“I honor every woman who has strength enough to step out of the beaten path when she feels that her walk lies in another, strength to stand up and be laughed at if necessary….But in a few years it will not be thought strange that women should be preachers and sculptors and everyone who comes after us will have to bear fewer and fewer blows.”
Harriet Hosmer, Daughters of America, 1883
“The nineteenth century saw a sharp increase in the number of women working as artists….
Even if she had no connections it was now possible for a woman to find her way into the profession, assuming she could assert herself and had talent, money and a supportive family behind her.” (Bucholtz, p. 55). Even with more opportunities, “most 19th century women artists were quickly forgotten, even if during their lifetime some of them, such as Danish Anna Archer or Norwegian Harriet Barker, were counted among the most important artists of their generation.” (Bucholtz, p. 55)
In the first half of the century it was extremely rare for women to be admitted to public art academies for professional artists. In the second half of the century, many women received private lessons and for the first time, art schools for women opened. Rome, at the beginning of the century, was the largest center for aspiring artists, but by mid-century Paris was the most popular destination for artists.
The following will be brief sketches of notable women artists of the 19th century. It is important as you read them to make particular note of how the masculine principle influenced the lives of these gifted women.
Constance Mayer exhibited her work, expressive genre scenes, portraits and allegories at the Paris Salon regularly after 1796. She studied under Paul Prud’hon, looked after his children and home and became “so absorbed in the collaborator she admired and loved that her personality was almost erased by their shared creativity. Her work would even occasionally reach the market under his name. When Prud’hon was unwilling to marry her, she took her own life.”
Marie Ellenrider was “considered to be the most important woman of her day. She chose primarily religious art as her preferred genre which ultimately consigned her to oblivion. She was a brilliant colorist and when painting portraits, she exhibited a natural lively style that disappeared into a religious zeal that led to an ascetic lifestyle to the point of self-torment.” She joined a circle of artists, the Nazarenes whose publications, “mention her only in passing, if indeed at all.”
Rosa Bonheur In her time, Bonheur was the most famous artist in France. A self-made artist, trained by her father, she created a lesbian lifestyle that was separate from traditional society and it suited her well. She chose to remain independent of the male art world. Her passion was realistic portrayals of animals of all kinds and she lived among many that she raised at her home in France, Chateau de By. She had a pet lion and supported a menagerie of animals including gazelles, yaks and unusual farm animals. She chose to not follow norms for women of the day, cropping her hair short, wearing “men’s clothing” which required a permit from the police every six months. In addition, she smoked cigarettes and rode a horse astride rather than side-saddle (Quite risqué for the era!)
Rosa was the first to wear “bloomers” designed by her friend Amelia Bloomer so that she could study animal musculature in slaughterhouses. Her father was her greatest supporter, never insisting on a conventional lifestyle customarily assigned to women of her time. Instead he focused on nurturing her considerable talent. She submitted an enormous painting, The Horse Fair, to the Paris Salon in 1853 which led to notoriety at a time just before the impressionists were entering the scene. (Impressionism developed in the 1870’s) Empress Eugenie pinned the Cross of Honor on her saying, “Genius knows no sex.” Note: Rosa has recently received media attention—Smithsonian magazine in November 2020 featured ”The Redemption of Rosa Bonheur” and she was cited in the Netflix film, “The Queen’s Gambit.”
Elizabeth Butler was born in Switzerland to French and British parents who championed the rights of women. She became the only renowned female painter of battle scenes in the history of art. Her battle scenes arose not out of personal experience, but from her intense study of everything military. Her scholarship produced precise, detailed, astonishingly accurate battle scenes. “She questioned veterans, had authentic uniforms created and had both real soldiers and models pose for her in full uniform. She once bought a cornfield so that it could be trampled to make it look like a real battlefield.” (Bucholtz, p. 63).
