WOMEN IN ART:

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 113, 25 January 1873, Page 3

WOMEN IN ART:

-V T.wcoh audience assembled afc tlic Cavendish Eooms for the concluding meeting of the third session of the Victoria Discussion Society. Mrs Julia Ward Howe occupied the chair, raid Dr. Zerffi introduced as the topic of discussion Women in Art. In the course of liis remarks the lecturer observed : Activity was the prcn mcc of man ; passivity the sphere of woman. was duiamie, woman static. From the very earlie*'. childliood the two sexes were different. Girls were neat, full of intelligence; Hoys boisterous fighting, phuing at ..soldiers or aßilors. Girls sit for hours muring, putting, and fnidling a little wooden doll without nose and cars; they appeared to prepare themselves for the time when the wooden doll would J)e a little hmnnu hoing — God's finest > crtat'on. Woman was made for the hi<?lier functions of life Hor lo\e was much more developed. The lower we wnfc jii the scale of--crcation the less we found animal* endowed with lo\e. Man. the crowning production of creation, was in childhood the most helpless of all creatures. Man thtn wanted a motlicrV caro muoh longerr All animals fecU nur-jcd, and instructed their little one* till they could stand .flone. But man, especially with us, thought himself superior to that law of nature. Man, who wanted so nvich more care, love, and education, because he wanted so much more abilities and knowledge, hud been left without education. If we neglected children. wh\ should we have thought jmich of women? We treated them according to tho old 1 patriarchal principle ; called man the " master ami* lord of the creation, and told woman ro sene, to love, andto honour him. Xtc disturbed altogether woman* natural position in creation. Women now, began to feel their neglected ilafuw They wished to be placed in the same position as men, intellectually and socially The TJabilojiians had already- had to gnisp wjtlt- t,bis sp.cial difficulty; they had done it in a mo*t practical way. They had endeavoured to proemv a husband for every 'woman. ' The -Mahometans looked upon woman as a. mere toy The Teutons were the first to look upon them as something snered. All prophebs and sybil* with them were women, in ; opposition ' to tho T*ravlitcs, who had oiU> male .prophets, | jhul who sUgmatirfd woiuou telling the fitiire as, witches, [ Christianity throughout ihe Middle Ages had fostered the j generation of women. The imaginary and intuitive elements ! in women were most prominent, and therefore they were best | fitted to rule-in the realm of Art. Hbw could Phidias have produced a Pallas- Athene, " the blue-eyed d uuihtcr of Zeus" ! how Slopa-j or Praxiteles a Venus, without women? What , would luivqjbcen the^works of Canova, Flaxman, Danrcck'r, Raphael, Corrcgio, Michael Angelo. Titian, without women 0 Instead of demoting themselves with so much zeal to the ' medical profession, there were other branches of n.rt —especially architecture, sculpture, and painfiig —which miglit oc cultivated by women with the greatest advantage to humanity in general, and to themselves in particular. Now, | with regard to archcteehire, wdiat did history teanh us 9 It , iiad placed not one single woman's name on record as a con.' ! structor of buildings, from tho w i<»«- vms of tho sta acres to ouv j own cottages, halls, churches, and palaces. Architecture | would be a more congenial occupation for a lady than tho i dissecting of a human body. An architect ought to have ; tas.tc; women ought, to agitate to be articled to some of our Architects, many of whom, unfortunately, -had neither tatfo nor ideas, and could do nothing but calculate the bricks wanted and the profits to be made. During the Middle Ages women were tho decorators of pestles and Gothic churches. ThudoliVula, Queen o<" the Longobards, adorned her palace with paintings The Anglo-Saxon bishop Adelhcim spoke of the English women ns far-famed for their artistic powers in ■pictorial product*, using gold or silver threads, silk or wool, to embroider on linen, leather, or any other stuff. Besides this field of piciorial embroidery, which was still cultivated to a certain extent in German y, tjiere wotyinother branch of t art, till lately much neglected In women. They ought to turn Ao fashioning in clay and to sculpture. If women embarked in studying the marvellous construction of the human, frame by dissecting it, why should they not reproduce the surface of that body with its telling lines of beauty? Two prinees<ie«.o»e of France, Marie d'Orleans, the other of England, TF "R*lf tjie Priijcess, Xxmisf, have gircn a npblle example wortln of; l'Mitation. Down to the thirteenth century we know of no woman who occupied herself with sculpture, except Sahiua, tbe daughter of one of the greatest Christian architects, the immortal Ervin of Stfinibaeh, the builder of the Minster of Strasburg. In landscape women liked mild and genl^'o Bcenei, with a tendency to, the sentimental ; in animal pairt,ing they equalled men — mtliing coukl surpv* the masterpieces of Rosa, Bonhenr ; in flower painting we had Rachel Ruysch ; and in England Elizabeth Elaekwell, Miss firav, 'Miss Anne Ladd, Anne Lee, and M.ny Lawrence During the eighteenth century n'"t had been much cultivated by •court ladies duchesses, and princesses. Amongst these lngliborn artists who possessed more <_ r ood-w ill- than power of e»cc\jtieiu we had, in tbe tunes of Tlaplinol Atengs. O'cscentia. Schoft, Rosa Schmdel. Julia Wermnth, Susan Dm h, Angelica Tvaufmann, and Eluabeth Lebrnn, who, though | women, might; be counted amongst the very best men of , thft^e time* ; for the time was the weakest period m the development of art history — it was n, "nambvpainby" time. | We must acknowledge that women who hajl become real ! -artists were idw wv lu^t dhtighters, wives, and the most -tender mothers. Ihev never forgot tho broom, the fryingpan, tbe blankets ard sheets — those indispensable adjuncts of a comfortable household — over their paint-brushes colors, and canva«. A discussion ensued in which Miss Emily Faithful dwelt upon the difficulties women have to contend with, owing to tbt interrnptimis they experience. Tlieir work has always to be done at odd times ; thc\ are rarely brought up to the fine arts as a profession, except the histrionic, and in that •they are confessedU eqivil, if not superior, to men She begged tlic apt students present remember, that Sir Joshua ftc\noldi had said" that labour wn« the only price of solid fame, and that, whatever their force of genius might be, there was no ea>\ method of becoming good painters. After speeches from Dr Dickers, Mrs Lewis, and Mrs Ko.we, the meeting concluded with the usual vote of thanks to tho chairman and lecturer — The Qnrrn.

