolerance, versus the darkness of intolerance.' In the newspaper accounts she sounded confident, well-informed, and mature beyond her thirty-one years. 

Still, she must have been terribly worried. She had only a year left on the project. Most of the money due for the paintings was already spent. She needed critical acclaim to secure her next commission. The press reported that the governor sustained 'the historic accuracy of the paintings and their fitness for decorations in Pennsylvania's Capitol,' but he made no public statement on the subject at all."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)