Adelaide Labille-Guiard

Adélaide Labille-Guiard, Self-Portrait (c. 1775)

• There's a prejudice that all artists come from artistic families, and not rarely these artists receive the initial training from their own parents. However, this wasn't the case with Adelaide Labille-Guiard (born in Paris, 11^th April 1749 - 24^th April 1803), for she was born into the family of a Parisian clothes salesman.

• At the age of 20, she married a financial clerk named Louis-Nicolas Guiard, but the marriage wasn't successful one, since in 1779 Adelaide was granted a legal separation from her already estranged husband. After a reformation of divorce laws, Adelaide was finally able to marry her former teacher later, François André Vincent, whom she lived happily with until her death.

• An early passion for art resulted in her commencing training as a miniaturist painter under the supervision of François-Elie Vincent, a Swiss miniaturist, and then studied pastels and portraiture with Maurice-Quentin de la Tour. That led to her exhibitions (1774-1783) at the Academy Saint-Luc, the Academy Royale, and the Salon de la Correspondance, mainly pastel portraits, often of leading members of each Academy like Joseph-Marie Vien.

Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Portrait of François André Vincent, (1795)

• In 1783 two great things happened in Adelaide's life: she opened her own studio and took on several female pupils, and was also granted a full membership of the Academy Royale with her contemporary Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun. Rumours were circulated that these two women artists were bitter foes, competitors for the same commissions, but in reality, this competition was a lie circulated by the academy's male members, terrified that these ladies may achieve greater recognition for their work than they would. They may also have feared her determination to see a change in their admissions policy: she dedicated her life to equal opportunities for women artists at the Academy Royale, and in 1785, Adelaide began to petition for a studio in the Palais du Louvre. In 1795, her request was granted; the officials objected to the her female pupils joining the male dominated art of the Louvre.

• Adelaide went from strength to strength as an exhibiting artist, and in 1787 became the official painter to Louis XVI's numerous aunts. In 1788 the future Louis XVII commissioned her to paint Reception of a Knight of St. Lazare by Monsieur, Grand Master of the Order; this was to be her only large scale piece, which was tragically destroyed in 1793 by the revolutionary forces, whose principles of "Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité" (Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood) obviously did not extend to great works of art. All that remains of this today is an oil sketch in the Legion D' Honneur in Pairs.
  

Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Mme Louise-Elisabeth with her two year old son, (1788)

• Her fortunes could have been very different after her aristocratic clients had met their end beneath the guillotine, but Adelaide instead painted the leaders of the revolution, most notably Alexandre de Bauharnais and Maximillien Robespierre.

Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Maximilien de Robespierre (pastel), 1786

• These portraits all have a sense of restraint, of calm, created through her skilful blending of pastel. Backgrounds were usually painted to match the colour of the sitters clothes, creating a wonderfully dream like ambience, making even the most martial of subjects seem gentle and thoughtful. This lightness of touch and command of technique was nowhere more evident than in her portraits of women, where the pattern in lace, the texture of silk and velvet, and the softness of hair is apparent.

• While not as famous as other female artists of her time, or as popular, I truly admire her for fighting for equal rights, against discrimination that shouldn't even have taken place in the art world; her competence in passing the knowledge of her artistic skills to others, and for her obvious intelligence, adaptability to the new social climate derived from the change of political regimes in those turbulent times for France.

Rachel Ruysch

• The Netherlands in the 17^th century was the home of many gifted realist artists, but one of them intrigued me with the chosen subject of her paintings – flowers. Rachel Ruysch (born in Amsterdam, 3^rd June 1664 – died in Amsterdam, 12^th August 1750) was a Dutch baroque painter specialised in still-life paintings of flowers, the love for which she received from her father, Frederik Ruysch, a Professor of anatomy and botany.

Rachel Ruysch, Still-Life with Bouquet of Flowers and Plums

• She displayed artistic talent at an early age, and at 15 she was sent to study with Willem van Aelst, a famous Delft flower painter, from whom she learnt his asymmetric spiralling compositional style which she refined and made her own, and by 18 had produced a number of still-lives of plants and animals in woodland settings.

• It is believed her realist portrayal of animals and insects is due to her fathers collection of plant and animal specimens, which she studied in depth when painting. A deep knowledge of botany and zoology is evident in all her meticulous works, perhaps more so than any other painter of the Flemish movement. She also began to teach her sister to paint, but it seems that she lacked Rachel's natural talent, and only a copy of Abraham Mignons 'Woodland Scene with a Squirrel' is recorded as being her sister's work.

