Part 51 (1/2)

In the summer of 1875, in Vorden, she met Johannes Bilders, under whose direction she studied landscape painting. This master took great pains to develop the originality of his pupil rather than to encourage her adapting the manner of other artists. During her stay in Vorden she made a distinct gain in the attainment of an individual style of painting.

After her return to her home at The Hague, Bilders established a studio there and showed a still keener interest in his pupil. This artistic friends.h.i.+p resulted in the marriage of the two artists, and in 1880 they established themselves in Oosterbeck.

Here began the intimate study of the heath which so largely influenced the best pictures by Frau Bilders. In the garden of the picturesque house in which the two artists lived was an old barn, which became her studio, where, early and late, in all sorts of weather, she devotedly observed the effects later pictured on her canvases. At this time she executed one of her best works, now in the collection of the Prince Regent of Brunswick. It is thus described by a Dutch writer in Rooses' ”Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century”:

”It represents a deep pool, overshadowed by old gnarled willows in their autumnal foliage, their silvery trunks bending over, as if to see themselves in the clear, still water. On the edge of the pool are flowers and variegated gra.s.ses, the latter looking as if they wished to crowd out the former--as if _they_ were in the right and the flowers in the wrong; as if such bright-hued creatures had no business to eclipse their more sombre tones; as if _they_ and _they_ alone were suited to this silent, forsaken spot.”

Johannes Bilders was fully twenty-five years older than his wife, and the failure of both his physical and mental powers in his last days required her absolute devotion to him. In spite of this, the garden studio was not wholly forsaken, and nearly every day she accomplished something there.

After her husband's death she had a long illness. On her recovery she returned to The Hague and took the studio which had been that of the artist Mauve.

The life of the town was wearisome to her, but she found a compensation in her re-union with her old friends, and with occasional visits to the heath she pa.s.sed most of her remaining years in the city.

Her favorite subjects were landscapes with birch and beech trees, and the varying phases of the heath and of solitary and unfrequented scenes. Her works are all in private collections. Among them are ”The Forester's Cottage,” ”Autumn in Doorwerth,” ”The Old Birch,” and the ”Old Oaks of Wodan at Sunset.”

BOZNANSKA, OLGA. Born in Cracow, where she was a pupil of Matejko.

Later, in Munich, she studied with Kricheldorf and Durr. Her mother was a French woman, and critics trace both Polish and French characteristics in her work.

She paints portraits and genre subjects. She is skilful in seizing salient characteristics, and her chief aim is to preserve the individuality of her sitters and models. She skilfully manages the side-lights, and by this means produces strong effects. After the first exhibition of her pictures in Berlin, her ”G.o.d-given talent” was several times mentioned by the art critics.

At Munich she made a good impression by her pictures exhibited in 1893 and 1895; at the Exposition in Paris, 1889, her portrait and a study in pastel were much admired and were generously praised in the art journals.

*c.o.x, LOUISE. The picture by Mrs. c.o.x, reproduced in this book, ill.u.s.trates two lines in a poem by Austin Dobson, called ”A Song of Angiola in Heaven.”

”Then set I lips to hers, and felt,-- Ah, G.o.d,--the hard pain fade and melt.”

DE MORGAN, EMILY. Family name Pickering. When sixteen years old, this artist entered the Slade School, and eighteen months later received the Slade Scholars.h.i.+p, by which she was ent.i.tled to benefit for three years. At the end of the first year, however, she resigned this privilege because she did not wish to accept the conditions of the gift.

As a child she had loved the pictures of the precursors of Raphael, in the National Gallery, and her first exhibited picture, ”Ariadne in Naxos,” hung in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, proved how closely she had studied these old masters. At this time she knew nothing of the English Pre-Raphaelites; later, however, she became one of the most worthy followers of Burne-Jones.

About the time that she left the Slade School one of her uncles took up his residence in Florence, where she has spent several winters in work and study.

One of her most important pictures is inscribed with these lines:

”Dark is the valley of shadows, Empty the power of kings; Blind is the favor of fortune, Hungry the caverns of death.

Dim is the light from beyond, Unanswered the riddle of life.”

This pessimistic view of the world is ill.u.s.trated by the figure of a king, who, in the midst of ruins, places his foot upon the prostrate form of a chained victim; Happiness, with bandaged eyes, scatters treasures into the bottomless pit, a desperate youth being about to plunge into its depths; a kneeling woman, praying for light, sees brilliant figures soaring upward, their beauty charming roses from the thorn bushes.

Other pictures by this artist remind one of the works of Botticelli. Of her ”Ithuriel” W. S. Sparrow wrote: ”It may be thought that this Ithuriel is too mild--too much like Shakespeare's Oberon--to be in keeping with the terrific tragedy depicted in the first four books of the 'Paradise Lost.' Eve, too, lovely as she is, seems to bear no likelihood of resemblance to Milton's superb mother of mankind. But the picture has a sweet, serene grace which should make us glad to accept from Mrs. De Morgan another Eve and another Ithuriel, true children of her own fancy.”

The myth of ”Boreas and Orithyia,” though faulty perhaps in technique, is good in conception and arrangement.