She later married Major William Butler who eventually became a general who made it possible for her to observe military maneuvers. ”Battle scenes were the last remaining sphere of art into which women artists had not yet advanced. Warfare, after all, was the business of men...that women played no part in.” To this day there is no comprehensive description of her work. The only major solo exhibition of her work was organized not by a gallery but by the National Army Museum in London.” (Bucholtz, p. 63)
Berthe Morisot was one of the most famous woman Impressionist along with Mary Cassatt. She was married to Eugene Manet and was a member of the inner circle of Impressionist painters. A large collection of her paintings can be found at the Musee Marmatton in the outskirts of Paris.
Berthe frequently painted mother/child settings with an unsentimental impressionist twist. Her model was often her sister Edna and her children. She studied under Camille Carot and was championed by her mother who often took Berthe to the Louvre to copy the Old Masters. She exhibited nine paintings in the first independent Impressionist exhibit, to which art critics “reacted maliciously” and with scorn. (To the Impressionists as a whole, that is, not just Berthe’s works.) Her “The Cradle” painting is now exhibited in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris.
Mary Cassatt was one of the most important American artists of her time. At the age of 31 she left the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts for a studio in Paris’s Montmartre District. She traveled always accompanied by a female friend or her mother through the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France. She also worked under such male artists as Cezanne, Degas and Monet. Mary became good friends with Berthe Morisot, through their shared talent and passion for art.
Mary’s first work had been exhibited at the age of 24 in the 1868 Paris Salon. but after having two paintings rejected by conservative judges of the Paris Salon, Cassatt was encouraged to join the Impressionist group by Degas in 1872. She then exhibited twelve paintings in the Independent Impressionists show in Paris in 1879 which launched a very successful woman artist’s career. “Like her friend Berthe, she recorded the everyday life of bourgeois women which centered in the home.” Encouraged by her art dealers, Cassatt successfully produced many paintings of this genre from 1880 onwards.
Camille Claudel is a French woman artist whose life was one of great contrast to that of American artist Mary Cassatt. Born into a middle-class family in Champagne, France, she began delightedly modeling clay as a child. At 17 she insisted that she wanted training as a sculptor and the family moved to Paris to help fulfill her dream. She studied with sculptor Alfred Boucher at the famous Academie Colarossi. It was here she met sculptor Auguste Rodin who was more than twice her age. She became his model as well as a sculpting student under his guidance She was also employed in his workshop. With all of these connections, a fraught, very unequal, relationship developed between these two gifted artists.
At the time of their separation, Camille created a very unconventional portrayal of two lovers, the man kneeling before his lover, “a work of free flowing expression of emotion entitled Sakourntala which was based on a Native American story of two long-separated lovers. Although separated from Rodin, she was never able to discard her reputation as his former mistress and protegee. For the next 20 years, her creative power and mind deteriorated until she was unfortunately admitted to an asylum by her brother. In 1913 she tried unsuccessfully to be allowed to live a normal life. Hers was a life that ended in tragedy.
There are two movies that have been made about Camille. One was titled “Claudel,” made in 1989, and the second was “Camille Claudel ,“1915, in 2013. Both tell the tragic story of a creative woman artist under patriarchy. A large part of her work can be found at the Musee Rodin in Paris.
Suzanne Valadon began as a well-known model and “like many women is this situation, was the lover to the artists who painted her.” She was the daughter of an unmarried mother, who became an unconventional, free-spirited, beautiful woman who achieved fame through her forthright paintings of women and nudes. She never attended art school or trained under a painter. She simply, while modeling, observed other artists as they chose colors, created their compositions and drew their sketches. She established her own bold, expressive style and became a close friend of Degas who was impressed with her natural talent. He was the first one to purchase her drawings. Currently, one of her most famous paintings, “Adam and Eve” is on exhibit at the Musee Centre, George Pompidou. Before she could exhibit the painting she had to conceal Adam’s groin with vine leaves.
Having lived an up and down, totally unconventional life her paintings were like no other. Suzanne was comfortable with her body and that of others and considered them a thing of beauty that deserved colorful, larger than life, naturally forthright artistic representation. When she died at 73 she was “recognized in France and beyond as one of the foremost female artists of her generation. “