• As well as her commitment to her art, Rachel Ruysch was also committed to her family: in 1693 she married Juriaen Pool, a portrait painter, with whom she had 10 children, which didn't prevent Ruysch from painting extensively.

• She was introduced into the painters' guild in The Hague, and several years later, a summons to the court of Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf, Johann Wilhelm was received, and she and her husband spent the period from 1708-1716 as his court painters, returning to Holland when prince died.

• Ruysch kept painting until her death, leaving us with a considerable number of beautiful paintings which have never been subject to the changing fashions of the art world; demand for Ruysch's work was, and still is, high.

• When looking at her work, it is easy to see why she has remained popular. In Still Life of Flowers from 1689 her delicate brushwork captures the different textures of flower petals; her subtle and natural use of light creates depth and a feeling that the blooms can be picked from the canvas; and her almost photographic rendering of a Dragonfly and Butterfly resting on the flowers makes you feel that if you move too suddenly, they will take flight away from you. What also makes her paintings so attractive, and so remarkable for the age, are their informal composition, as well as the baroque lighting, with almost suffocating dark background and brightly lit foreground. When looked at alongside the works of Clara Peeters and other flower painters of the 17^th century, Rachel's paintings did not restrict themselves with small, symmetrical arrangements of flowers; she painted them as they grew, as they would look in the world of her audience, as living things with their own character.
  

Rachel Ruysch, Still Life of Flowers, (1689)

• It is this appreciation and understanding of the flow of the natural world that makes Rachel Ruysch a truly great artist, and it was her balancing of her duties as a wife and mother with the demands of her profession that made her a truly great female artist.

Mary Beale

• The first professional female English portraitist of the Baroque era was Mary Beale (born in Barrow, Suffolk, 26^th March 1633 – died in London 1699) who produced numerous portraits of her family, important clergymen, as well as self-portraits, using a variety of media - oils, pastels and watercolours. Now, I must say that being introduced to her biography, I became more impressed with her husband, even though she was a true pioneer of her time in many ways.

• She was introduced to the art world by her father, a Puritan clergyman called John Cradock, who was also an amateur painter (and member of the Painter-Stainers' Company), just like her husband, a cloth merchant from London called Charles Beale. Through her father's connections, Mary got acquainted with an English politicians portrait painter, Robert Walker, from whom she received training, and started working as a professional painter in the 1650s.

• After the period of financial crisis and the Great Plague, which the family spent in Allbrook, Hampshire, she established a studio in Pall Mall in London where her husband worked as her studio assistant and accountant. Mary became a successful and recognised artist, witnessed by the circle of her friends with pr ominent reputation, such as: the poet Samuel Woodford, the Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson and Bishops Edward Stillingfleet and Gilbert Burnet, as well as the Court Artist to Charles II, Peter Lely, whose art she was profoundly influenced by.

Mary Beale, Portrait of Mary Moll Davis, (1675)

• She was the mother of three sons (her first-born, Bartholomew, died) who were also artistically gifted, but only her third child, Charles, became a professional artist, specialising mainly in miniatures. Her second child, Bar tholomew, practised painting before committing himself to medicine. Mary was also trying to pass her artistic knowledge on to others, and one of her students, Sarah Cuties, became a well-known painter.

• In her Self-portrait from about 1685, Mary boldly presents herself as a working woman (with a palette hung in the background) and as a mother (holding the painting with her two portrayed sons), clearly aware of her significance and self-importance for both the period and social circumstances in which she lived.

Mary Beale, Self-portrait (c. 1685)

• Beside preparing canvases and mixing paint, her husband kept the records of her busy working life, often addressing her as the “Dearest Heart”. Charles' notebooks are a precious source, proof of her well-established “business” (as well as the art climate of London of the 17^th century), for she wasn't too interested in innovations of hers and art in general, being more mentally aware that she was known as a copyist and was in great demand at the time.

• The number of commissions decreased, especially after the death of Lely, and Mary turned to painting intimate studies and portraits of her family members. These quite reasonably differ to the more official portraits of her clientèle, and therefore, more importantly in my opinion; are more subjective, displaying the span of her intimate emotions through the paintbrush, as all true art should aim to.

Upper: Mary Beale, Portrait of Charles Beale, (c.1675)
Mary Beale, Portrait of the Artist's Son Bartholomew Beale, (c.1665)

Gabriele Münter

Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, 1905

• There were many romantic relationships between artists in art history, and they are mostly described in a manner where men are the famous ones, the initiators, the inventors, while female artists are simply their followers, their pale shadows. The true influence of females in such relationships are hard to determine sometimes, and there is always controversy involved, as in the case of Gabriele Münter and her tutor and lover Wassily Kandinsky.