Thf "W"i/\nT> \m> niK Tonvrr o\r^r — TJtie other da^, nplrn-niit-lnokmg gmtlemrm, of fovri^n nppehranw mv\ wcefit of speech, entered a tobacconist's shop in one of Iho market tow 111 of South Pin ham, savi the T>ondon Ornrrr, nnd request od thnt ho might he supplied with iv pood pij;nr 'Ihe nrticle ]h\\ mchecn fiirnNlved him, he prooeeded'to apply it fo In* no«e with the air of a einnoisspur, ami then to protest that it s fln\otir \\n% mo«t ppeuliar. not to saj olFcnsUe. 'Hie worthy tradeoman declared that the cianr wns an e\ce'lent one; his M«itor n* «touth nmintnined^hat it was no', , aiut'that he was so eomineod/if the f.ict that he wa« nt oiu-e dotorniined to tr\ what the cijrnr was renlh mndv of. Tiilmi; a penknife from hn pocket, he began to put the " weed "■ in two, and !)e had no soonpr j^nmeneed to do so than a quantity of feathers dropped from the eipar. -The more he (ut the f.ister the feathers flow, until the whole cigar had been whittled away. and thp shop looked move like an upJiolsVrer's than a tohaceoniit'*. lla\iujj f;i^en this oenhir nnd practical proof that he had not remarked the peculiar flavour of the cigar without reason, the foreign c^ntlemnn , ipok hi* departure, lea\ inp the shop-keeper ulterlv bewildered , hnrFTJie poihessoi* of anunutjt\ of fe.ither-, to .slufT <. fln^r^qry cushion, 'llie customer was Signor Bosjo, thq