Tag: art

I first learned about Eulabee Dix at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I was enchanted with her miniature portraits, particularly with the painting of the baby pictured above.

Born in 1878, Dix began painting in her teens. She completed her last painting in 1958. Miniature paintings were experiencing a revival during her youth, and most of her work was in this area. At her peak, she painted famous people like Ethel Barrymore and Mark Twain. Unfortunately, her career was affected by a string of misfortunes, beginning with the 1929 stock market crash. Fewer people could afford to commission her, and miniature portraits fell out of style. She participated in the war efforts during World War II, which gave her less time to paint. Sometime after the war, her eyesight began to affect her work. She had to abandon at least two paintings during the 1950s due to poor eyesight.

I would find Dix’s portraits attractive even if they were much larger, but a lot of the charm is their size. There have been many successful miniature painters over the centuries, but I’m still in awe of anyone who can paint details such as lace on such a tiny scale. Maybe this is why her work has stuck with me since I first saw it more than 20 years ago.

You can view a lot of Dix’s work online, but there’s nothing like seeing it in person. If you can make it to D.C., I recommend a trip to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, not only to see Dix’s paintings but also to take in the museum as a whole. According to Wikipedia, there are at least two other places in D.C. where you can find work by Dix: the National Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery. The Wikipedia entry also says that you can find some of her work at the Met in New York City and Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon.

Although her story is less dramatic than Artemisia Gentileschi’s, French painter Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s history includes both success and exile. She is best known for her portraits of nobility, especially of Marie Antoinette and her family. As a favorite of the queen, she had to flee during the French revolution. Until she was able to return to France in 1804, she traveled from country to country; her work during this period includes a portrait of Catherine the Great’s granddaughters, Alexandra and Elena Pavlovna. She painted for decades and died at the age of 86.

Vigée Le Brun’s paintings seem far more conventional than Gentileschi’s, but they’re still beautiful. And while her portraits today do not raise eyebrows like Gentileschi’s Susanna or Judith, I found during my research that she caused a bit of scandal by painting herself smiling with an open mouth, which simply wasn’t done at the time.

My favorite paintings by Vigée Le Brun are her self-portraits. Like Gentileschi, she painted herself at work. I also love her paintings of herself with her daughter; while I’m certain that she was skilled at flattering her subjects, I believe the affection I see between mother and daughter was genuine.

Were you previously aware of this painter? Which of her portraits are your favorites?

Have you ever tried to name five or more female artists off the top of your head? How did you fare?

I hope you thought of Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo. Did you remember to include Mary Cassatt? Who else made the list?

I added Artemisia Gentileschi to the list of female artists I know when I attended a lecture on her at the Minneapolis Institute of Art about 20 years ago. Artemisia was an Italian painter who lived from approximately 1593 to 1653. Her father, Orazio, was a respected artist who taught all of his children to paint, but only Artemisia showed real talent. Her legacy is overshadowed by the story of how her perspective tutor, Agostino Tassi, raped her and how she was tortured during his trial. Her paintings of active, powerful women are frequently viewed through the lens of the rape and trial, causing some people to see them as revenge fantasies.

During the lecture, we explored her first painting of Susanna and the Elders, which illustrates a critical moment in a story from the apocrypha of the Bible. Briefly, the story involves Susanna, a virtuous married woman who was accosted by two Jewish elders who hid in her garden and caught her bathing alone. They offered her a choice: she could have sex with them, or they would say that they caught her with a young man, and she would be put to death. Susanna chose death, but after she was accused of adultery, the young Daniel questioned the elders separately and discovered that their stories conflicted. Susanna was saved, and the elders were executed.

Many painters have captured the moment when Susanna was first confronted by the elders. A few have shown her reacting violently to their suggestion, but in many cases she only appears mildly distressed, and in others she even seems to welcome their attention.

Artemisia’s first take on the subject, painted before her rape, shows a woman who is clearly repulsed by the elders. The image is powerful, because she brings a woman’s point of view to the story. It’s not that a male painter is incapable of expressing empathy for Susanna; the problem is that few men seem to have tried to imagine how she felt about the elders’ proposition.

Besides this rendition of Susanna and the Elders, Artemisia is most famous for her four paintings of Judith, also from the Bible’s apocrypha. Judith was a wealthy Jewish widow who saved her people from the Assyrian general Holofrenes by beheading him in his own tent as he lay in a drunken stupor. Two of Artemisia’s pictures show Judith and her maid in the act of beheading Holofrenes, and two are set after the fact.

Like Susanna, Judith was a popular subject of paintings. One of the most famous renditions of the beheading is by Caravaggio. In his painting, Judith keeps her distance from her victim, and the look on her face seems to be one of both concentration and disgust. That may be realistic enough for a wealthy woman who never had killed a man before, but the actual beheading seems unreal.

Artemisia’s Judith, while she requires the help of her maid to pin Holofrenes to the bed, is powerful and active. She sets about doing what must be done with no fear of the blood she is shedding. Caravaggio is a master, but I find Artemisia’s Judith more believable and heroic. (The Judith below was painted between 1614 and 1620.)

Artemisia had a long and successful career as an artist, keeping busy until around the time of her death. She worked in Rome, Florence, Naples, and the court of King Charles I of England. She married another painter (the marriage was arranged shortly after the rape trial ended) and had one daughter, whom she taught to paint.

If your knowledge of female artists did not include Artemisia Gentileschi, I encourage you to search for her paintings online. Her art is often powerful and masterful. For those qualities alone, Artemisia is worth your time.