• Gabriele (born in Berlin, 19th February 1877 - died in Murnau am Staffelsee, 19th May 1962) was a German expressionist painter prevented from attending state art academies because of her gender, so she therefore went to the Damen Kunstschule (Art School for Ladies) in Düsseldorf. Being quite unsatisfied with the scarce training, and being pushed by her ambitions to become more than an art teacher, she entered the newly opened Phalanx School under Wassily Kandinsky.

• Gabriele studied sculpture, printmaking and painting there and became intimately involved with her mentor, with whom she travelled to Holland, Italy and France. She met important artists of the period like Henri Rousseau and Henri Matisse, who influenced her work, becoming less Impressionist in spirit and more akin to Fauvism and later Expressionism. She also began painting glass in 1909, introducing this unusual medium, which would later also be appealing to Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Heinrich Campendonk, etc.

Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table in the Murnau House (oil on canvas), 1912

• Unlike Kandinsky's “abstract pursuits”, Gabriele's art remained rooted in the figurative world, even though stripped to the basics in its stylization.

Gabriele Münter, Portrait of Wassily Kandinsky (colour woodcut), 1906

• Gabriele was a member and co-founder of the Neue Künstlervereinigung (New Artists' Association) and Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) (1911-1914).

• During WWI after seeking refuge in Switzerland, the couple went their separate ways. During WWII Gabriele hid works of the Expressionists from the Nazis, who generally considered modern art as 'degenerate'.

• Gabriele Münter made no theoretical claims for helping with the establishment of the Expressionist style, and therefore her exact role is rather vague; however, that fact tells me of her greatness both as a human being and as an artist, for art shouldn't be somebody's property, but a source of enjoyment for both the creator and the observer.

Gabriele Münter, Staffelsee in Autumn (oil on board), 1923

Levina Teerlinc

• In my first post I'd like to discuss a Flemish woman from the Renaissance period, a royal painter to the English court, who was earning more money than famous male artists of the time. What initially drew me to her was the fact that she was a miniaturist painter; again, quite an unusual artistic trade for a 16th century woman.

• The artist in question is Levina Teerlinc (born in Bruges, Belgium, 1510-1520 – died in London, 23rd June 1576), the eldest daughter of Simon Bening, the main illuminator of the Ghent-Bruges school, from whom she learned the craft. In 1539 she married George Teerlinc, and gave birth to one son.
  

• After the death of Hans Holbein the Younger, she was invited to the Tudor court by Henry VIII in 1545, and was actually paid more than many male artists that worked for him. Her annual salary was a very large amount at the time, at just over £40. After the death of Henry, she was in service to his children: Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
  

• In spite of the obvious appreciation of her work, there aren't many surviving works attributed to her without any doubt. She is rumoured to have trained Nicholas Hilliard, a goldsmith, in the methods of miniature portraiture; it is suspected that many of her works are incorrectly credited to Hilliard.

• There is documentary proof that she created paintings, presented as gifts to royalty at the New Year, which included: a small picture of the Holy Trinity presented to Queen Mary I in 1553; the numerous portraits of Elizabeth I (particularly the young Queen) as an individual or with other aristocrats, as well as the First Great Seal of Elizabeth I.
  

• It is said that she made significant contribution to miniature portraiture, which first appeared in the 1520's, at the French and English courts. What her exact merits were can't be said with certainty, because there are very few surviving works that are attributed to her. It is beyond question though, that she was highly regarded as an artist, being in the Tudor service for a long time, receiving handsome payment for her work, and tutoring another craftsman.

• Looking at her Portrait of Lady Katherine Grey (about 1555-60), some of Elizabeth's portraits attributed to her, and comparing her work to that of Hans Holbein and Nicholas Hilliard, it is noticeable that her colour palette is slightly brighter than of the others; also the face is emphasized, with heads looking slightly bigger than the rest of the body, and a lack of inscriptions.

• However, it is hard to analyse someone's work, especially using such a small sample of works that may not even be hers. Without further discoveries and more engagement by art history scholars, Levina's work will be lost in the dust. The fact that she is being mentioned when the Tudor family and miniature portraiture is talked about, tells me that she wouldn't be mentioned in vain, unless she was, in fact, an exquisite artist of her time, and one remarkable woman.
  

Portraits of Elizabeth I attributed to Levina Teerlinc

Elizabeth as Princess of England, c. 1550
Elizabeth as Queen of England, c. 1565
Elizabeth as Queen of England, c. 1565